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Please help defeat the proposals for 43–81 Greenwich High Road by Mick Delap, Wednesday 17 March 2010

Greenwich High Road is a key element in the setting of the Ashburnham Triangle and over the last few years I have been getting more and more worried about its future, as one site after the other is slated for major development all the way from Greenwich Station to the A2.

Now there is a new proposal, to change the agreed development of offices on the ground floor of Block E, in the big development currently being built at 43–81 Greenwich High Road (the old Skillion/Merryweather site).

What’s the current position?

The developers (Reefmark, but better known as Galliard) now propose to provide a restaurant and supermarket in this development, instead of offices. It’s not a very big change, but Derek Fordham and I decided, on balance and on behalf of the ATA, that the proposed change of use was a bad one, and we opposed it. Planning Board agreed with us and in January 2010 turned the application down. Now Reefmark has appealed to the Local Government Planning Inspector. The hearing will be on 22 June, and we have until 2 April to get our views in writing to the Planning Inspectorate in Bristol.

The ATA opposes Reefmark’s application because the proposed supermarket is too big. We give more detail about our arguments below, but, in summary, our main concerns are that the supermarket and the accompanying restaurant would:

1. •create traffic and add to parking congestion in the Triangle
   

2. •lead to significant disturbance to residents
   

3. •damage local businesses
   

What can you do?

We think it’s essential that the ATA, as an organisation, and through its individual members, opposes the latest Reefmark plans – because they are flawed, and because they have been put forward without local input. Please let Derek and me know what you think. And if you agree with us, please do at least one of the following (and ask your neighbours to do the same):

1. •Go to Chris at the Golden Chippy and sign the petition by the end of this weekend - or sign the on-line petition  
   

2. •Before the 2 April deadline, send a letter with your views to Sue Nash, Room 3/19, The Planning Inspectorate, Temple Quay House, 2 The Square, Temple Quay, Bristol BS1 6PN
   

3. -Write in triplicate (!) quoting PIN Ref: APP/E5330/A/10/2121627/NWF
   

4. •Come and join us when the appeal is heard in Greenwich on 22 June 2010
   

Why did the ATA oppose the application?

One of the reasons we opposed the application for the restaurant and shop – and think it is so important for as many people as possible in the Triangle to oppose it, too – is that we feel what’s being proposed is just not right for the Triangle – for a number of reasons. First, although the developer calls this a small shop, what’s being proposed is for a supermarket that, at 995 m2, is bigger than the Greenwich Post Office and Marks and Spencer’s combined! Somerfield’s has about 700 m2, and Best One in SE8 has about 400 m2 of shop floor (while Chris’s Golden Shop, just opposite Block E, is only about 70 m2). So this is not a ‘small shop’: it would have even more floor space than St. Alfege’s! And that’s before we add on the 308 m2 restaurant.

The reason size is important is that the developers claim their proposals won’t generate any more traffic than the previously agreed offices, nor lead to an overall increase in parking. That seems unlikely; and their own traffic study suggests there will be an increase – hardly surprising when it estimates that there will be 1,900 shoppers every day.

That number of people is likely to have a major impact on local businesses. The developer claims that this is a ‘Town Centre’ site, and has limited its retail impact investigations to downtown Greenwich. In fact, as the Planning Inspectorate pointed out in their 2006 judgement, this is an ‘edge of centre’ site, and it’s local businesses like the Golden Store opposite that will clearly suffer. So too will other ‘edge of centre’ stores in Royal Hill, Greenwich South Street and Blackheath Hill.

What would the impact be on local residents?

Size is also important in considering the likely disturbance to residents. When the current scheme was approved in 2006, the Planning Inspector emphasised the need to restrict commercial activity to agreed hours – basically the working day, Monday to Friday, and Saturday morning – in order to limit disturbance. A total of 56 hours’ commercial activity were to be allowed. The new proposal wants to see commercial activity permitted until 11pm, seven days a week – up from 56 hours a week to 105 hours – this is almost certain to prove unacceptably disturbing to residents.

What about other developments to Greenwich High Road?

But the other reason that we opposed this application is that we regard this as a skirmish in a long battle to persuade both developers and Greenwich Council to take our views into account, as local residents, when the future of the High Road is being decided. So far, they haven’t!

Of all the areas within or adjacent to the Triangle, it is the High Road which poses the most difficult questions. It has a number of sites that clearly need developing. We have seen the Novotel go up, and Mumford Mill’s renovation. There is already planning approval not just for the 43–81 High Road site we are talking about, but also for Binnie Court (now to be residential), the Former Filling Station opposite (97-bedroom hotel), and Deal’s Gateway (mixed hotel, residential and commercial). I have identified a further five sites along the High Road where major development is either being discussed or is a possibility.

But what kind of development should this be? We have consistently put forward the view that the right kind of development is in the interests of the residents of the Triangle. We have argued that new building needs to be of a scale and design that doesn’t swamp the Triangle – and that where old buildings exist, they should be preserved. And we would prefer to see developments that balance commercial and social need.

How are the Council and the developers reacting?

It has been hard to get any reaction from Greenwich Council. But sometimes (when the Cathedral Group was formulating its plans for Binnie Court, and St James’s was making its proposals for Deal’s Gateway) it has been the developer who has sought our views, and entered into a genuine dialogue which has seen final proposals we were happy to support.

By contrast, Reefmark has proved inflexible in its determination to build the new 43–81 High Road development the way it wants – without meaningful dialogue with ourselves, as neighbours. That was the case when it was formulating its initial plans for the whole site, and it has remained the case, as it attempts to gain approval to change those plans and build its supermarket and restaurant.

For all these reasons, we would again urge you to sign the petition and write to the Planning Inspectorate – we give details on how to do this above.