The council recently asked residents their views on another redevelopment scheme for Wandsworth Town – the Garratt Lane, high street and South Thames College area around the old burial ground that is still a relatively peaceful open space.
The scheme includes a 26-storey tower overlooking the burial ground. Yes, it would provide new housing, but only 21 per cent would be “affordable”.
Overall, the scheme involves a reduction in the employment space the council is committed to maintaining, but some increase in ‘retail’ space – partly by moving Wandsworth library out of the Old Court House, so that more shops and restaurants can move in.
A 26-storey tower would have an excessively intrusive impact on this conservation area. Overwhelmingly, residents have objected to it on the council’s website.
Remarkably, council planners now recommend approval of the scheme (the council’s own scheme), despite the council’s own local plan stating the existing eight-storey building is itself too “intrusive”.
The planners accept 26 storeys will “harm” the local environment, but argue the harm will be “less than substantial” and the tower will be a local “landmark”
(but was not that a justification for the 36-storey Ram Brewery tower?).
Whose views count? Local people clearly want the council, having asked their views, to listen, and reject the scheme.
DAVID KIRK
Wandsworth
- Send your letters to: letters@wandsworthguardian.co.uk
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