LTN Discussion

[first mate]

Don't know what others think but I find it perhaps a little odd that the brand spanking new (not to mention excruciatingly expensive) housing development on Gilkes, almost adjacent to the newly reconfigured junction, is advertising its properties with private underground parking for not just one but two cars. 

• Private underground parking for 2 cars with access directly in to the houses and EV Charging Point

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

It's been so long under construction I'm surprised each house didn't come specced with a stable.

[first mate]

It seems a real lack of joined up thinking by Council, by planners etc.. With two cars each, that is an awful lot more vehicles right next to carless 'vanity square' and LTN. Still, the side roads will have to bear the brunt of that muddle.

Still waiting to find out if part of the new pedestrianised area will be given over to bike, e-bike and scooter storage.

[Glemham]

Complete lack of joined up thinking.
When Aquinna Homes bought the SG Smith site I saw from the plans that there would be underground car parking for 20 cars. I wrote to Southwark Council asking why, when they were attempting to stop local residents from using cars, were they allowing this amount of underground parking. The feeble reply said it was in the original planning application granted to the Dulwich Estate in 2014 and couldn’t be changed.

Will the residents in these very expensive rabbit hutches - most expensive being £3 million with no outlook but 5 bathrooms - want to be bothered parking their cars underground all the time? If not where will they park them? CPZs currently being proposed for Gilkes Crescent and Calton Avenue.

[alice]

Why the surprise? 

[first mate]

1 hour ago, Glemham said:

Complete lack of joined up thinking.
When Aquinna Homes bought the SG Smith site I saw from the plans that there would be underground car parking for 20 cars. I wrote to Southwark Council asking why, when they were attempting to stop local residents from using cars, were they allowing this amount of underground parking. The feeble reply said it was in the original planning application granted to the Dulwich Estate in 2014 and couldn’t be changed.

Will the residents in these very expensive rabbit hutches - most expensive being £3 million with no outlook but 5 bathrooms - want to be bothered parking their cars underground all the time? If not where will they park them? CPZs currently being proposed for Gilkes Crescent and Calton Avenue.

i wonder what if any say/input Dulwich Society Transport Committee had on all this? As we know the newish Chair of the subcommittee (installed during Covid if I have understood, when lots of new LTN sympathetic members also joined that sub committee and where sub committee meetings were allegedly well attended by a ward councillor ) is an award winning pro LTN activist. Allegedly the sub committee Chair was key to moves to get 'Vanity Square' underway.

Given the proximity of the Square to the development offering storage to twenty cars it just seems strange.

Could it be that site developers have helped fund the square?

Edited September 22 by first mate

[alice]

Why should they need to? Southwark council clearly has a bottomless pit of love and money. 

[Kathleen Olander]

On 20/09/2024 at 10:19, Earl Aelfheah said:

I'm still furious that they stopped cars driving through Dulwich Park in the 60s. 

They didn't, it was still being used by cars in the 80s.

[first mate]

On 22/09/2024 at 08:26, Glemham said:

Complete lack of joined up thinking.
When Aquinna Homes bought the SG Smith site I saw from the plans that there would be underground car parking for 20 cars. I wrote to Southwark Council asking why, when they were attempting to stop local residents from using cars, were they allowing this amount of underground parking. The feeble reply said it was in the original planning application granted to the Dulwich Estate in 2014 and couldn’t be changed.

Will the residents in these very expensive rabbit hutches - most expensive being £3 million with no outlook but 5 bathrooms - want to be bothered parking their cars underground all the time? If not where will they park them? CPZs currently being proposed for Gilkes Crescent and Calton Avenue.

I think residents will keep them in their underground garages but given the recent imposition of  the LTN and  Dulwich Square plus Council and Dulwich Society transport sub committees apparent enthusiasm for making that area as car free as possible, it seems odd. I ask again, is it possible that developers helped in funding work to make Dulwich Square? 

[raptortruckman69]

I don't get the problem. Sure I'd like to see the square ripped up and back to the old way with good car routes, but what's the problem with the houses?

People get to have cars (2 each!) but won't be blocking up the road for other drivers by parking all over it. That's the best possible option for smooth and efficient low pollution traffic flow is it not?

Though now Calton isn't a trunk route, there's rather less need to keep cars from parking on it too much. But it I expect that the houses will still better with guaranteed parking spaces anyway.

Bit of foot shooting by the council. They won't be able to cream them for those CPZ fees we know are coming, but two cars per household will probably give them loads of LTN fines.

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

On 22/09/2024 at 10:12, first mate said:

Could it be that site developers have helped fund the square?

Wake up, babe, a new LTN conspiracy theory just dropped 

[first mate]

Trying to figure out how the allegedly cash-strapped council drummed up millions to spend on such a small space on some non-mandated roadworks.

It is not a great look to impose Vanity Square which meant to deter local traffic and drive it onto boundary roads, meanwhile a brand new development of two car households springs up, literally right next to the square.

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

If you're saying that development land should be nationalised, private parking on new developments banned, and only social housing should be built until median rent is beneath 25% of household median income in London, then for once we are completely agreed. 

[first mate]

I'm interested in the reality of council spending priorities in our area in a cost of living crisis. I am interested in the fact that they can spend millions on non-mandated road works with the express purpose of reducing car use while simultaneously greenlighting a housing development with underground parking for 20 cars, right next door to those road works. 

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

6 hours ago, first mate said:

 while simultaneously greenlighting a housing development with underground parking for 20 cars

Ahh well that's the source of your confusion, isn't it, guv. It wasnt anywhere close to simultaneous.

As any local would know, this pipsqueak development of a handful of houses has taken more than a decade (and possibly closer to two - when did the petrol station close?). Planning permission was going as early as 2014 - years before COVID or LTN were terms that any of us knew, and years before the Dulwich Village/Village ward flipped from Tory to Labour.

Much of that delay was caused by locals moaning about the impact on their parking (but who also didn't want a CPZ to ensure that locals got a certain volume of parking). No wonder we have a housing crisis in this country.

There is plenty of gory detail in here - the parking allowances were capped by the London Plan in place at the time. (In fact, the number of parking places seems to have been reduced since then).

https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/s55358/Report%20The%20Workshop%20Site%20land%20bounded%20by%20Gilkes%20Place%20Gilkes%20Crescent%20and%20Calton%20Avenue%20to%20the%20re.pdf

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_(Southwark_ward)

Odd to see such enthusiasm for government interferece in the property rights of private developers on the part of someone with such concerns about Marxist conspiracies!

[first mate]

As you well know DKH those properties have only recently been built and up until building actually starts there is always room for plans to change or for council planning to intervene.

A "pipsqueak" of a development, offering storage for twenty cars next to a "pipsqueak" of carless junction amendment, costing the council millions. 

Labelling the latter as a Marxist conspiracy is your phrase, not mine.

 

Edited September 24 by first mate

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

No, a council can't just come along and unilaterally change a planning permission once it's been issued. Consent was issued in 2015.

Yes, a pipsqueak development of a dozen bloody houses that took a decade to get done. We need 80,000 new homes in London alone every year ffs! https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgl7kpn4ygvo.amp

Meanwhile we've got the usual suspects moaning about knocking down dogshit failing big box retail units and car parks and replacing them with thousands of homes (a third of them affordable) as part of mixed used developments at no cost to the taxpayer.

[Glemham]

Actually DKH the delay to building on the SG Smith site was caused by the company who first purchased the site for £5.25 million from the Dulwich Estate. McCulloch Homes, based in Southlands Road Bromley, sat on the site for quite some time and made a start on clearing it, but locals will remember that it became an eyesore with a large mound of debris in the middle. Sometime later in 2021 Aquinna Homes announced they had acquired the site and were given planning permission to build expensive houses, whilst managing to remove the affordable housing requirement.

Many residents had hoped that the site would be used for re-siting the Dulwich Estate Almhouses together with some retirement flats that could be sold. The Estate has been looking for a new site since the 1930’s and was refused permission to build on the Judith Kerr primary School site in 2016. They are still looking.

[Rockets]

35 minutes ago, Dogkennelhillbilly said:

Meanwhile we've got the usual suspects moaning about knocking down dogshit failing big box retail units and car parks and replacing them with thousands of homes (a third of them affordable) as part of mixed used developments at no cost to the taxpayer.

Well the aforementioned demolition of the Audi garage knocked down d#gs#it failing retail units (your words not mine) and replaced them with really expensive rabbit hutches - a number of which are still, not unsurprisingly, unsold. Weren't some of them supposed to be affordable homes in the original plans approved by Southwark?

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

If this is your idea of a rabbit hutch, perhaps your butler can take me on a tour of your stately home one weekend: https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/147845681#/?channel=RES_NEW

 

[Rockets]

Yes in the sense that it's an over-priced house rammed into a tiny space with no garden. I don't have anywhere near that type of money but if I did - I wouldn't be looking at one of those. And the fact a few of them are still on sale suggests those with that type of money might think the same.

1 hour ago, Glemham said:

Sometime later in 2021 Aquinna Homes announced they had acquired the site and were given planning permission to build expensive houses, whilst managing to remove the affordable housing requirement.

I knew there had been an affordable housing element in the initial plans - so DKHB the council can change planning. According to the Dulwich Society Aquinna officered to pay a cash payment in lieu of building the affordable housing. This is how this type of thing happens all the time.

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

13 minutes ago, Rockets said:

the council can change planning.

The council can't just come along and unilaterally change a planning permission once it's been issued. It was never open to Southwark to tell the developer out of the blue to remove or add parking spaces.

And just to be clear: you are now complaining that a private developer built too many houses that are too small and have too many off-street parking spaces? You wanted the council (which you believe is under the control of a Marxist-socialist-cyclist cabal) to intervene more and force this company to build bigger houses and fewer parking spaces on its own land? Is that what you're genuinely upset about now?

 

[Rockets]

49 minutes ago, Dogkennelhillbilly said:

The council can't just come along and unilaterally change a planning permission once it's been issued. It was never open to Southwark to tell the developer out of the blue to remove or add parking spaces.

How did the provision for affordable housing miraculously disappear then.....and if they did get a cash payment from the developers for removing it one wonders what the council then spent that money on....surely not.....?

 

I haven't mentioned anything about parking spaces...I think you're confusing me with someone else you were arguing with! ;-0

Edited September 24 by Rockets

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

3 hours ago, Glemham said:

Actually DKH the delay to building on the SG Smith site was caused by the company who first purchased the site

No, this is nonsense. The planning document linked above details the ludicrous objections of local yokels at the time and their petitions - like claiming the old, old petrol station was designed by the same architect as St Barny's (it wasn't) and should be evaluated as part of the same site (it shouldn't), or loss of free parking to Gilkes Crescent car owners, or objections to construction...because there would be construction noise while the houses were under construction ffs!

What has emerged is a perfectly nice little block of terraced houses - and 20 (?) years after the petrol station closed and 10 years after planning permission was issued, it's now the subject of carping about it having too many off-street parking spots and the subject of weird conspiracy theories.

[tiddles]

It’s all just a mess. So much money spent faffing - the junction is still closed (malumbo and co no doubt delighted)  emergency vehicles and care workers are still prevented from going about their business so no doubt you are happy. Why have they spent god knows what in yet endless works. The money spent fiddling around in the wealthiest part of the borough is puzzling. If the council was maintaining dog kennel hill playground or providing  decent facilities to areas of need I may be a little less disgruntled. It’s the fact that this is public money being spaffed away - 

All the independent shops will be gone soon -.Southwark can give themselves a pat on the back in continuing the roll out of the homogeneous chains taking over the high street. Then there will be a fabulous thread on the EDF discussing the glory days of all the local independent shops that graced the village ‘back in the day’ ..