Proposed Development - The Sidings, Railway Rise, SE22

[Diogenes]

3 hours ago, Sue said:

I'm not particularly in favour of this proposal, but what is the evidence that there's "no demand for student housing around ED"?

Surely there's no demand for it because there presently isn't any?!

Students have to live somewhere, Kings is a teaching hospital (I think) as is the dental hospital (I think) plus East Dulwich has reasonable transport links into central London and this site is near both trains and several bus routes.

No demand because there are no universities in the area. There are however many schools and high demand for family homes.

King’s college already have student accommodation nearby… and by the way, it appears they are not full: hardly any activity / light at the champion hill student accommodation center ( from a person who lives next to it)

Students have to live somewhere but this simply does not make any sense

[alice]

Student accommodation makes far more profit for the developers.   Southwark has a major housing problem 10,000 or more on waiting lists.  They should be concentrating on giving permission to builds that will help lower this.

[northernmonkey]

52 minutes ago, TES said:

"there's actually huge demand for all housing. The failure over many years to build housing is pushing UK productivity down and exacerbating the cost of living crisis. Of course it's fine to have an opinion that a building is too big, or whatever, but at the end of the day we don't solve the housing crisis without building more houses. So it's either brownfield spots like this former warehouse, or it's densifying existing residential (i.e. knock down and rebuild), or it's building on greenfield. I struggle to see how London meets the housing needs of the next few decades without plans like this one."

I think that the concern is that originally in the Southwark Plan this site was earmarked for housing - and the expectation would be that affordable housing would be part of that given the size of the development.  This development has a derisory amount of housing and an even smaller absolute number of 'affordable homes' - again to purchase not for rental and they are being subsidised by the developer looking to build student accom for much higher £ per square m.

The concern from my perspective is that the development doesn't meet the need we have in this area for more family homes and in particular 'affordable housing - either to buy or rent' but does add a large amount of accommodation for which there is no clear need locally.  Once this is built as individual student rooms that land and possibility of suitable accommodation will be gone forever. There aren't many sites locally where a significant impact could be made in building new homes and this is one of the last few!

There is a separate and related point on infrastructure in terms of 400 students needing to register with a dr for example.  All reports on Tessa Jowell health centre seem to indicate it can't cope with current levels so an influx of 400 individual students is going to increase pressure there.  The trains from East Dulwich still haven't returned to precovid frequency and given the narrative that students will travel to uni sites elsewhere  the capacity isn't there at peak times.. 

[Earl Aelfheah]

I don't know about demand personally, but imagine the developer will have done some assessment of this. It's not in their interests to build student accommodation that then remains unoccupied. There are several universities relatively close by, including a massive teaching hospital in Camberwell, the Camberwell College of Arts, the IoPPN / KCL's Denmark Hill campus, plus Goldsmiths not too far away. 

I also worry about the trains being pretty overcrowded and unreliable, but think that's probably a more general issue that needs addressing. If it's targeted mainly at students from Camberwell, the train isn't really that relevant (at least for getting to / from university).

Edited October 10 by Earl Aelfheah

[northernmonkey]

I imagine they will have enough data that they can get demand for it and fill it - but the issues about the impact more broadly - costs of waste collection, street cleaning, healthcare etc plus transport with zero uplift in council tax to pay for any of it is a concern.   The only winner here would be the developer who would make huge amounts of money from the site leaving Southwark and ultimately  local residents with the costs. 

[Earl Aelfheah]

Does anyone know whether there will be any section 106 money raised? 

[northernmonkey]

24/AP/2314 | Demolition of existing buildings and construction of a mixed-use development of 3 buildings being 1) part 5, part 6 part 7 storeys, 2) part 5, part 7, part 8 storeys and 3) part 7 and part 8 storeys, accommodating up to 1,229sqm of flexible employment space (Use Class E), up to 53 residential homes (Use Class C3) and up to 360 purpose-built student accommodation rooms (Use Class Sui Generis) with ancillary cycle parking, refuse stores, car parking and landscaping. | Hall And Co Ltd Jewson Site Railway Rise London Southwark SE22 8WW

 

Submission here - there is a s106 form submitted but doesn't detail what the payment would be - just that they're seeking relief for the social housing component. 

[Diogenes]

4 hours ago, Earl Aelfheah said:

I don't know about demand personally, but imagine the developer will have done some assessment of this. It's not in their interests to build student accommodation that then remains unoccupied. There are several universities relatively close by, including a massive teaching hospital in Camberwell, the Camberwell College of Arts, the IoPPN / KCL's Denmark Hill campus, plus Goldsmiths not too far away. 

I also worry about the trains being pretty overcrowded and unreliable, but think that's probably a more general issue that needs addressing. If it's targeted mainly at students from Camberwell, the train isn't really that relevant (at least for getting to / from university).

I agree, considering the scale of the project, one would think they have done some assessment regarding demand for student housing here. But the champion hill student accommodation seems to be mostly empty. It doesn't add up. There is a thesis that these student studios would be essentially turned into massive HMOs.

[TES]

Unless I'm missing something that a quick google doesn't provide, The Champion Hill accommodation seems to have some sort of fire safety problem that is entirely separate from whether or not there is demand. Quite a lot of info online, including:

 

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/statements/accommodation-ch 

https://roarnews.co.uk/2024/kcl-accommodation-still-empty-four-years-after-evacuation/ 

[Penguin68]

The money available from short-term lets is generally much better than long-term - student accommodation is by definition short-term - so you might imagine a scenario where high revenues are obtained from multiple short-term lets (not necessarily to students- I can't imagine who would police this).

If I had a business serving ED customers  I might prefer to have customers either from long-term lets of e.g. families or indeed short-term lets of wealthy people (relatively).  Students tend neither to be high, nor consistent, spenders.

However I would support accommodation e.g. for student nurses (at Kings etc.) or other health professionals - who would tend to be longer-term tenants and would also be filling a social need. But I do suspect hidden agendas here.

[alice]

HMOs are just glorified bedsits.  But I doubt if the local housing allowance would stretch to paying what the developers are going to  ask. 

[amydaisy]

On 10/10/2024 at 10:57, alice said:

Student accommodation makes far more profit for the developers.   Southwark has a major housing problem 10,000 or more on waiting lists.  They should be concentrating on giving permission to builds that will help lower this.

This pretty much sums up the entire purpose of the development... Totally on board with the idea of this being redeveloped, but into family homes please... not an 8-storey high student campus.

[northernmonkey]

Still time to object to this on the grounds of over development, no local need, not addressing the community need for affordable family homes etc.

https://planning.southwark.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=makeComment&keyVal=SHWOSNKBJXR00

 

There is a huge shortage of family homes in this area and allowing developers to maximise gain by building individual bedsits for students in an area where there is no demand for that would be such a waste of this land and once built that opportunity has been lost. 

The ongoing cost of maintaining the area will be met by taxpayers and none of it will be picked up by student residents or the developers so its a particularly poor local proposal and one that will affect people much more widely than just the neighbouring streets. 

[march46]

The tall blocks are much higher than the Charter East teaching blocks closeby, with student bedroom windows facing into classrooms and a roof terrace overlooking the school. I wonder if the school has been made aware?

 

[alice]

Hopefully, students will not be in their bedrooms during school hours. 

 

[Penguin68]

24 minutes ago, alice said:

Hopefully, students will not be in their bedrooms during school hours. 

Ah ha ha! These are students we're talking about. 

[alice]

Exactly! another reason why it should be social housing

[march46]

81 objections so far. https://planning.southwark.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=makeComment&keyVal=SHWOSNKBJXR00

Lots of sensible points raised in the Dulwich Society response, which highlights the overdevelopment of the site but also the lack of habitat buffer to the adjacent green corridor and the missed opportunity to include a low line walking route, as noted in the Southwark Plan for the site. 
 

Interesting to see they refer to the student rooms being of poor quality; “long and narrow (only around 3 m) and single aspect with a window at one end, giving poor quality space. There is no provision of small communal spaces at upper levels (with around 30 single rooms per floor in each of the 2 buildings) which should be considered to improve the quality of student life. This is particularly important given the focus on year-round student occupation. It would also be advisable to see how the building could be repurposed at the point when such dedicated student housing is no longer required. Given the PBSA is not tied to a particular establishment, it could be more vulnerable to a downturn in overseas students.”

[zork]

Southwark News are covering this, a photo is being taken today - the more gathered, the better, as the focus is on volume of objections. 
Meet today at 1.30 outside Nido coffee shop on Melbourne Grove 

[rollflick]

If you include comments that the development is too big / out of character, the council will be forced to ignore you. The new govt is consulting on updating the national planning policy framework (NPPF):

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/proposed-reforms-to-the-national-planning-policy-framework-and-other-changes-to-the-planning-system/proposed-reforms-to-the-national-planning-policy-framework-and-other-changes-to-the-planning-system

Character and density

10. Paragraph 130 was added to the NPPF to explain that local character can be taken into account when local planning authorities consider their ability to meet their housing needs. The policy sets out that significant uplifts in density may be inappropriate if this would result in development wholly out of character with the existing area. Local planning authorities are required to use authority-wide design codes to evidence the impact on character.

11. We propose reversing this change and deleting paragraph 130 in its entirety. We are clear that local planning authorities should identify opportunities for maximising the efficient use of land, especially in areas well served by transport and other infrastructure. By restricting density, the existing policy is likely to have longer term negative impacts on achieving sustainable patterns of development and on meeting expectations on future housing supply. Alongside this reversal, we propose strengthening expectations that plans should promote an uplift in density in urban areas.

This already has weight as draft policy and is expected to be approved very soon, some suggest even this side of Christmas - please don't shoot me for simply being the messenger on this!

Clearly the site is well served by public transport. With TfL currently consulting on cutting local bus routes, because "More buses are operating than are needed by customers", proposals like this would actually safeguard services and help improve frequency. However, while the development would be carfree, other than disabled spaces, the issue raised by some of the impact of access by taxis and deliveries is certainly significant. As mitigation, probably would need to restrict deliveries to using Railway Rise, make Melbourne Grove a school street and have some sort of pedestrian and cycle zone (with permits for existing residents) north of Jarvis Place. Any other ideas welcome!

I very much like the idea of a low line walking if not cycling route but am wondering who owns the land to Deventer Crescent. Given the various concerns about biodiversity connectivity (a bit tenuous IMO and anyway policy is to offset that these days) how to manage any impacts of the necessary land take? The national planning consultation also calls to "extract more public value from development, including through infrastructure, amenity, and transport benefits and, where necessary, through use of strengthened compulsory purchase powers". So that could be a good hook to use to ask the developer to commit to such a connection.

Finally Southwark is proposing to replace the perfectly good raised footway over Railway Rise with paving stones, learning nothing from the long-standing mess where they did that at the ED end of Camberwell Grove. All the extra traffic from this development would make that crumble even faster. Shouldn't the funding for that should be shifted to providing a continuous footway on the other side of Grove Vale at Vale End?

[march46]

On 10/10/2024 at 11:38, Earl Aelfheah said:

Does anyone know whether there will be any section 106 money raised? 

Good question. Does anyone know? It seems as though this would be essential to mitigate the impact of such a large development on the local community / infrastructure.

I believe the new library at Grove Vale was achieved via a Section 106 agreement, and that was a much smaller development.