site adjacent to 19 rosenthorpe road and 22 fernholme road, london, se15 3eg

[justannoyed]

I am hoping that this thread will help us here in making sure that the planners at Southwark Council see sense: I will try to keep it short.

We all live in a quiet street with a nice friendly mix of younger and older: however Hexagon have summitted plans to built a block of flats in Rosenthorpe Road and houses with strange looking coloured panels - I think that that is the nicest description.

In no particular order our problems are: the houses opposite face the prospect of:

1. The top floor flats to the proposed block of 10 flats ? dormer windows to roof line ? overlook the master bedrooms (children?s rooms in our case).

2. The entrance into the development is a tight turn that will cause cars to abruptly stop outside of these houses in particularly ? danger to pedestrians and noise pollution

3. The proposal of the removal of one on-street parking space for the entrance and 2 further roadside spaces for the disabled bays is going to impact on the street scene massively

4. Height of development exceeds existing building roof lines

In general:

1. The design build has no continuity whatsoever with low-cost low-grade materials with no consideration for the impact and planning blight on house prices in the streets

2. No aesthetic matching in materials

3. Provision of 12 parting spaces to a development with 1*3bed, 6*2-bed, 2*1bed and 7 houses is crazy even allowing for the fact that fronting the development is road-side parking: allowing one bay outside of each house to Fernholme at 6 spaces and 6 to Rosenthorpe (less one for the entrance), including the 2 disabled bays allows for a total of 23 spaces, surely this is not in accordance with the LDP or UPD.

4. Insufficient green space to the development

5. Central core green space will cause noise pollution

6. Social mix and strain on local amenity ? there are within 500 metres 2 new flat schemes and 1 in the process of being constructed - without considering all the new blocks built on Borland Road and Peckham Rye

7. Loss of greenery with removal of trees

8. No attempt at screening to reduce visual intrusion on rear gardens.

9. Overcrowded/Oversubscribed Ivydale School inundated

If I think of more I will let you know but in the meantime bearing in mind that the consultation period expires 21 days from 25th November 2008 it is now urgent.

Please copy in all your friends and neighbours and make sure you post your objections online at the Council on

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR HELP

[Huguenot]

Honaloochie will appreciate a parting space.

Your points seem every valid, although the 'Central core green space will cause noise pollution' seems a bit obscure, does that just affect residents of the development?

In my experience the 'other people won't like it' argument rarely wins favour, it's too subjective.

Have you got architect's drawings?

[justannoyed]

Attached is a photo of the site: collectively I believe the locals would prefer bungalows for the more elderly residents as in Athenlay Road. Parking is an issue - but we appreciate that there are other elements of the scheme that is contrary to the council UDP. I will post here soon the plans.

[Huguenot]

Gosh yes, you can see how an ugly modern block of flats would be really out of place.

[justannoyed]

plans

[justannoyed]

The site plan.

We are hoping to garner enough interest and objections to ensure a planning committee decision rather than delegated - hopefully a public enquiry - at a minimum there will be a meeting of local residents in january.

The school is oversubscribed as it is so hoping to involve them too.

[BARA]

BARA had a similiar application from Hexagon some years ago, we objected on similiar grounds to yourself. Once we had details of the development, the committee put together their arguement and leafletted all residents in the area affected and those who would feel the knock on effect i.e. a street which could become more congested with parking. We invited people to send their own objections into planning and gave a date of a public meeting at the East Dulwich Community Centre.

Many people objected to scheme and came to the later meeting. At this meeting we asked for representatives of Hexagon to attend with their plans and also made sure all the local councillors attended meeting. Around 50 people attended, planning permission was refused on grounds of density. Hexagon appealed and won. We managed to delay the project by 18 months to 2 years and got one less storey to the block of flats.

A similiar proposal was put in earlier in year for a large block of flats to be sited on Barry Road/Etherow Street - again letters to local residents who submitted individual objections. petition obtained of over 100 names, we also kept our ward councillors fully aware of situation and they were in contact with Planning to make sure that the application came to Community Council. This was a private development, and involved the demolition of 3 perfectly maintained houses ( one which was purchased for around 1 million ?). We contacted local School and we got letters of support from head Teacher.

At a meeting called at Christ Church a parent from the school suggested that details of the proposed flats should be circulated in the weekly info sheet sent out to parents, asking them to write in. The new development would overlook the infants playground so an issue of child protection was raised. The proposals were turned down as being too dense and not in character with the surrounding area etc. Credit crunch time came and we have not heard whether in light of this, the company were going to mount an appeal.

Although we did not 'win' the Hexagon proposal, we had the satisfaction of delaying the build and the reduced size of the block of flats. We also monitored the building process and noticed several breaches of Health and Safety which were reported. We also monitored the harassessment by the organisation or their contractors of an elderly person who refused to allow her property to be demolished. We forged good links with the 2 local papers who supported our 'fight'

It is hard work fighting against these developers - we found a local resident who was a solicitor who gave us free legal advice, another was an expert in planning laws, another could interpret the architects drawings quite well and put it across in lay persons language and gave a visual picture of size etc. Also we got a very elequent speaker with good planning/architectual knowledge to speak at the Planning Committe which helped the councillors to reject the Etherow Street proposals. Also get the local police to give their views if there is an issue of road safety.

Sorry this is a bit disjointed as writing during my lunch break.

Good luck

[cdonline]

My understanding is that there has been a lot of people who have expressed their deep concerns about the scheme and are in contact with the Council. I'm not sure how co-ordinated they are, but I know that people are doing something about it, whether as individuals and small groups.

It seems to be a case of complete over development of a site that it not large enough to accommodate so many people. The Hexagon Housing Association's proposals could add another 50 residents (at least) to what are two very sleepy streets.

They are both extremely quiet roads, as unless you live or visit there, there's no real reason to access them.

Unlike some people, I also believe that the Council will see sense and not accept plans that are clearly absurd, though who knows?

[justannoyed]

Thanks to all for your responses and help. We are getting a committee together and several people have already started the leafletting. We are hoping that the school will support us too.

I am hoping that we can eventually co-ordinate ourselves enough to employ a planning expert to represent us as any planning committe or inquiry.

I am also hoping that this forum will gather speed and numbers. One of the residents affected is Mick Barnard who was one of the Councillors who has offered to chair our committee.

[PeckhamRose]

Is it too late to be discussed at the next Nunhead and PeckhamRye Community Council? Get all your neighbours to come and make their concerns met, and - in advance - ask the councillors (Smeath?) to arrange for the planning people to be there.

[justannoyed]

When the next meeting? Sounds like a good idea.

Please see the following:

Dear Mr Bennett

Thank you for your email.

The meeting on December 15 2008 is the Peckham Community Council. Rosenthorpe Road, Athenlay Road and Ferholme Road are in Peckham Rye ward which is part of the Nunhead and Peckham Rye Community Council.

The next general meeting for the Nunhead and Peckham Rye Community Council is January 14 2009. The next Nunhead and Peckham Rye Community Council Planning meeting is on January 29 2009.

If you would like to send a deputation to the meeting on January 14 2009, I will pass on this request to the Community Council Chair, Cllr Glover.

Please let me know how you would like to proceed.

Yours sincerely,

Gerald Gohler

Community Councils Team (Peckham CC and Nunhead & Peckham Rye CC)

Southwark Town Hall

Peckham Road

London SE5 8UB

Tel: 020 7525 7420

Fax: 020 7525 7498