THIS SECTION IS NOW REDUNDANT

We need Lambeth Council to tell the Developers that their Planning Application will only be approved if they amend it to soften the aspects that are most damaging to the Community and the Environment.

Please submit an objection to the Planning Application and tell the Council how you feel.

Objection

You can use or amend this wording for your Objection

Then please submit your Objection here.

(You will need to log in or register on the Council website.)

The Royal Street area would benefit from development. This should be sensitive to the location, beneficial to the local community and minimise enviriomental harm. The aim of creating a Med Tech campus is welcome but it would be a bitter irony for this to come at the cost of significant detriment to the physical and mental wellbeing of local residents and visitors to the area, including users of St Thomas' Hospital, and the businesses and many customers at Old Paradise Yard.

Archbishop's Park is a wonderful place for children to play, adults to exercise, and the community to gather and mix. Many local residents do not have private gardens and benefit greatly from the Park: not just its amenities but, significantly, its feeling of openness. The proposed buildings close to the Park are overbearing. They would block out sunlight and views of the sky, and instead present a dreary and depressing view of huge buildings.

The public areas within the proposed development do not begin to compensate for the loss of amenity caused by destroying the open feel of Archbishop's Park. Draughty passages and soulless squares will not make up for annihilating the Park's heart and soul.

The density of the proposed office spaces is excessive. There is no way that 10,000 people can be accommodated without overwhelming local infrastructure. On the other hand, the meagre proposals for social housing are wholly inadequate in terms of both volume and affordability.

Instead of maximising the re-purposing of the existing buildings, the developers are proposing widespread demolition. This will result in a tsunami of CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere.

The developers have engaged with the community but they have only paid lip-service to consultation. The token adjustments that they have offered, compared with the initial proposals, will no doubt have been well within their planned concessions. It is wrong that their wholly inappropriate proposals should be regarded as a benchmark. A re-think is needed.

There is no reason why the site could not be developed in a manner that provides a better balance of offices and social housing; a less overbearing size and scale of buildings (especially close to Archbishop's Park); a viable Med Tech campus; a fair economic return to the developers (and to Lambeth Council); less CO2 pumped into the atmosphere; and a genuine enhancement to local residents. This can be achieved if greed is balanced more equitably against the interests of the community.

Please will Lambeth Council ask the developers to reconsider their proposals in order to deliver a fairer balance of interests.