The Community Communications Partnership and Centro Plan invite you to a drop-in workshop to explore the latest plans for a 34-storey development. This project will feature 147 residential units, along with commercial and business spaces, as well as enhancements to the public realm and highway infrastructure.
“A new chapter for Battersea“. This is how the developers are introducing their mega 34 storey towers just in front of the heliport in the York Road development area. It will be the tallest tower, even surpassing the long planned 32 storey block which was meant to be the landmark of the Winstanley redevelopment project. The project is called The Nest.
The developers are now launching the initial consultation (what they call here “a workshop”) after having submitted an Environmental Impact Assessment (a scoping opinion request sent to Wandsworth Planning department). Local residents are invited to share their opinion next Wednesday, 12 February, 3-5pm at York Library.
We previously published an article after the scoping assessment submission and the rest of this article contains information from our previous article.
A screening opinion (called EIA, for Environmental Impact Assessment) was submitted at the very end of November last year to test the mood for a tower of 34 storeys just beside the heliport in Battersea/York Road (Heliport House 30-40 Lombard Road EIA reference 2024/3921). The proposal would include 147 residential apartments.
The site currently comprises a five-storey vacant office building and two adjacent industrial garages. To the north, the site is bounded by Lookers Land Rover, a car dealership. To the west is the London Heliport, which is separated from the site by Bridges Court Road. To the east and south is the Heliport Industrial Estate, which comprises two rows of low-rise industrial buildings, of which the site’s industrial garages form a part.
As the site is adjacent to the London Heliport, the Applicant confirmed they had consulted with the Heliport in July 2023, which requested more information before releasing any response. However, the applicant is confident that the design of the development proposal does not raise concerns from an aviation perspective.
A 20-storey tower was granted in 2014, but never built
Before considering further, it is important to note that a previous planning proposal has been granted in 2014 to erect a tower of 15 storeys constructed over the existing five-storey Heliport House building (20 storeys high in total) and 14 residential flats (each floor is a stand alone unit) all market price (p.a. 2013/6052).
The building was designed by the late British architect Will Alsop (who passed away in 2018).
There was no affordable dwellings on-site, but they proposed to compensate with a contribution towards the provision of off site affordable housing.
The plan was to retain the current Heliport House building but to re-clad and extend it to include a conference room at third floor level with off street car parking at ground floor level. The planning application was approved by 4 votes to 3 (with Labour councillors opposing).
The current proposal is nearly double the previous application and contains ten times more units. According to their website, 10% of the total dwellings will be designed as wheelchair access and they are planning to make a third of their unit affordable with a split 70% towards social rent. The percentage of low cost homes is compliant with the emerging local plan amendment currently consulted, however the requirement is to have 50% of affordable units, not 33%.
- Read our conversation with Aydin Dikerdem, the Council’s Cabinet Member for Housing: Make Wandsworth more affordable: the big task of the Council
The applicant’s confidence that “the design […] does not raise concerns from an aviation perspective” seems questionable, as in the 2014 application for a 20-storey tower (therefore nearly half the proposed building), the London Heliport objected to the plan on grounds of flight safety, citing the winds and turbulence created by tall structures around the heliport site and its vicinity.
It is also interesting to note that although all the new constructions are proposed as car-free, the officer’s report in 2014 stated that the parking survey carried out on the adjoining roads showed high demand for parking.
At the time, the proposal received 157 objections (versus 4 supports), which is in the highest range compared to similar planning applications.
In the report submitted by the applicant, it is ironic to see that they justify their tower by claiming that “the surrounding residential properties experience uncharacteristically high levels of daylight and sunlight amenity for an urban inner London location“, which implies that, thanks to their tower, it will help reduce that excessive light! This is confirmed later in the document as they state:
“Due to the current underdeveloped nature of the site, its central location, and the positioning of the neighbouring buildings, it is expected the proposal will have effects on its neighbours.”
“We’re breathing new life into a part of Battersea that has been underused for too long” said the presentation video. However, it seems to disregard all the developments that have transformed the area for the last ten years, notably Lombard road 28-storey tower and the 21 25-storey tower hosting the Royal Academy of Danse in 2015, the 17 storey building at 98 York Road in 2016, a 25 storey towers in 100 York Road and the 23/28 storeys for 57 Lombard Road. Maybe actually what the area needs is some breathing… space.
Last but not least, the proposal blatantly overrides the 10-storey guideline for this area (30 metres for 10 storeys under Council rules), further highlighting how many developers disregard planning regulations and push the limits to test the Council’s commitment to enforcing its own statutory policies.
A similar question on the size of the building arose four years ago for another tower in York Road. During a pre-application meeting in 2021 Wandsworth planning officers justified the breach of policy as “marginal”. In previous application discussions, they seemed to encourage taller buildings, while highlighting that in their view the landmark of the area should be the 32 storey planned for York Garden (but actually delayed due to lack of funding!). It eventually resulted into the approval of a 23 storeys for 57 Lombard Road.
The mood regarding very tall buildings is, however, substantially different since the Labour administration took control after the 2022 local elections. During the Planning Application Committee in August 2022, Councillor Humphries (former chair of the Planning Application Committee in the previous Conservative administration and strong supporter of tall building) made reference to the statutory planning documents, something he had previously often dismissed. He insisted several times that the 24/23 storeys was “significantly” over limits set out at a maximum of 7 to 20 storeys in the local plan.
- Read: Co-living replaced by normal residential tenure but still more than 23 storeys for 57 Lombard Road
However, due to its proximity to the heliport, the maximum height is reduced to 10 storeys for the site in the local plan. In its response to the scoping request, Wandsworth planners highlighted the condition: “The site is located within the tall building zone “TB-B2-05” of the WLP with maximum appropriate height range for the zone of 7 to 10 storeys.”
Although the extravagant size of the building might raise questions, the applicant has no difficulty justifying a tall building at this location, as this has been encouraged under the Conservative administration between 2015 and 2022 and stated in the EIA document: “The site sits within close proximity to many other tall buildings (with other tall buildings consented) and therefore although there will be an impact on the surrounding townscape, the visual and townscape impact is not anticipated to be significant.”
Nevertheless, in a particularly ironic perspective, they also claim that their proposal could be justified by the very controversial schemes of Glassmill at Battersea Bridge. Notably, in that case, they wrongly state the pre-application document as indicating “a building height of up to ground and 33 storeys (34 storeys total)” whilst the final application under consideration is for a 28-storey tower.
Moreover, as highlighted multiple times by societies and community groups, Wandsworth Council has consistently failed to assess the cumulative impact of developments in the area. This includes not only the impact of individual developments but also the profound changes they have triggered collectively, without ensuring adequate provision of public services and transport infrastructure (the proposal site itself is located within a public transport accessibility level (PTAL) of 3, indicating only medium accessibility, despite the proximity to Clapham Junction station).
Explore plans for The Nest, Lombard Road
12 FEBRUARY at 3.00 – 5.00 PM,
at YORK ROAD LIBRARY
