stop the tower!

The tower block cat was only let out of the bag quite recently.

Brent’s 2003 Queen’s Park Station Area Brief.
- Contains no mention of high building.
- Does not refer to policy BE10 of the Unitary Developent Plan (the policy on High Buildings which would have to be referenced if the brief involved a tower block).
- Does mention a “landmark building”.

So, what’s a landmark building?
The GLA report on ‘London Skyline, Views and High Builldings’ says:

“This term is used in a number of different ways…. A high building that stands alone… It is also used to describe a building that, through its design and location, is a signature or iconographic building and therefore a desired location in its own right.”

No one would object to the latter being built on the station car-park. Everyone objects to the former.

Vagueness of the 2003 Brief makes consulation on it irrelevant.

The 2005 Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) let the cat out of bag. A map, buried on page 84, indicates 15-20 storeys around the station. It also indicates high-rise all along the railway line on Albert Rd, opposite Brondesbury Villas.

Here’s how consultation on the SPD went. (It obviously went badly or we wouldn’t have 400 people objecting.)

In their “Summary of Responses from Public Consultation”, Brent claims to have:
Delivered letters and leaflets to all residents (did you get one?)
Put up posters and flyers (did you see one?)
Conducted walking tours (did you encounter one?).
Put information on its website (which don’t exactly browse on spec in case someone’s planning to destroy the area).

After all this, only 13 comment cards were returned.
12 online responses were made.

There were 3 public consultation meetings:

Albert Rd Day Centre 15/2/05: 10 people attended
(it’s not clear if the totals include council officers).
St Anne’s & St Andrew’s 17/2/05: 11 attended.
Marian Centre 18/2/05: “approximately” 6 people attended.

All meetings were within 3 days (so bad luck if you were away that week).
After the meetings 1 (yes, one) comment card was returned.

At their own specific request, the following groups were given additional meetings:
Alpha Gorefield Residents +Tenants Association 23/2/05: 11 attended
South Kilburn Business Meeting 8/2/05: 4 people attended.

So, 26 written responses, and 42 people consulted at meetings (15 of which had to specifically ask for it).

Not many people, when weighed against 400 letters. Not an effective consultation. After all, the 400 people writing in are the same people who should have been consulted.

And of even these few people who did make written comments as part of Brent’s consultation, many were anti-tower. In fact, noone said they were in favour of a tall building. Here are some direct quotes:

• “One lesson that has been learned only too well, not least in South Kilburn – is that high-rise public housing does not promote healthy communities”.

– Brent’s response was: “no amendment to the Supplementary Planning Document is required”.

• “Have we not learned a lesson from the awful high-rise council flats in the area?”
– Brent’s response: “no amendment to the SPD is required”.

• Another raised the issue of the impact of a high-rise on other side of railway.
– Brent’s response: “no amendment to the SPD is required”.

• “This will be out of scale with both the existing Victorian landscape on both sides of the railway line, and with the perimeter blocks of the new development, and it will be far more successful than the form of the existing landscape in isolating and alienating communities”.
– Brent’s response: “no amendment to the SPD is required”.

• “Its impact on the visual environment of the Kilburn and QP conservation areas will be seriously adverse”.
– Brent’s response: “no amendment to the SPD is required”.

• “The scale of this element of the proposed development seems to fly in the face of the principles adumbrated with such passion in the document – the requirement to “learn the lessons of the past” and consider the “needs and contribution of existing buildings (particularly buildings within Conservation Areas)’; and the precept that “the opportunity to develop and improve on a building’s role in the development or termination of a view should not be lost”.
– Brent’s response: “no amendment to the SPD is required”.

•”…anything over 4 storeys in the car park would create an inner city or business high-rise feel to the area rather than the understated, quiet and pleasant residential area that the locality has recently assumed. It would be very detrimental to existing residents for the skyline in this area to change much – most of the area is a Conservation Area and development should be sympathetic”.
– Brent’s response: “no amendment to the SPD is required” and notes “New high buildings are considered appropriate around the QP station area”.

We say, “considered appropriate” by whom?

After this utterly deficient and failed consultation, Brent felt empowered to adopt the Supplementary Planning Document and trumpets:

“The consultation on the SPD has seen a continuation of the extensive community involvement undertaken on the Masterplan … This has achieved an adopted SPD for South Kilburn that is broadly
supported by the community, … and which represents a deliverable and sound planning tool for…S.K, Brent and London as a whole”.

On the basis of this, the SPD was adopted by Council on 12 April 05.

Surely, if ever in the history of Supplementary Planning Documents there was one without broad support of community, this is it.