Lambeth Council approves Daylight Robbery! – December 2019
Last Tuesday, Lambeth Council’s planning committee voted – by a narrow margin of 4 to 3 – to ignore 3,000 petition signatures, hundreds of objections on the council planning website, Labour ward councillors and dozens of us gathered in the committee room, to approve the 8 Albert Embankment application.
This is a massive disappointment, to say the least. After hearing moving testimonies from the residents, the councillors were split 3 for/3 against, and committee chair Clare Wilcox chose to exercise her casting vote in favour of the development, seemingly for little reason other than that it had been several years since the last proposal to redevelop the site. Major issues of daylight loss, damage to local heritage, reduced levels of affordable housing and over-density, were cast aside, for a museum that could have been build through other means, a high-end hotel and hundreds of luxury investment flats that may well sit empty. Clearly this system isn’t working for local people.
The planning committee offers no appeal for the community, but the Mayor of London can ‘call in’ the decision to refuse it.
The Mayor needs to hear from all of us IMMEDIATELY as he only has 14 days to call it in! Information on writing to Sadiq Khan can be found here.
There is also the potential for a Judicial Review of the planning committee decision. A Judicial Review is a legal challenge to the decision making process and would mean a reassessment of the application. It would require a fighting fund of roughly £20-25,000. That’s a lot of money, but if we set up a funding group and many people chipped in, we could do this.
We need to take some time to assess our legal position, but if you know already that you are up for the next fight please get in touch. (lambethvillage@gmail.com)
We also want to host another campaign meeting for those who want to build pressure outside the halls of power in Lambeth. We will send another update around shortly with a date in the New Year, but in the meantime, get in touch if you’d like to be involved.
Please write to the Mayor now and ask him to call in the decision and REFUSE the 8 Albert Embankment application.
Write to Sadiq Khan! ….Call in the 8 Albert Embankment Planning Committee Decision NOW
The decision by Lambeth Council’s Planning Committee to approve the U+I/LFB planning application (19/01304/FUL) for 8 Albert Embankment is hugely disappointing.
It can still be STOPPED as the application can now be called in by the Mayor of London to REFUSE .
Please write to Sadiq Khan IMMEDIATELY as he will need to make a decision SOON and ask him to ‘call in’ the application and refuse it. (Email address and details to include in your message given below).
A couple of important London Plan reasons why he might REFUSE:
Loss of the KIBA (Key Industrial Business Area) sites which despite having the highest Lambeth Plan protection are being lost to corporate office space.
Lambeth had no Strategic Industrial Land (SIL) whatsoever
- KIBA is the only land that Lambeth has for industry and this KIBA is very successful, but the 8 Albert Embankment sites have been deliberately kept empty, with no marketing.
- The LFB has behaved like the worst kind of private sector developer to get a change of use and build residential towers in a conservation area.
- Lambeth has lost more than 25% of all it’s KIBA in a decade
- Lambeth has only one 1/3 of the average amount of industrial land of any London borough
Underprovision of Affordable Housing on land the LFB have owned since 1937………. this site should be able to support 50% if the LFB where not greedily taking so many benefits out of it, including a capital receipt of @£42m as well as profit for their developer partner @£96m.
- Only 8 social housing units will be built and more social housing will be blighted through losses of daylight than delivered
- Profit of 6% is being taken on the affordable housing by the developer
- Social housing tenants, will be paying the price for the LFB greed with levels of light that are so inadequate they are BRE ‘major adverse’, at only 15-17% VSC
Write in your own words and include the other issues that matter to you.
Contact details: mayor@london.gov.uk Greater London Authority, City Hall, The Queen’s Walk, London SE1 2AA
CC the Assembly Members:
tony.arbour@london.gov.uk; jennette.arnold@london.gov.uk; andrew.boff@london.gov.uk; gareth.bacon@london.gov.uk; shaun.bailey@london.gov.uk; sian.berry@london.gov.uk; tom.copley@london.gov.uk; unmesh.desai@london.gov.uk; tony.devenish@london.gov.uk; andrew.dismore@london.gov.uk; len.duvall@london.gov.uk; nicky.gavron@london.gov.uk; susan.hall@london.gov.uk; david.kurten@london.gov.uk; joanne.mccartney@london.gov.uk; steve.o’connell@london.gov.uk; caroline.pidgeon@london.gov.uk; keith.prince@london.gov.uk; caroline.russell@london.gov.uk; onkar.sahota@london.gov.uk; navin.shah@london.gov.uk; fiona.twycross@london.gov.uk; peter.whittle@london.gov.uk; leonie.cooper@london.gov.uk
Please write immediately (cc lambethvillage@gmail.com) as Sadiq will make a decision in SOON and he must REFUSE.
