Campaign to save 22 Gloucester Road for emergency housing
St Mark's Ward Councillors
Your Local Lib Dems working to make Surbiton even better Learn more
Caroline Pidgeon's Manifesto for London Mayor
Full and frank consultation needed before Tories force our primary schools to become academies
Campaign to save 22 Gloucester Road for emergency housing
Caroline Pidgeon's Manifesto for London Mayor
Full and frank consultation needed before Tories force our primary schools to become academies
St Mark’s Councillors objections to Filter Beds planning application
by admin on 21 December, 2012
St Mark’s Ward Liberal Democrat Councillors have written a detailed letter to Kingston Council’s planning department giving its reasons for objecting to the planning application by Hydro Properties Ltd for 64 floating homes, a 94 berth marina, residential moorings, a restaurant and car park on the site known as the Filter Beds on Portsmouth Road, Surbiton.
We believe our grounds for objection listed in the letter very clearly demonstrate that the application does not meet the ‘very special circumstances’ required to build on Metropolitan Open Land or Kingston Council’s policies as set out in the Core Strategy. We will be sharing this with all the Councillors on the Development Control Committee, which meets on 22nd January 2013 to decide on the application.
To see the full text of our letter of objections please click here.
3 Comments
This application offers no genuinely exceptional benefit to Surbiton that justifies developing on Metropolitan Open Land, and/or even partial loss of fauna / flora habitat.
To develop on MOL land requires the creation of an exceptional benefit. By no stretch of a developer’s imagination can the mere creation of more flats in Surbiton be regarded as an exceptional benefit, given the proliferation of flats in Surbiton over the last 10 years.
A new, partially-closed footpath that doesn’t lnik to the rest of the riversdie walk similarly fails the exceptional benefit test.
This application should be rejected on those grounds alone.
This site should only be developed if/when a truly exceptional benefit is delivered. The only feasible scheme that I can imagine is the creation of a footbridge from Surbiton to Home Park.
Surbiton is deficient in large greenspace, as evidenced in the Kingston Open Space Assessment Volume 1: Greenspace Needs Assessment May 2006 (
http://www.kingston.gov.uk/final_report_updated_19_07_06_.pdf).
Yet, a mere river’s width away, we have Home Park, the most underutilised of public spaces. A footbridge linking the two, to be provided by any developer in conjunction with apartments would provide exceptional benefit. This scheme should only be approved if a footbridge is provided as a S106.
Thanks for the comments. The scheme was refused by last night’s planning committee as Councillors did not feel it met the ‘very special circumstances’ required for builing on Metropolitan Open Land. The idea of a footbridge is an intresting one, I agree that this would open up to Surbiton residents a large open space, but there may be problems with the tall boats and sailing boats that use this stretch of the River.
Now the planning application has been refused, we want to work with the community to develop what would be suitable for the site.
RE: “there may be problems with the tall boats and sailing boats that use this stretch of the River”
Has anybody had a cursory look at the extent of any possible yacht problems, and how they could be resolved?
I’ve provided a link to a new bridge that I’m familiar with. It’s designed with a moving roadway section to accommodate yachts.
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=167475903393526
This new bridge, 200 metres long and incorporating a two lane road that accommodates heavy trucks, will cost a mere £15million to build.
A similarly designed footbridge over a much smaller distance would cost a fraction of that, and would be affordable in the context of sensitively developing the site for apartments.
Just as with the illustrated Narrow Water bridge, the yachters’ inconvenience would be minor and would be offset by greater amenity value for the far greater number of surrounding residents.
Similarly, any loss of flora/fauna habitat would be balanced by the public benefit of new access to Home Park and environmental improvements to Home Park itself.
I do think that a new footbridge is worthy of investigation, and would provide a great lift for our town.
regards
Paul