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Left to right: Dame Elisabeth Hoodless, trustee Kate Mabey, Sir Bert Massie, CSV deputy chief executive Bill Garland, worker Mark Tennyson-d’Eyncourt and trustee David Mellor
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Charity’s threat to move out after HQ plans snub
120 jobs in danger after planners vote to protect listed buildings
A LEADING national charity has threatened to quit Islington after its plans for a controversial 11-storey office building in King’s Cross were thrown out.
It is feared 120 jobs at Community Service Volunteers (CSV) may now be under threat as directors consider whether the charity should retain its headquarters at the corner of Pentonville Road and King’s Cross Road.
Councillors at Monday’s south area planning committee meeting told CSV it could not demolish its three locally-listed, 100-year-old office buildings, even though they are crumbling and lack disabled access.
The buildings must be preserved as an important “gateway” to the borough, the charity was told. It planned to build a café, 2,880 square metres of office space and 21 homes, six of them affordable – well under the council’s new 50 per cent guideline.
The 30-metre-high building would have replaced the existing three buildings, which date from 1880 and are between three and five storeys high.
English Heritage, campaigning group SAVE, the Victorian Society and Camden Council all objected to the plans, which breached a number of Town Hall planning and conservation guidelines.
CSV chief executive Dame Elisabeth Hoodless said the charity’s base close to King’s Cross station meant volunteers from across the country could visit with ease.
She said: “We need affordable space and meeting rooms. It’s not just a straight office block transfer. We looked at the NatWest building (opposite CSV) but the price they wanted for it was more than we could afford and they wanted to lease it.”
Because freehold land prices in the borough were so high, CSV would consider moving out of Islington, Dame Elisabeth added.
Sir Bert Massie, chairman of the Disability Rights Commission, told the meeting that CSV’s existing building was difficult for wheelchair users to access.
CSV was backed by about 40 trustees and volunteers who turned up to the meeting in bright red T-shirts.
But councillors ruled that the proposed development would be too high and block light to the currently vacant Welsh Congregational Church, a nationally-listed building.
Labour councillor Martin Klute said: “I don’t think the virtue of the occupants is a reason for overruling local planning policy.”
Dame Elisabeth said after the meeting: “We are distressed and dismayed by this decision. The outcome surprises us, especially when the council’s own planning professionals and the GLA had considered the development to be appropriate, especially in the light of CSV’s positive contribution to the community.
“CSV trains 800 young people in Islington every year, provides volunteers for nine schools, mentors 200 “looked after” children, and constructed the park in Davenant Road and Culpeper Garden.”
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