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A sketch of the proposal for St Edmund’s Terrace |
Flats to ‘impinge’ on Primrose Hill views
Developers admit plans will affect cherished skyline
Proposals for a seven-storey block of luxury flats in St John’s Wood will “destroy” views from Primrose Hill, say campaigners who are fighting the scheme.
Planning chiefs will decide whether developers will be allowed to build the 30-metre-high block in St Edmund’s Terrace, on the former waterworks by Barrow Hill reservoir, at a crunch meeting next month. It would include an underground car park and a private gym.
Developers Camden Regeneration Ltd have admitted the block would “impinge” on the view from the top of Primrose Hill.
Residents groups, local politicians and parks bosses have seized on the admission, uniting in their condemnation of Other multi-million-pound “eyesore” by flooding planning departments at both Camden and Westminster councils with letters of objection.
Malcolm Kafetz, chairman of the Friends of Regent’s Park and Primrose Hill group, said: “Put simply, it’s a wholly inappropriate building for the landscape. Primrose Hill has been there an awful long time and this is the last thing it needs. In reality it will be an eight-storey-high eyesore, completely destroying the skyline from Primrose Hill and Regent’s Park. And that’s not to mention the people in St Edmund’s Terrace itself. Can they really fit another 22 Rolls Royces down that narrow street?”
Richard Simpson, from Regent’s Park Conservation Area Advisory Committee, said: “The development would loom over the trees, ruining views from the Hill which thousands of visitors come to enjoy. It would bring a high building closer to the Hill than ever before.”
Victory will be even sweeter should campaigners win their battle as Turley Associates, the planning consultants overseeing the development, are the same firm who were behind the unsuccessful bid to build a 5-a-side football centre in Regent’s Park in 2007.
Campaigners are hoping to muster up some of the fighting spirit that helped persuade Westminster Council to throw out proposals to flatten the 100-year-old Regent’s Park Golf and Tennis School and replace it with 10 pitches.
This time parks bosses will join the residents’ battlecry and make an objection.
The site, on the Western edge of Primrose Hill which marks the boundary between Camden and Westminster boroughs, has been redundant for almost two years and was bought from Thames Water by developers Camden Regeneration Ltd in 2007. While they claim the scale of the development is “appropriate in its location”, the planning statement goes on to say that “the height does impinge on the wider panoramic view from the top of Primrose Hill”. Camden Regeneration Ltd are expected to use the proximity of nearby Dane Court – which is nine storeys high – to support their bid.
The stone and timber block of 22 flats, many of which will have large balconies overlooking the park, has been designed by the architects detailed with masterminding the regeneration around Arsenal Football Club’s Emirates Stadium.
The current 1950s-style block was once used to house Thames Water staff, and lies above the water mains which will have to be protected at vast expense when the bulldozers move in to start work on the five-year job.
Anna Snow, from Turley Associates, said: “Anything on the site is going to cause some issue. But it should be recognised that the land has always been earmarked for housing.
“It would be wrong to say that you can’t see it from Primrose Hill, but it is an urban park and it’s not a protected view.
“We feel the development will help to define the park.” |
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