Inconsiderate Constructors – living on a building site

Anyone can register with the Considerate Constructors Scheme...but does it mean anything?

Perhaps the problem is a developer wanting to cram so much onto a site that construction is only possible by using areas outside the site to facilitate it.

Either way, the inconvenience caused to any neighbours of a construction site are not considered relevant when making objections to a planning application. Existing residents may be extremely inconvenienced for up to two years without compensation.

The logistics of construction are included in an application, but generally sorted out after planning is granted. A Construction Methodology Statement is also submitted, the detail of which is generic and could apply to any site. Such statements usually include the following nebulous promises:

• Coordinated delivery times and efficient traffic management to prevent queues of traffic accessing the site.

Yeah, right. See previous posts here and here.

• Ensuring all plant has sound reduction measures (mufflers, baffles or silencers)

The noise can be relentless, and exceeded reasonable decibel levels on many occasions during demolition at Faircharm. There was and is no sound reduction employed – if there is, it is not enough.

• Utilising construction techniques that minimise the production of noise. 

See above. During demoliton, the machines used to break up concrete caused buildings to shake. Vibrations equivalent to mini earthquakes were felt by residents and those working nearby. Cracks appeared in brickwork. Ornaments fell off shelves.

• Using Acoustic hoarding where necessary.

No Acoustic hoardings have been erected on Creekside to protect residents. Taller hoardings are required to prevent dust as well.

Faircharm, February 2016

• Ensure that all materials transported to and from site are in enclosed containers or fully sheeted. Ensuring loads are covered where spoil or demolition material is being removed.

Covered or not, at Kent Wharf back in November 2015, the road looked like this for a whole month before it was cleaned up and wheel washing was finally introduced.

No wheel washing at Kent Wharf

Outside Faircharm, the trucks and cement mixers can't get in or out of the site without driving on the pavement and spreading their loads. Wheel washing as they leave the site makes very little difference.

The road and pavement are almost white with dust. The dust lies several microns deep on all the parked cars and reaches into the communal recesses of Wilshaw and Holden House up as far as the fourth floor. The caretakers have complained that there is ten times as much dust to clean up on communal stairs and walkways.

A car vacates a parking space after a rainy period, revealing the dust it's been concealing.

Residents, local workers and pedestrians are breathing in all that dust. Potholes are growing daily. The wheels of passing trucks kick up the dust when it's dry.

After rain, the street cleaner has to shovel mud. The rubble and dust goes down the drains, potentially blocking them.

• During dry periods the works are to be damped down to control the generation of dust.

Faircharm's site manager claimed to have no access to water on site and had to order in “extra tankers” of water to damp down dust. Nevertheless dust is still prevalent and not being dampened.

Asbestos removal took place without full cover. This was reported to Lewisham Environmental Health who took no action and did not even respond. The construction site manager had tests conducted that vindicated the lack of cover, but extreme health worries were engendered among residents and local workers in the meantime. See previous post.

• Provide regular road cleaning using road sweepers or brushes to control dust and mud.

Once in a blue moon...

A bit of sweeping up outside the entrance – last witnessed in March

With so many sites like this in the area, a cash-starved local authority is unable to monitor the work. It is also likely that any Section 106 money clawed from the developer by the Council (in mitigation, to benefit the local neighbourhood) will not be spent around here – if it is, it will probably be used to fix the road that has been thoroughly ruined by construction.

Creekside construction watch: Faircharm

Work began at Faircharm in November 2015 with demolition of most of the three large buildings on the site. The front facades of two of the original buildings facing Creekside are being kept as a result of advice from Lewisham's Conservation Officer at planning stage. The work was carried out by Ling Demolition under the site management of appointed constructors Bouygues. During this process, the noise and dust were horrendous – buildings vibrated, walls cracked...

The land has since undergone preparation for foundations to be laid – a quieter process onsite, but not on the road, as concrete mixers line up almost daily (see previous post). Meanwhile, here are some episodes from earlier in the year...

The Postbox

Hoardings began to be erected back in August 2015 and soon Creekside's eastern pavement (which borders the site) was lost to pedestrians. The only bit of pavement left was where the fence made allowance for a Royal Mail postbox. Once chock full of mail when serving the former trading estate, since the businesses moved out in 2014 it has remained in use to Crossfields estate residents and surrounding users such as APT and ArtHub Studios as the only postbox in the area within reasonable walking distance.

Site hoardings and parked cars made collection from the postbox impossible

In December 2015, the Post Office closed it. Hardly surprising since the hoardings around it were labelled with stickers saying WARNING - KEEP OUT - DEMOLITION. Some found the closure rather inconvenient – especially elderly residents with mobility problems.

We complained to the Bouygues site manager who had not even noticed the box was closed. He contacted the post office and was told the delivery office manager had visited the box and deemed it unsafe for the drivers to collect. Obviously, the Post Office has a duty of care to look after its workers.

But the real reason – not made clear by the post office, and as we had to point out to Bouygues – was that the hoarding around the box didn't allow enough space to open the post box to retrieve mail. And cars were parking right up close to the hoarding, making it difficult for both posters and post office to even get near the box.

We asked Bouygues to widen the space and stop cars from parking near it – and inform the post office they had done so. But there was a delay in moving the hoarding because Bouygues also wanted to combine this subcontracting with erecting hoarding at Creekside Centre – it was the centre's fault this had not been done, apparently. The box was finally reopened on 27 January, but the busiest time for the postbox – Christmas – had come and gone.

The postbox reopened at the end of January after the site hoarding was opened up.

Non-newsletters, trucks and the Creek...

Friendly correspondence with the Bouygues site manager soon turned into regular nagging as complaints grew. Newsletter updates were promised from Bouygues but were only delivered to the residents directly facing the development despite the work affecting more than half the estate.

Muck shifting vehicles could not get into the site without extensive manoeuvres

The bollards put up by the constructors to stop cars parking next to the postbox turned out to also serve the convenient purpose of facilitating easier access for the trucks entering and exiting the site. Each truck had been having to do a three or four point turn to get into the entrance. In the third week of January, the site entrance was widened. Some trucks are still taking up road space by reversing in; there is no room on the site for such manoeuvres.

Faircharm entrance finally widened

However, HGVs collecting demolition materials had already begun queuing in convoy up the road waiting to get on site – on some days as far as the Birds Nest pub, and many of them waiting longer than 30 minutes.

Dumper trucks queuing in convoy from January, blocking the road and public entrances

They blocked the entrances to APT Gallery and Studios and kept their engines running – in contravention of Rule 123 of the Highway Code. No one from Bouygues told them not to. We involved local councillor Joe Dromey who confirmed that Lewisham did not have the resources to police and enforce the problem and suggested we politely ask the drivers themselves to do this. Bouygues apologised that they didn't know that APT Gallery was a public venue; the message eventually filtered through and a gap was left for the gallery entrance. More recently, however, concrete mixers (whose engines can't be turned off) form the queues. Trucks continue to use the road, spilling loads and spreading dirt.

March 2016: muck trucks queuing all the way to the Birds Nest pub

In November 2015, we'd been assured we'd be told when "lorries will begin to take materials away in bulk" and complained about the queues. The response was that it was not "bulk muckshift" but just a couple of days of taking away crushed materials – at that time, the removal of demolition materials "had not been planned" and we'd be told when the real work started. But we weren't, of course.

The plan was to crush materials on site, whilst some of it was already being moved off the site by the "bin lorries". Wheel washing would be in place to avoid mud on the road, and all vehicles would turn left out of the site (southwards to Deptford Church St), as agreed with Lewisham Planning. The excuse for the fact that some lorries were turning right out of the site was that they had either come to the wrong site, or there was an accident (or too much congestion) at the Bird's Nest roundabout.

In November we asked whether Deptford Creek would be used in the removal of the demolition materials; it was a condition of the developer's planning permission that they carried out a feasibility study on transporting spoil and materials by river, rather than the 80 lorries a day they otherwise planned to have leaving and arriving at the site and clogging up our narrow back road.

As predicted, the developer had wriggled out of the more environmentally clean option of using the Creek – the feasibility study had concluded it was not 'economically viable' as the Creek could only be used "either side of high tide", plus they had to be "5 metres away from the DLR and would only have one place to site barges" – the place where Creekside Discovery Centre muster for their river walks. (Again, Creekside Centre was being blamed). In fact, the rule about being 5 metres from the DLR does not apply to vessels on the Creek, but to structures on land – and the place they can't use is where they have built their compound offices.

February 2016: demolition continues

Asbestos and dust

We also badgered the Site Manager about the dust the demolition was causing, and more worryingly, the removal of asbestos concrete roofing right opposite the estate.

Asbestos removal on the roofs – worker protected but no screens to protect the public

An operative wearing full protective clothing was seen bashing the roof out only yards away from residents' flats. The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) guidelines state that asbestos cement roofing is of medium risk and does not require an enclosure, except "when it is extensive and difficult to remove, resulting in much breakage and debris, or the work is close to occupied or sensitive areas" (p.90 of the HSE's guide).

Our concerns were passed to Ling Demolition who proceeded to carry out air monitoring tests almost immediately. Testing was carried out in close vicinity to the work (on the workers themselves) but not outside the perimeters of the site. However we were assured that "fibre concentrations at the sample locations were within control limits" and "fibre levels will not be greater at locations further afield".

December 2015: dust out of control, coating the surrounding area.

Meanwhile, our concerns about dust (coating the estate, the road, the pavements, Creekside Centre and Ha'Penny Hatch), was put down to excessive wind and a poor supply of water to the site. A 'water suppression system' was fitted to the 'high reach machine' but as a result of our complaints, additional equipment had to be ordered and 'extra water' brought in. Dust continues to be a problem however.

Presumably, Creekside Discovery Centre are satisfied with all these measures, as they have a duty of care to the young people visiting the centre, and would not run their programme if they had any serious concerns. But Wilshaw and Holden House residents who bear the brunt of most of this work have complained that better screening should have been erected to protect them from the dust. More than one resident contacted Lewisham's Environmental Services and got absolutely nowhere with their complaint. Ultimately, Bouygues have a good reputation as a 'considerate builder' to maintain. But it's not looking that good to us.

Cranes arrive...

An April newsletter from Bouygues confirmed that demolition was complete, marking the end of an exceptionally noisy period during which 'groundworkers' had installed 4 'piling mats'. This was followed by the 'groundworkers' casting the substructure works and constructing bases for two tower cranes which were erected at the beginning of April. They join the other two already installed at Kent Wharf – where the same process has been tormenting residents in the north of Crossfields, and presumably all at the Laban.

View from Ha'Penny Hatch, 8 April: the second crane is installed, indicating the building heights

Creekside Truck Park

A resident emailed us last week with the following:

"Knowing that you like a spot of NIMBY outrage I thought I'd send you this photo of Creekside Truck Park. 5 x 8-wheeled tippers (empty), 1 x artic full of steel, 2x white vans – one of the white vans completely blocking the pavement. Queue of cars in both directions struggling to get round the obstructed corner, observed Thursday 14th April at 08:20. Cheers, San".

Creekside Truck Park

Well, yes, San, we know. It's not quite NIMBYism though, is it. A post (or three) is well overdue. We have lots of documentation, just not much time to write... But since today was a spectacular example of the fuckwittery that goes on with HGVs on Creekside, we'll stick to talking about the roads in this first post of many...

Theoretically, Crossfielders are living next to and surrounded by building sites. However, the conditions created by the construction work going on at Faircharm, Kent Wharf and two Tideway Tunnel sites makes many of us feel like we're actually living on a building site.

No sooner had scaffolding come down on most Crossfields blocks five months ago – after noisy, dusty and highly controversial external works had finished on the estate itself and most of which was unnecessary – than work began in Creekside at Kent Wharf (Bellway Homes) and Faircharm Trading Estate (Workspace plc).

Residents who grapple with the vagaries of the public transport system when they go out to work are lucky to miss the all-day noise – unless they have late starts. In most cases everyone's morning alarm is the sound of trucks queuing up outside the window, a sound heard two blocks away. Having missed the extraordinarily loud noises during the day, when commuters get home they can enjoy the new layer of dust on their doorsteps, windows, paths and road.

Retired folk, shift workers, the unemployed and local workers have no escape. And it can only get worse as summer approaches when residents open their windows to let more dust and noise into their homes. Those living right opposite the Faircharm and Kent Wharf developments may find themselves adopting a rather unhealthy siege mentality, if they don't already. This was today's offering (movie to follow):

Average day on Creekside

Two of several cement mixers lined up along Creekside (they can't turn off their engines!)

The cement mixers began gathering on Creekside at around 8.30am and were still queuing at 2pm. Without any notice.

Not just Faircharm...

Without any notice whatsoever, for the past two weeks Creekside has been closed to through traffic by Murphys, the contractors for Tideway Tunnel.

Whilst inconvenient for local residents, this has the upside of stopping the road being used as a rat-run when this week Deptford Church Street was partially closed by – guess who – Murphys.

Tideway Tunnel did give notice for that – the first newsletter said it would be overnight with the future prospect of an 11 month closure; a subsequent letter said it wouldn't just be overnight but in fact would be for the next 8 months. A road sign at the start of the newly marked northbound single lane says 52 weeks (er...that's 12 months), whilst at the start of the single file southbound lane it says 48 weeks.

So far, traffic has run fairly smoothly; the 47 bus's Wavelengths stops on either side of the road have been moved south where there is room for overtaking (but with NO SHELTERS – not good at all). HGVs have been spotted sneaking up Frankham and Giffin Street (using the high street as a rat-run – but that was already happening), whilst emergency vehicles have been slowed down, as we predicted. In quiet moments, flashy types have been seen showing off as they expertly navigate the snaking single lanes at rally driving speeds.

But on the whole, it looks as if traffic may be avoiding the area and possibly clogging up routes and rat-runs in the surrounding area instead. Of course, the real test will be when there is an accident elsewhere or one of the tunnels is closed.

Meanwhile, traffic on Creekside is often blocked by lorries entering and exiting Faircharm, holding up local residents' arrival and exit. Not that they can find a parking space when they return during the day, since spaces are filled with construction workers' cars – despite signs for Residents Only parking. Residents Permits (rejected by generous but short-sighted residents previously) may be a priority now, if not for the future – since there will be no parking on the new developments.

We'll take a more detailed look at the woes of living in a construction site in a next post or two (there are no joys). We'd love to know what Lewisham Council think, and hope they will be able to help, though it all seems to be out of their control.

Train carriage squatted, and Creekside cafe to close

Plans to move the train cafe to Douglas Square have been taking a long time, and we heard it could be up to a year before it is relocated. In the meantime, the Deptford Project developers Cathedral plc had now agreed to help the cafe business owner's storage problem by moving it to one of their other sites in Greenwich (yet to be redeveloped) so that building work can commence on the Deptford site. But at the end of last week the train was squatted.

This is the same notice as was pinned to the door of the old Job Centre (perhaps even the very same notice), which was squatted at the end of September, just as refurbishment work was about to start on the new pub that is planned for the building. Although a train is not a pub, it seems the same rules apply, and no-one except the squatters can enter the premises. The decking was due to be removed and donated to a garden project, but now cannot be touched since it would deny the squatters access to their new pad. The electricity supply was also due to be cut off, but the squatters say it would be a breach of their human rights to remove their only source of power, which means the cafe (not the developer) may be stuck with a large bill.

No one was in when the site security guard let us into the yard on Saturday to take these photos. The developer's schedule will now be held up until they can get a court possession order. Not that they have seemed to be in any hurry to get started since they got planning permission several months ago.

Meanwhile, another local cafe is about to close, also thanks to redevelopment – the Creekside Cafe on Creekside, part of Faircharm Trading Estate. Their lease is up and there's no point in renewing it, since some time in 2014 building work will begin to turn a thriving employment zone into luxury housing. This will last three years or more and bring great disturbance to Crossfields residents. Unfortunately, a Lewisham Planning Committee agreed earlier this year that Workspace plc cannot make enough profit for its shareholders by simply providing actual workspace.

Creekside Cafe's situation differs from the train cafe in that its owners (Mason's Catering, already a fairly successful catering firm based on Deptford Church Street) knew nothing about Workspace's plans to turn Faircharm Trading Estate into luxury flats and chuck out the businesses that the cafe serves when they took on the tenancy. The train, on the other hand, was initially supported by the developer, who paid for its installation as "meantime use" on the site. In return, Cathedral ingratiated itself into the community with its branding, whilst boasting the cafe's successes as its own. Until, that is, they got their planning permission and wanted rid of it.

The same clever developer did the same last year with the pop-up Mvemnt Café by Greenwich DLR, which was run by Greenwich Co-operative Development Agency, who knew the limits of the project – to cash in on the Olympic pedestrian traffic to Greenwich Park. Perhaps a fine example of "meantime use". Cathedral hailed it as a great success, though we hardly ever saw or met anyone there (since most Olympics punters were herded away from it and all the other Greenwich businesses).

It seems "meantime use" can only work if the business can be easily relocated or closed down. But even then, a planning application can take a long time to come to fruition, and there are often delays in building phases once permission is got, so any business who takes up a "meantime" offer suffers enormous insecurity about when they must move out. In the meantime the business may have become established in the community, sorely missed as a community resource when it's gone, and the business itself left with debts it has no chance of recouping if it cannot easily relocate. And even if they can, like the businesses being chucked out of Faircharm, relationships in the community built up over many years are severed by a move to another borough or town.

Meanwhile, Creekside Cafe has only been around for a relatively short time, but their cheap and tasty food proved popular with and highly convenient for local artists, craftspeople and residents – and those Creekside businesses who haven't yet been forced out by Workspace's new plans for Faircharm.

Faircharm 'Creative Quarter' update

Planning application: DC/12/8200

Additional documents have been submitted to Lewisham Planning by developers Workspace plc and their architects since the not-very-public meeting held at Creekside Centre on February 12th chaired by Dame Joan Ruddock (see previous post).

There is still time to object to the application, and/or sign the petition. The petition has been handed in to Planning, but is still running. A recent deadline given for objections is April 17th "so that your views can be taken into account when the application is being considered", but as stated in previous posts, comments can be received up until some time in May.

Since the meeting in February, not much has changed:

• No hope that the developers would look at the idea of using the Creek to transport materials in and out of the site: there will still be 180 lorries a day using Creekside during the three year construction period. This is by far the most annoying aspect of this development for locals, and if you have passed by the present construction on Norman Road, you will know how loud and noisy construction can be. Residents living next to the construction work going on at Paynes & Borthwick Wharf (down on Watergate Street) have endured endless disruption, with work going on six days a week, construction workers parking anywhere they like, a misuse of local green amenities, and concrete mixing lorries queueing up in the street from 6am, waiting to get on site.

• The developers were asked to amend their figures on present traffic in Creekside since their study overestimated the number of vehicles using the road (290) in order to make the impact of their construction vehicles look minimal. It turned out their study had included cyclists! They still insist impact will be minimal, though worryingly their studies now show that the cumulative effect of all developments in the area will result in a 484% and 428% increase in traffic at the south and north ends of Creekside respectively by 2016. No evidence is provided as to which developments they are referring to, or how their own development might be identified within these figures.

• Lewisham Planners questioned the information about queue lengths at junctions and impact on surrounding roads, and they think the applicant has underestimated the number of trips that will be made by businesses. The information on peak travel at junctions was underestimated, as was the impact on rail and bus services. The info supplied on large construction vehicles accessing the site was deemed inadequate and there were no details on how construction workers' parking would be controlled. It was noted that the 180 trips a day for construction vehicles does not include construction staff trips.

• LBL also challenged how Workspace has arrived at the figure of 300 employees working at the proposed development. In answer, Workspace said this figure was based on the Homes & Communities Agency Employment Density Guide for B1 Office Use. They said that in reality it was more likely that the site would have 80-100 employees. (Thus they cannot say they are increasing employment in the area!). However, newly submitted documents still insist there will be 300+ employees.

• Some B2 use has been squeezed into the site at the Planner's request, but is still inadequate for the present tenants who need large spaces. In fact tenants have received NO CONTACT whatsoever since the public meeting on Feb 12th, with no attempts to find them alternative accommodation using the £500,000 Workspace claim to have put aside for this.

• Parking has not changed: the developer insists there will be enough roadside parking on Creekside (even though this only accounts for around 35 cars and is already fully occupied by other business users in Creekside) to make up for the paltry 28 parking spaces on site. 148 new flats = 246 new people + 300 employers/employees?

• Of course, there is no change to the number of affordable units (15%).

• They also still insist there will be minimal impact on sunlight to the surrounding buildings, and the submitted studies do indeed show little impact to Crossfields, but maximum impact on Creekside Centre and Deptford Creek (APT Studios are not shown). However, the studies do not show before 9am or after 5pm, and it is likely that there will be a huge impact on Crossfields before 9am in winter, when long shadows will be cast to the west.

Winter shadow study (page 22 of 'DC_12_82000_X-ADDENDUM_TO_D_A.pdf')

The petition garnered some views from local residents and business users:

"Very much want to stay on Creekside as a tenant. We run the world's largest photography project from here and if Faircharm closes we will be forced out of the borough."

"Workspace are capitalising on the developments taking place in the area with no consideration for the future of their tenants or their tenants businesses. Businesses here have worked hard to establish themselves; it’s critical now in particular, that all businesses can continue to develop without interruption. As with others here, TPG uses local resources and talent to support its operation – we have developed a network of support services from this area. If Workspace are successful in their application, the Faircharm redevelopment will be a dramatic loss to the local area and its employment. It’s not an acceptable route for this area when employment is tough to find and businesses need the support of their elected representatives to fight negative developments of this sort."

Page 15 of 'DC_12_82000_X-ADDENDUM_TO_D_A.pdf'

"If the workspace plans for the Faircharm Estate are allowed to proceed the quality of life for local residents will be seriously effected and will destroy a thriving balance between housing and work that benefits all by offering a viable alternative to the over-bearing mainstream."

"The proposed demolition (and building) work on the Faircharm will be intrusive, noisy, dusty and environmentally damaging. If the planned buildings were constructed it will compromise the security of, and access to, our site, largely exclude the local (Crossfields Estate) community, and merely create more under-sized flats in an area which is meant to offer employment opportunities."

Page 11 of 'DC_12_82000_X-ADDENDUM_TO_D_A.pdf'

 
"Residents should be compensated for the inconvenience and disturbance caused by three years of construction works."
 
"Redeveloping the site will force companies to move and take their workforce and clients with them away from Deptford. There is so much empty residential and commercial space around that increasing this instead of supporting creative industries does not make sense. People need places to make things, work together and build creative businesses and Faircharm has this."

"Traffic disruption on a quiet back road, i.e. Creekside. Dirt and dust from the building site. Loss of light when tower is built. Parking problems. Negative effect on businesses already established on Faircharm. Rats and vermin."

Page 4 of 'DC_12_82000_X-ADDENDUM_TO_D_A.pdf'

 
"Given the loss of industrial units in the area the last thing we need are more flats, the majority of which appear to be unoccupied as it is. Workshops and workplaces must balance the residential places in the area. Otherwise we are reduced to a dormitory suburb with high levels of commuting..."

"This development offers nothing to the community living and working on Creekside. The proposed buildings are architecturally ugly and obscenely expensive 'dormitories', with no sense of creating anything which, after years of disruption and mess, will enhance the area or build anything lasting for community use."

"In an area that has lost nearly all of its dedicated work/light-medium industrial/artist studio space to high-rise, high priced residential units, it would be absolutely criminal to allow this profit-led development to go ahead."

Page 19 of 'DC_12_82000_X-ADDENDUM_TO_D_A.pdf'

See previous posts:

http://crossfields.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/faircharm-redevelopment-update.html

http://crossfields.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/faircharm-uncreative-quarter-fuq-3.html

http://crossfields.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/faircharm-uncreative-quarter-2.html

Sold down the river...

If you wondered what was going on with those cranes on the other side of Deptford Creek, the above visual is from Cathedral plc's planning application for their development in Norman Road. It's called The Movement. Read on to see how your landscape will change over the next few years (with a focus on the river)...

The Movement application for Norman Road SE10 was submitted to Greenwich Council in 2010. We weren't consulted even though it has a significant impact on our skyline if the cranes are anything to go by, which can be seen from the other side of Deptford.

Proposed buildings are always shown in isolation, renderings rarely show the true impact, and only planners know what's going on elsewhere in the area. On these borders between Lewisham and Greenwich, you may wonder whether there is any collaboration. Historically there is very little.

In the 2011 planning drawings (submitted to Greenwich), The Movement's new towers are set against the backdrop of Creekside Village, as if to say "our towers are quite modest and unobjectionable" compared with what's planned for the area.

Click on the image below of The Movement to see a larger view of what is proposed for Creekside Village EAST that has yet to materialise. It shows a really massive tower to add to the horrendous wall of glass that is already there (Creekside Village West). This would be on the site behind the Laban and straddles the borders of Greenwich and Lewisham.

Hidden behind the tower would be two more towers and another 'wall' style block. Both councils approved the plans in principle for Creekside Village East, but whilst Greenwich signed off on it, Lewisham held out over the Section 106 agreements. One of the pay offs for Lewisham would be a theatre space and extra facilities for Trinity Laban, but there was also a bridge across the Creek proposed that had little design (or practical) merit. Some time has passed since the last revised drawings in 2007 so plans will have to be reviewed, along with the Section 106 aspects. (View the old application here). Apparently, we were consulted – the Community Consultation statement says local residents on Crossfields and Millennium Quay attended a meeting held by Creekside Forum in 2006 (first we've heard about it!). Here's a promotional shot from 2009 that we posted in March 2010:

 

And below, the view from the bridge on Creek Road in which two of the new towers and the new wall are visible.

And a view from Creekside in which all four new buildings can be seen looming up behind the Laban.

The present view from the Creek:

Very recently, planning permission has gone in again for the footbridge that would cross from the Laban (west side) to Norman Road (east), which the Deptford Dame has written about this month. Update: It is now rumoured that the Laban bridge may be the one aspect of the old application that needs to be completed before the developer (Ampurius Nu Homes) can sell off the Eastern side of the site to another investor. It is thought that the poor bridge design is unlikely to be approved, and the Creekside Village East project may be delayed still further. We hope.

Closer to home, Workspace's Faircharm application uses Creekside Village West to show how modest their tower is in comparison. If the drawing was extended further east, it ought to show also the proposed Creekside Village East super-blocks and The Movement development. But it doesn't.

The drawing tries to show that views are not obscured very much for anyone standing in the road and that there is no loss of light, although everyone in the flats in front of the development on Crossfields will have a radically altered view and loss of light. The developers claim they'll have a better view because they'll be looking out onto a nice development instead of an industrial estate that the developers themselves have allowed to run down.

Meanwhile, the plans for Creekside Village West & East have served to make every other developer's ambitions look modest in comparison. We already have the monolithic new wall separating us from the river that is Galliard Homes' Capital Quay. The density of this development means there will be no light at all to the apartments at its interior.

Further out along the river, there's a new 40-storey tower planned for Surrey Quays (below)...and more towers at Greenwich Peninsula. Perhaps though, slimline towers (Seager Tower?) aren't quite as bad as the the 12+ storey blocks that always seem to surround them. The height, density and massing of the surrounding buildings are what cause loss of light and wind tunnels and make a development even more inhospitable and inhuman.

Back in Deptford, after a long lull (developers ran out of cash, rented out site as film set), building is progressing apace at Paynes & Borthwick Wharf down by the river on Deptford's Watergate Street (Greenwich), where local residents endure work going on six days a week, stationary concrete mixing lorries queue in the street waiting to get onsite, construction workers park anywhere they like (including in front of the Dog n'Bell, preventing beer deliveries) and Twinkle Park is littered with construction workers' drinks cans and fag butts. Here's a model of the development shown in isolation to its surroundings...and as it is on the street behind (with a similar block to Crossfields, Rowley   House, on the left).

Almost right next door is the 40-acre Convoys Wharf (aka The King's Yard). This week we shall see what Farrells have planned for the site since their first engagement with the project last year. It is still likely to be 3500 flats and three very tall towers. Below are two renderings by the previous architects Aedas (2011), followed by Farrell's model, shown in July 2012. Farrells lowered the heights of some of the surrounding blocks and paid lip service to the history of the site, but the density remained, as per the brief of their masters, Chinese conglomerate, Hutchison Whampoa.

 

Like the architects before them, Farrells insists on talking about the towers at Convoys Wharf as a way of 'landmarking' Deptford as seen from the river and Canary Wharf. Obviously, tall buildings are a way of getting maximum return on a site, and to this day, News International, who sold the site to Hutchison Whampoa, still have a profit share on the luxury flats sold.

At a recent 'public' meeting Workspace also described their proposed luxury residential tower at Faircharm as a way of 'landmarking' Deptford Creek. The change from industrial use (employment) to mixed residential use will apparently fund the renovation of the much reduced business space. Residential use is required, says Workspace's Development Executive, because "Lewisham is a net exporter of employees to jobs in central London". However, not building luxury flats by this riverside, they say in their planning application, would be a "missed opportunity".

The gift that keeps on giving, of course, is public access to the river (or muddy Creek). But at what price?

That brings us to an article called Sold Down The River written by Deyan Sudjic, an architecture journalist writing for The Observer in May 2003. He is now Head of the Design Museum. Here are a couple of extracts:

Change in itself is not the problem. We have gained a lot from London's new relationship with its river. Tate Modern and the London Eye have both created new areas of the city, bustling with life, a healthy mixture of uses, and all the attractions that a view of water can bring. But a lot more of the new Thames is not like that. Large stretches are dominated by a continuous wall of riverside apartment blocks that have driven out everything else, to create a tidy but sterile monoculture. The river has become a thin strip of affluence, existing in a bubble that has nothing to do with life in the rest of the city just a street behind.

Now developers, driven by soaring land values to extract the most out of every inch of riverside, build as close to the river as they can. Whole stretches are now lined with apartment blocks, built to take advantage of the views of the river, but the result is to offer residents spectacular views of all the other ranks of balconies on either side of them, and on the other side of the river, looking back at them. In the process the Thames has been turned into something very much like a very long thin football stadium. 

Read the entire article here.

See also Owen Hathaway's recent article The Shard: Beacon of the left's skyline in The Guardian on 12 February 2013, a little less than ten years later than Sudjic's. Hathaway argues how the Section 106 agreement, by which local authorities are able to bargain some sort of public infrastructure out of developers, has failed spectacularly. Not helped, of course, by the relaxation in planning laws that now allows developers to duck out of any commitments to affordable housing (let alone housing that is actually affordable).

Postscript 28 February

For Crossfields, the immediate problem is Faircharm, where the owners wish to make the most of their land next to a very muddy Creek. Someone told them it was a river. Which it is. Across the way, architects BPTW who own the land across the Creek almost opposite the Laban had planned a tower. They have now modified their ideas. At the southern end of the Creek, Galliard have a hold, but Creek dwellers may be alarmed to hear the rumour that Lewisham College are reconsidering the sale of 'the island' again, a piece of concrete that straddles the Creek and which the Ravensbourne is channeled through to appear on the other side of 'Deptford Bridge' and provide a lovely setting for the Seager development. 

The Movement can't really be considered a riverside development. We mention it because it grows stealthily on our doorstep, and it's particularly relevant because it has displaced an industrial business site (an employment area) which had to be closed a few years ago to make way for it, in the same way Faircharm businesses will be closed down to make way for residential flats. The Movement is also in Greenwich, who don't seem to have any credible planning policy. But, although we haven't examined the respective land ownerships, it doesn't seem much different to Thurston Road, another business site which was sold off and is now being developed to join the towers of the monstrous new Croydon-like development on Loampit Vale. Update 6 March: see also Alternative SE4's news on the stalled Lewisham Gateway development.

Cannon Wharf and Marine Wharf also look to put more stress on the Evelyn Street area. (See  Alternative SE4). Round the corner there is the massive Surrey Canal Road development.
 
Also see: What is the right way to regenerate in London?