APPENDIX 12 – ALBANY RIVERSIDE PLANNING COMMITTEE REPORT Agenda Item 7
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APPENDIX 12 – ALBANY RIVERSIDE PLANNING COMMITTEE REPORT Agenda Item 7 PLANNING COMMITTEE [email protected] References: P/2016/3371 00607/T/P1 Address: 40 and 40a High Street, Brentford TW8 0DS Proposal: Demolition of existing office building and Arts Centre to provide 193 new dwellings within buildings of part 6, part 7 storeys (Class C3), with ancillary ground floor retail/cafe, hard and soft landscaping, revised vehicular access and all necessary enabling and ancillary works. Ward: Brentford This application is a Major development with a S106 agreement on Council owned land 1.0 SUMMARY 1.1 The proposal is for the demolition of the existing buildings on the site and its redevelopment to provide 193 new private dwellings alongside basement car parking, landscaping and provision of a new riverside public walkway and retail/café unit. 1.2 The scheme is considered to be a of a high design quality, providing high quality residential accommodation with limited impact on existing residents’ amenity or the local transport network. It is considered that the scheme would have less than substantial harm on nearby heritage assets, including Kew World Heritage Site and the Grade I Listed Kew Palace located on the opposite side of the River Thames. The significant public benefits of the scheme, when taken in conjunction with the delivery of a re-provided arts centre in the centre of Brentford, outweigh any perceived harm. 1.3 This application would be delivered in conjunction with the proposals for the Brentford Police Station site on Half Acre (application ref 00540/A/P6), which proposes the redevelopment of the site to facilitate the provision of a new Arts Centre and 105 new dwellings, including 60 affordable homes. The two applications would be linked through a common Section 106 agreement, ensuring the continuity of provision of an arts centre within the Brentford area and the delivery of 20% affordable housing across the two sites. The application is recommended for approval subject to conditions and a section 106 agreement. 2.0 SITE DESCRIPTION 2.1 The subject site, which comprises approximately 0.63 hectares in size, is located on the southern side of Brentford High Street, between Smith Hill and Waterman’s Park and bordered by the River Thames to the south. 2.2 The site is occupied by the vacant two-storey Max Factor office building and the Waterman’s Arts Centre. Car Parking is provided at basement level, 166 shared between the two buildings and accessed from the forecourt of the arts centre. The buildings are generally low-rise, predominantly of red brick with minimal formal landscape planting, although there is poorly maintained hedging along the High Street frontage. There is currently a riverside path that connects Waterman’s Park and Smith Hill alongside the arts centre and office building, although this is poorly maintained, presents a convoluted route and requires stepped access. The office building has been vacant for a number of years, but the arts centre is currently occupied. The Council own the freehold to the arts centre building and lease this to the Hounslow Arts Trust for the delivery of the Waterman’s Arts Centre. The Max Factor office building is in separate ownership. 2.3 The surrounding area is mixed in terms of scale, height, use and materiality, although red brick is a typical feature for both recent and older developments. Opposite the site is a low-rise McDonald’s restaurant and car park with open areas of public landscaping/amenity space to the east, and beyond a residential area with buildings ranging between two and four storeys. Immediately to the east of the site is Waterman’s Park with its child’s playground and riverside walkway. Vehicular access to the park for maintenance vehicles is taken from the corner adjacent to the application site. Whilst the site directly borders the River Thames, at this point Brentford Ait and Lots Ait split the flow of the river with the main waterway to the south of these islands. Whilst Brentford Ait is uninhabited and is a site of importance for nature conservation, there are a number of residential moorings and businesses on Lots Ait, which is accessed via a footbridge to the northern bank of the river. To the west of the site are the recent developments of Lighterage Court, Knowing Court and Malthouse Court, with the Ferry Quays development beyond. These buildings range in height from six to seven storeys along the High Street frontage with typically an additional storey at the river frontage owing to the fall in levels away from the High Street. Other notable buildings in the vicinity include Charlton House, at up to nine storeys (north-west of the site) and the Travelodge, Holland Gardens and Music Museum between five and eight storeys (north-east of the site). 2.4 The site has a Public Transport Accessibility Level (PTAL) of 3, on a scale of 0-6b, and is described as ‘Moderate’. Approximately 800m to the east is Kew Bridge Station, which provides services to and from London Waterloo. There are five bus routes accessible within 120m of the site that run along Brentford High Street and Ealing Road. There are double yellow line parking restrictions on Brentford High Street and Ealing Road. Vehicular access to the site is currently towards the eastern end of the site, away from the traffic light controlled junction with Ealing Road. A right-turn filter allows access for the eastbound traffic on the High Street with a central refuge between the junction and start of the filter lane. There is an on-highway cycle lane on both sides of the High Street for the length of the site and beyond in both directions. Smith Hill, which forms the western boundary of the site, is adopted footway and provides direct access to the river. 2.5 The site is not located within a conservation area and there are no listed buildings on or immediately adjacent to the site, although the Word Heritage Site of Kew Gardens is located on the opposite side of the river and the site is visible from a number of conservation areas. Kew Palace, a Grade I Listed Building is approximately 280m south of the site, located within the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, which is also a conservation area within the London Borough of Richmond. 167 2.6 There are no notable trees on the site, although there are several street trees around the entrance to Waterman’s Park from the High Street. 2.7 The Council’s Local Plan (adopted September 2015) allocates the Albany Riverside site (under Site Reference 11) for mixed use development with a ratio of 50:50 residential to non-residential uses subject to the re-provision of the arts centre either on the site or closer to Brentford Town Centre. The site is also an Archaeological Priority Area, an area of Industrial History/Contamination and within the Thames Policy Area, for which the site is designated as an area suitable for mixed use development. Waterman’s Park is an area of Local Open Space. The site lies partially within Flood Zones 2 and 3a, although it is noted that there is an existing flood defence wall along the length of the application site. 2.8 Waterman’s Park is designated as local open space whilst the riverbank tidal area of the Thames is designated as Metropolitan Open Land. 3.0 HISTORY 3.1 The following history is relevant to the Max Factor office building: 3.2 00607/M/PA1 Prior notification of change of use from B1a office use to C3 residential (22 units) Approved 24/06/2014 3.3 00607/M/PA2 Prior notification of change of use from B1a office use to C3 residential (22 units) 168 Approved 06/09/2017 3.4 There is no recent planning history for the Waterman’s Arts Centre that is relevant to this application. 4.0 DETAILS 4.1 The application proposes the redevelopment of the site to provide 193 flats with 272sqm (GIA) retail (A1, A3 and A4) space at ground floor alongside new landscaping including provision of a new riverside walkway. 4.2 The development would be arranged over five blocks with a maximum height of eight storeys over a basement/lower ground floor level. The five blocks would be set back from the High Street to allow for additional landscaping and the widening of the existing footpath along the frontage of the site. They would be positioned in a staggered arrangement such that some blocks step forward of others to create a varied building line which is reflected on the riverside frontage. The two end blocks would be seven storeys in height on the High Street frontage with the three blocks in the middle being eight storeys. From the river these would appear as eight and nine storey buildings given the change in levels across the site from the High Street to the river frontage. Each of the five blocks would have its own entrance and core fronting onto the High Street. At basement/lower ground floor level would be the car park with cycle and refuse/recycling stores and other plant with the retail space which would front onto the river and Waterman’s Park, as well as private landscaped gardens for residents which would be raised above the new public riverside walk. Ground floor site plan 169 4.3 The development would have a multi-faceted design to provide each residential unit with a multi-aspect outlook. It would be finished in brick with precast concrete detailing to break up the massing.