Agenda Item 5B
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Page 15 Agenda Item 5b 8 week date Application No. Date of meeting Report No. 24.06.09 GR/2009/0238 29.07.09 The Former Northfleet Cement Works, The Shore, Northfleet, Kent Outline application for a mixed development and comprising up to 510 homes, up to 46,000 sq m employment floorspace (B1/B2/B8), mixed use neighbourhood centre comprising up to 850 sq m of retail/cafe/takeaway (A1/A2/A3/A5) and D1 community centre, up to 500 sq m A3/A4 food and drink uses, public open space, fastrack link, street and footpath network, access improvements to Grove Road/The Creek and The Shore/Crete Hall Road, supporting services and infrastructure, ground re-grading, other minor works and development ancillary to main proposals together with associated car parking and landscaping for the development. Lafarge Cement UK Recommendation: This is an interim report for information of the Board and not for decision at this stage. The Board are asked to consider and endorse the key issues that are identified in the report and to suggest any other issues that they consider should be appraised by the applicants. 1. Site Description The application site covers an area of 30.97ha. The application site is located on land within the former Northfleet Cement Works in the west section of what is known as Northfleet Embankment. The site is bounded by the River Thames to the north, dissected by the B2175 Northfleet High Street and bordered by the North Kent Railway Line to the south. To the east lies Kimberly Clarke tissue paper mill and the west are Robin’s Creek and existing industrial areas. The whole of the Cement Works site is around 42.2 ha in size including land in Vineyard Pit and Church Path Pit. Northfleet is the home of Portland Cement and bulk powders have been manufactured, imported, exported and packaged at Northfleet Works site for the last 150 years. Over the years the extraction of chalk and the resultant level changes has created a fragmented landscape with varying levels. The works site can be split into four distinct areas: Page 16 • Church Path Pit – a former quarry lying between the B2175 and the North Kent Line accessed by tunnel from the main works site, the western branch of this quarry is known as St Botolph’s Pit; • Northfleet Works – the current site of the cement works laid out on a level quarry floor between the B2175 and 42 Wharf on the River Thames; • The former Bevan’s Works Site – the area to the west of Lawn Road including the main site access and land rising up from the river front towards the existing residential community of Northfleet; formerly the site of Bevans Cement Works; and • Vineyard Pit – a small quarry on what is the main road access into the works lying between the B2175 Northfleet High Street and the North Kent Railway Line. Bevan’s works dates from 1926 with significant upgrades in 1958 but itself was a wholesale replacement of the Knight, Bevan and Sturge works originally dating from the 1850’s but reconfigured in 1905. Church Path Pit and Vineyard Pit are 19 th Century chalk quarries. Vineyard Pit until 2008 contained 2 large fuel oil tanks and an associated pump house which have now been removed as part of the decommissioning works. There is an electricity distribution area to the east of Church Path Pit but this is not within the application site. The southernmost part of Church Path Pit contains railway infrastructure associated with the Ebbsfleet International and domestic railway stations which are situated further to the south. Church Path Pit used to contain part of the ‘merry go round’ rail system from the Cement Works to Northfleet Station and Northfleet sidings. There are two wharfs to the river frontage of the cement works - Bevans Wharf, a wooden structure located within the river, which in more recent years has been used only for the occasional import and export of bulk powders; and 42 Wharf, a working wharf, so named because of its 42 feet depth, which has been used for the import and export of cement bulk powder/cement clinker and the import of fuel, and is one of the best deep water wharfs in the South East Region with the potential for reinstated rail links. The waterfront to the River Thames is formed of man-made flood protection walls. Between 42 Wharf and the Shore, at the east end of the site, there is a small inlet which forms a beach at low water. Currently public access to the riverside is restricted with some limited public access available at the Shore adjacent to the east entrance to the Cement Works. The Cement Works is characterised by industrial utilitarian buildings of varying scales and heights with conveyors and silos. They are mostly steel structures clad in mineral compound sheeting. Some areas are devoid of buildings such as south of Bevans works site where much of the land is derelict apart from the existence of the Bevans chimney which dates from 1958. There is an existing seven storey office building on the site which is located next to The Shore and alongside 42 Wharf. It was built in the Brutalist architectural style. The office building currently accommodates the Port of London Authority (PLA) radar equipment. In April 2008 the cement kilns ceased to operate, since then there has been on-going grinding of clinker; the cement works ceased operations in December 2008 and, is in the process of demolition on a staged basis. The demolition works will include the removal REPORT NO PAGE 2 Page 17 of the industrial buildings, the office building, the chimneys and Bevans wharf. The wharf is to be demolished as it is according to the applicants reaching a point where significant repair and upgrading would be required. An element of cement based activity is still continuing in the form of the import and distribution of bulk powders via 42 Wharf following a planning permission granted in 2005. The wider Northfleet Embankment is traditionally an area of heavy industry and employment including manufacturing, a tissue paper mill, aggregates import, a builder’s yard and vacant plots. The settlement of Northfleet lies to the south of the site. Land use here is predominately residential, with some commercial use comprising shops and services at The Hive. Lawn Road School is located immediately to the south of the main cement works site. The main road access into the Northfleet Cement Works is privately owned and runs from a roundabout junction on A2260 Thames Way (also known as STDR 4) underneath the North Kent Railway Line and through Vineyard Pit before entering the site via a tunnel under Northfleet High Street. Other road linkages exist from Grove Road to the west and The Shore/Crete Hall Road to the east. There are a number of public footpaths that are located within and adjoining the application site - NU42 runs from High Street Northfleet along the length of Lawn Road in a northerly direction and into the works site before turning eastwards along the Shore to Granby Road; NU3 that runs in a northerly direction from Hive Lane towards the old Bevans Works and NU6 that runs from the Bevans Works to join Grove Road. Public Footpaths NU7 and NU8 cross at a high level over Church Path Pit but are not within the works site and NU4 adjoins the eastern side of the Cement Works site along Granby Road. Footpath NU7a on the other hand does run alongside part of the road access from Thames Way into Vineyard Pit and across towards Blue Lake where it links with footpath NU14 as well as running north to High Street Northfleet. The application site for the mixed use development comprises the western section of the Northfleet Cement Works site. It includes Grove Road at the western end of the Cement Works. It excludes Robins Creek also at the western end of the Cement Works where the Ebbsfleet River enters the River Thames. The outlet at Robins Creek is controlled via a sluice and vegetation has colonised the area around the creek. Robins Creek is principally in the ownership of the Environment Agency. It performs a floodwater storage function for the Ebbsfleet River where tide lock prevents discharge to the River Thames and comprises some mud flats and pioneer vegetation. 2. Planning History The Northfleet Works including the application site has a long history of industrial use. Cement manufacturing on the site of the present day Northfleet Works began in the 1850s with the construction of Bevans Works. This was reconstructed twice before elements of it were incorporated within the new Northfleet Works, constructed between 1969 and1970. Served by road, rail and water, Northfleet Works on its opening was the largest cement works of its kind in the world. As built, rail traffic was intended to be 21 coal trains per week, bringing in 1 Mt/a of coal and 9 trains of gypsum inwards per week (250,000 t/a required). Cement production totalled 3.8 Mt/a of which 1.3 Mt/a cement was despatched by rail (about 18 trains per week) and the remainder by water for export and by road for UK consumption. REPORT NO PAGE 3 Page 18 The closure of Northfleet Cement Works, due to the exhaustion of its main permitted raw material (chalk from Eastern Quarry) has been in the public domain for many years prior to occurring in April 2008. Planning policy dating back to 1994 has identified opportunities for elements of the Northfleet Works site to be redeveloped for other uses.