Plans for a “massive” wall-mounted advert near Walworth Road have been submitted to Southwark Council.
The billboard, measuring 7.5 x 5.5 metres, will be located on the wall of 416 Albany Road near the southern entrance to Walworth Road and Camberwell Road.
This borders the Walworth Road conservation area, which was set up to preserve the character of the historic street.
The Walworth Society, a local heritage organisation, said they “strongly object” to the proposed billboard.
They described the planning application as “invalid”, claiming it “lacked a Heritage Statement” assessing its impact on the local area.
“We object to the idea that this is a small-scale advertisement – in reality it covers a very large part of the south facing wall of 416 Albany Road,” their website reads. “The proposal harms the Walworth Road Conservation Area owing to its location at the gateway to the Conservation Area and its extremely prominent location.”
The planning application says that the visual impact of the billboard “is considered to be minimal.”
“These types of small-scale poster sites play an important role in the delivery of community messaging and community support for the arts and culture and local businesses,” it added.
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The building on which the billboard is planned was built between 1810 to 1812 and resembles the other buildings on Camberwell Road, which have listed status.
“The introduction of any images on the sidewall will have a detrimental effect both structurally and aesthetically,” said the Walworth Society.
They continued: “There is documentary evidence that the Promenade was developed as one run of grand shops which are approaching double height and when they opened, they were said to be as fine as any shops that you would encounter in the West End.”
The Walworth Society also claimed the billboard may constitute a danger to users of the busy B-road.
“This is a notoriously dangerous junction where there have previously been fatalities and we object strongly to any distraction that increases driver inattention – the application specifically refers to the target audience being drivers,” read their website.
Walworth Road was declared a Conservation Area by Southwark Council in 2016.
This status was intended to “steer” council planning officers into picking designs that were more “sympathetic to Walworth’s character when looking at applications for new developments in the area.
The planning application number is 22/AP/0960.
It can be viewed at the Southwark Council Planning Portal here.
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