A controversial Bermondsey infill block that will provide eighteen council flats was voted through unanimously at a planning meeting on Monday night (November 22).
The decision came after a late intervention from the Southwark Law Centre’s planning team, who said that the proposed new eight-storey building on Southwark Park Road went against rules for density, urban greening and privacy and light, and also raised concerns about the impact of construction on the existing residents.
Speaking at the meeting, Tooley Street planners told the committee that the density requirements in Southwark’s new housing plan would be lower, meaning the new build on the Matson House car park would comply. The greenery is below requirements but an improvement on the current situation, they said. Although the light coming into some neighbouring windows will be affected by the new build, it will still meet the planning rules.
Objectors from the estate said at the meeting, alongside other concerns, that consultation had not been at all effective – which appears to be a running theme in the council’s plans for new social housing across the borough. Southwark’s housing team admitted that some consultation meetings had attracted as few as two or three people, in an estate of 241 homes.
Bermondsey infill: Slippers Place residents slam plans for new council homes
Councillors at the meeting said that although it was “quite sad” that the new build did not appear to have the approval of people on the estate, it was clear that the housing team tried to get people involved through various forms of online and physical newsletters.
Cllr Martin Seaton, chairing the meeting, said the “responsibility is on us to make sure residents are fully aware” of plans on their estate, and added that “we need to be better”. Lib Dem committee member Cllr David Noakes said that the council needs to be “the gold standard” for resident engagement.
It comes before the Southwark Group of Tenants Organisations (SGTO), an umbrella group for tenants and residents associations in the borough, ask to speak at the council assembly on Wednesday (November 24) about the consultation on proposed council new builds. The group has since been denied its opportunity to speak.
“High standards of consultation are required to establish genuine consent from existing residents to new housing developments within their estate,” a statement submitted ahead of the meeting reads.
“The residents on estates where infill and/or rooftop homes are proposed have been poorly consulted on these developments – consultations have been ill-attended, questions have been leading and in many cases, widespread resident objections to proposed new homes developments have been ignored.”
As with Slippers Place, the council has always maintained that it has carried out the correct level of consultation.