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Motspur Park Gas Holders 25/02562/FUL

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Application Summary 25/02562/FUL | Demolition of existing gasholders and associated above ground structures and buildings. Phased redevelopment of site to provide 8 to 16 storey 5nos blocks with 586 residential units and ancillary residential facilities (C3 Use Class), together with associated works to the existing accesses and internal vehicular routes, new pedestrian and cycle routes, the provision of new publicly accessible open space, amenity space, hard and soft landscaping, cycle and car parking, works to the brook embankment, re-siting of some gas infrastructure, ground works and plant and associated works. Cross boundary application with LB Merton: Development within Merton comprises works to existing vehicle access onto West Barnes Lane, including hard and soft landscaping and new public realm and associated ground works, to provide pedestrian and cycle route with access for emergency vehicles only, new pedestrian/cycle access routes to Marina Avenue and Sir Joseph Hood Memori...
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Cambridge Road Estate Phase 2 planning application responses

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  This application should be withdrawn until some of the issues are properly dealt with. This pertains to the incompatibility with the London Plan and the access to open space. Our unrestricted access to 'open space' as detailed in the original Barton Wilmore document, has recently been withdrawn on the 'authority' of the police. The perception was that it encouraged 'anti-social', behaviour. This has been compounded recently by a sign on the cemetery gates stating that dogs are prohibited. This means that on occasion when the cemetery is open, say for the school run, dogs cannot be brought into the cemetery and families with pupils going to King Athelstan or Hollyfield will have to perambulate via the main road. It was said at the time that this would happen and full access was only initiated by the council until planning permission was granted. We are deficient in access to open space and this application should reflect t his by reducing the density of the sch...
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Badgers in Kingston

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  Badgers mark their territories by pooing into a scrape in the soil. Sometimes their ‘poos' can be soft and other times quite 'well formed'. The photograph is taken from a series of latrines around a development site in Chessington. Badgers are not mentioned in the ecology reports for the proposed development. Badgers and development do not sit well together. A development can curtail the access a badger has to resources and safe trackways that may have been used for generations. Developments that do not consider Badgers, can push animals into roads, where they can cause accidents.  Over the years, I have written several posts regarding Badgers and development, mainly around Kingston Hill including the Golf Courses coombe-wood-lawn-tennis- . This included two sites owned/developed by Kingston Council, -although the Council were not the applicant for the licence to close the sett - failure to accomodate badger movement, appears to have pushed these animals into subop...
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Cambridge Road Estate Application for Phase 2 Reserved Matters 25/02075/ARM

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Outline plans for the full redevelopment begain in 2022, with detailed planning applications coming forward for each phase. Completion of the first phase of the regeneration (452 new homes) has been much delayed. Some newly planted trees and the distinctive Piper road Cherry tree are dead or dying and sewage surcharges from manholes have ended up disappearing down two of the storm drains (to the Hogsmill river a mere 200m away).                                                One of the more 'friendly' videos of the sewage surcharges                                            If we want to see some improvements in these poor standards, it is important to comment on the above application. In the second phase of the development, a detailed planning application for...
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Cambridge Road Estate: Area of Deficiency of access to Open Space

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 GLA Assembly member former chair Dear Andrew, You may remember we corresponded & subsequently met with you in 2021, re: local environmental degradation, including green space provision in the plans for the  regeneration of the Cambridge Road Estate, loss of footpaths etc. in advance of the planning application. One of the issues was increasing the population in an Area of Deficiency of access to open space. The attached map of AoD, was drawn by Greenspace Information for Greater London and the purple is the Area of Deficiency.  Kingston Council had an Independent Assessment of Open Space provision in Norbiton Ward stating that it was below the qualitative standard of 1.11ha of public parkland per 1,000 population (Atkins). This was before the population was to rise considerably when  the number of residences > double. Knowing this, the developers consultants, Barton Wilmore, stated that Kingston Cemetery was to be the new Open Space, and was in fact a Park. F...
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Clayton Road & Oaklands Close: redevelopment of the Equestrian Centre and the Dell

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  I took these photos in August during the 'Covid Years', before reports of developing this 50 acre site hit the headlines. It seemed unlikely that a development on such a scale could go ahead, without access from KT9 1DW, as it would be unrealistic to use the existing narrow access roads. At the time, I had discussions with the Tree Officer, about the different levels created when the lorryloads of spoil/hoggin were brought to the site (planning application 13/10228/FUL & subsequent CEMP 14/10126 requiring the creation of habitat, including woodland). It would be interesting to know how much of the latter - 'here today, gone tomorrow mitigation'- will remain in the new scheme. The oak trees on site are magnificient and a natural asset to the borough. But we know that the developers have said that this site is 'compromised', 'serving no green belt purpose due to its proximity to the A3', and as the focus of many anti-social behavioural issues, should...
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Major greenbelt application from Chessington World of Adventures 24/03150

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Yet another major application in the Greenbelt from Chessington World of Adventures see 24/03150 is under consideration. 'Demolition and removal of rides, buildings and structures. One existing ride to be retained and rethemed and repositioned. Erection of new buildings and structures to provide a new themed land including a part indoor and outdoor rollercoaster, indoor children's ride, themed play areas along with associated buildings for various purposes, structures, landscaping, infrastructure above and below ground and other works'.                                                                             Tree grave...
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Wildlife Trust's Comments on Rachel Reeves growth speech

Myth-busting bats, newts and the economy vs nature protections Tuesday 28 January 2025 Joe Keegan There has been widespread misinformation blaming nature as a blocker to growth in the run up to the Chancellor’s speech this week, writes Joe Keegan, public affairs officer at The Wildlife Trusts. In 2021 Rachel Reeves announced her ambition to become ‘Britain’s first green chancellor’ – however, recent announcements on planning and airport expansion put this aspiration in jeopardy. The irony of Rachel Reeves's crusade for growth is that these policies risk undermining the UK’s natural capital – an essential foundation for growth.     Nature is not a blocker to growth  Nature does not block growth – it is the very foundation on which growth is built.  Research by PwC  found that 47% of the companies on the London Stock Exchange are highly or moderately dependent on nature....
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For the lack of SuDs

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  Last night, I attended a meeting to determine key issues in an update of a certain Climate Strategy 2030. In my break-out group, there seemed to be little consensus about drainage issues related to use of plastic turf and sealed surfaces in gardens.  Any updated strategy,  is written in the context of  an 'emergency', which this particular borough declared in 2019. As I look around my own borough, I see a number of recently missed opportunities, including the one pictured above.  It is one of a pair beds, each end of an LTN. The opposing bed does indeed have SuDs capability. You can read more about above and below ground infiltration here, which was a commentary on the Cambridge Road Estate urban-drainage-systems . So why is the larger one, non-SuDs? Why have several trees around the school boundary in the same road - been felled - inevitably affecting the local hydrology? I begin to wonder if the SuDs was created as an offset for this tree loss. So there is...
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