London borough pledges height restriction for controversial scheme

Published by 24publishing for 24dash.com in Housing and also in Communities, Local Government

A London borough has pledged to cap the height of a new scheme which was withdrawn last year over fears it was too high.

Conservative-run Hammersmith and Fulham withdrew its plans to regenerate the area around the Town Hall with two residential blocks because of concerns from the Greater London Authority over the height of the new buildings.

It now says a height limit of eight storeys is a ‘cast iron guarantee’ in its future plans.

The council said it had “listened and learned” from the opposition to the previous scheme.

Its new leader, Cllr Nicholas Botterill said last month that the revised scheme would not be higher than the existing Hammersmith Town Hall extension meaning that eight storeys would be a maximum possible height.

Cllr Botterill said: “We got it wrong with the previous King Street proposals and we have learned from it. We guarantee the tallest buildings in a new scheme will not exceed the height of the existing town hall extension.

“The council’s office space requirements at the time and the impact from the economic downturn on residential values pushed the height of the two tallest blocks too far and we will not repeat this mistake.

”However, the fact remains that we still need to demolish the decrepit, life-expired and ugly 1970’s town hall extension – which is costing taxpayers a fortune to keep running – and regenerate a very run-down part of Hammersmith in the process.

“In conjunction with our development partners we now need to listen to what residents’ groups and amenity societies have told us to find a more acceptable solution."

The council said it was still committed to working with King Street Developments (KSD) – who worked up the old plans – to find a viable and deliverable scheme by remodelling the design and providing a smaller office building for the council.