To Laurance O'Keefe

Environment and Planning Department

London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham

27^th October 2010

Dear Mr O’keefe

Planning Application ref 2010/02842/FUL NCP Car Park

I am writing to you on behalf of myself, and also the Hammersmith Grove Neighbours Group to object in the strongest possible terms to the planning application proposed for this site.

DESIGN AND SCALE

This site adjoins two conservation areas, Hammersmith Grove and Hammersmith Broadway.

The Council’s UDP Policy states that development “will only be permitted if the character or appearance of the conservation area is preserved or enhanced…particular regards will be given to details such as scale, massing, bulk, height….relationship to adjoining buildings…open spaces. New developments must where possible respect the historic context, volume scale. Form, materials and quality…”

The Council’s Hammersmith Grove Conservation Area Character Profile states that , regarding views down Hammersmith Grove. “Great care, therefore, must be taken when considering applications which will affect these views, including those on sites outside the conservation area, ie at the extreme ends of Hammersmith Grove”.

-The proposed buildings are far too big, dwarfing even the George building to the North, their mass and bulk is utterly out of keeping with the adjoining architecture and spoils views both looking north from Lyric Square and south from Hammersmith Grove.

-The proposed buildings are completely characterless, being of the worst possible kind of soulless cooperate architecture, more at home in the City or the Docklands and completely out of place amongst the more human architecture of Hammersmith. The design and materials have no sympathy, nor relationship whatsoever with the surrounding buildings.

In addition to this I understand that a neighbours objection to the previous scheme with regards to loss of light was upheld and this being a bigger and bulkier proposal, I would be interested to know where the council stands on this issue today.

IMPACT ON THE COMMUNITY

The impact that a development of this size and nature will have on the surrounding community must not be ignored.

This will be a 24/7 operation and this will bring 24/7 problems.

-Traffic. We understand that the reception and service entrances will both be on Hammersmith Grove. Given this and the bottle-neck and one-way system on Beadon Road / Hammersmith Broadway, it is safe to say that a great deal of traffic will be accessing this building via Hammersmith Grove. Tenants, their visitors, mini cabs, motorbike messengers, delivery vans, waste and recycling trucks etc will all be driving down Hammersmith Grove, often at night and in the early hours to avoid traffic.

-People. The massive influx of workers and visitors to the new building will place a heavy strain on the infrastructure of Hammersmith and particularly Hammersmith Grove will be poorly affected, especially with 15.000 sq feet of restaurants encouraging workers and visitors to stay on long after working hours, with those visitors dispersing up Hammersmith Grove late into the night.

-Parking. We understand that 300 parking places will be lost when the car park is no more and that only 10 will be provided. Although it is hoped that the majority of the daily estimated 3000 visitors to this building will use public transport, the Piccadilly line is already unable to meet existing passenger demand and parking will be affected.

-Air Conditioning. In our experience, most modern air-conditioning is un-detectable against the ambient noise of planes, trains and automobiles during the day however early in the morning, late evenings and during the night the high pitch hum can be plainly heard and can be very disturbing indeed.

I have received a letter from Jon Dingle of The London Planning Practice Ltd confirming that “the proposed plant will not be audible from any residential property at any time during the day or night”. He does not say if this means from inside or outside but the residents of Hammersmith Grove have a right to enjoy the peace and quiet of not only their homes but also their gardens and we believe the air-conditioning required to service a development of this size and operation will spoil our enjoyment of our homes and gardens.

The suggestion that we may have recourse to a nuisance complaints procedure via the environment department of our local council is not a process that we have much faith in, should the air-conditioning prove to be a problem. I refer to the 9 year and still on going issue with regards to the air-conditioning at the George Building.

BENEFITS TO THE COMMUNITY

It is hard to see any meaningful benefit to the community in this proposal.

The original scheme back in 2007, proposed an Everyman cinema and at that time no one was in any doubt that this only served to appease an angry community that were losing the existing Hammersmith cinema, in it’s original and wonderful building, as part of another contentious planning proposal.

Under the latest proposal, this Everyman cinema has been scrapped and in it’s place we now have a library, this only serving to appease yet another angry community that face losing their library in it’s original and wonderful building, as part of a highly contentious sell off.

This proposal in no way respects the council’s own criteria regarding Conservation areas and UDP Policy and I have yet to meet one single Hammersmith resident who thinks this proposal is a good idea.

There is no doubt that current public transport facilities, delivery/service restrictions, parking, road size/ layout and pavement/crossings are not sufficient nor appropriate to cope with the issues of traffic and pedestrians associated with a development of this size.

We have spent a great deal of time listening to the Developers responses to our questions and concerns. We have heard precisely nothing from the council regarding their plans to address those issues that fall within their remit and over which the developers have no control whatsoever.

We already have a library and if this scheme goes ahead, we will still have a library, albeit housed in a soulless, cooperate monolith and the way in which this proposal has been used as a sort of currency to play one contentious development issue off against the other, is scandalous.

We object to this proposal in the strongest possible terms and urge the council to live up to their promise of “putting people first”.

Please inform me of any further consultation processes and also the date at which this proposal may go to the Planning and Applications Committee.

I look forward to hearing from you

Yours sincerely

Nicola Lesbirel