This development proposal in Latimer Road has been discussed on a couple of occasions at meetings of the Forum, before and after a planning application was submitted (most recently at our March 1st 2023 open session on Zoom).
A copy of the objection submitted by the Forum can be read below. The application reference number is http://PP/23/00778 and all representations are published on the RBKC online planning file.
From the 1940s onward the undeveloped ‘backland’ (lying behind the terraces of Brewster Gardens, Dalgarno Gardens, and the northern section of Highlever Road) was used by Clifton Nurseries. In 2014 this company left the site and the land was marketed as a ‘residential development opportunity’.
A four year saga followed with the owners of the land (the Legard family, in Yorkshire) working with developers Metropolis Property Ltd on proposals for 20 ‘townhouses’ on the site (see below).
A similar effort is now being mounted by care home company Northcare (Scotland) Ltd to develop a 72 bed care home on this land. A pre-application consultation was launched by the ‘community engagement’ consultancy Concilio on February 29th 2023
Back in 2014/5, the StQW Neighbourhood Plan was at an advanced stage of preparation, after much hard work by local residents. The Draft Plan proposed designation of the remaining three ‘backlands’ in the neighbourhood as ‘Local Green Space’. This was a new planning designation at that time, intended by Government to protect smallish areas of open space valued by local people.
Neighbourhood plans (introduced via the 2011 Localism Act) have always been the primary means of designating Local Green Spaces. There are now over 600 such open spaces protected across England (although not many in London).
The three Local Green Spaces in our neighbourhood are the West London Bowling Club, the Kelfield Gardens backland (owned by the Methodist Church, and Nursery Lane (inherited by the Legard family in the 1950s through marriage into the St Quintin family). W H St Quintin laid out the streets of this corner of North Kensington with the intention that these ‘backland’ spaces be used for sports and recreation. The Bowling Club dates from this time. Nursery Lane was the Ashfield Tennis Club until the 1940s.
This history and the justification for these LGS designations is set out in the StQW Neighbourhood Plan. When the Draft Plan was examined by an ‘independent examiner’ he held a public hearing, listened to evidence from consultants acting for Metropolis Property and from local residents and StQW, and inspected the site (by then not looking at its best after lying unused for 2 years).
The independent examiner’s report recommended to RBKC that all three backlands should be designated as Local Green Space. This is a strong protection against any form of ‘development’ (as defined in the 1990 Town and Country Planning Act). The examiner said in his report I do not regard the site as previously developed land. This was despite the efforts of the Metropolis to argue to the contrary (‘previously developed land’ is a term from the National Planning Policy Framework applied to ‘brownfield land’).
Following this independent examination in 2016 the Legard family and Metropolis applied for judicial review of the Council’s decision to progress the neighbourhood plan to a local referendum.
This JR application was defended by the Council, with the StQW Forum as an ‘interested party’. The High Court case was not heard until late 2017. Meanwhile the Draft Neighbourhood Plan was voted on at a local referendum in February 2016, with 91% support on a 23% turnout of registered electors in the area. In 2018 the JR application was dismissed.
The Council adopted the StQW Neighbourhood Plan in July 2018, as part of the statutory development plan for the Borough. This remains the position in the new Draft RBKC Local Plan, as submitted in January 2023 for ‘examination’ by a Planning Inspector.
These decisions of the Council and the High Court have left the site with only a very limited range of permissible uses that are compatible with a Local Green Space designation. A Certificate of Lawful Development for (non-retail) nursery garden use was granted by RBKC and Mark Enright’s business took up a tenancy from the Legards. As a result of rent increases, Mark is relocating this part of his business in September 2023.
Previous posts on this site give more detail of the 2014-2018 episode. This part of a long saga remains relevant to what happens next on this piece of land.
The latest proposals
Having heard from neighbours overlooking the site that visits were taking place from what looked like various surveyors and consultants, StQW wrote to the Legards asking if they had future plans for the site. The brief response on 15th November 2022 was ‘The family have no future plans for the Nursery Lane site at this moment in time’.
Since then, events have moved fast. With no attempt to consult the neighbourhood forum or residents in the immediate area, a pre-application consultation was started on 20th February by ‘community engagement’ consultants Concilio. We had picked up at the end of January that Savills had made representations to RBKC on behalf of Northcare, as part of the consultation on the Council’s new Draft Local Plan.
From Savills presentation 9th February
As yet, we do not know when and why any contact was established between Northcare (Scotland) Ltd and the Legard family. In response to our queries on the present ownership of the site, Concilio told us on 8th February With regards to ownership of the site I can confirm ‘The Leggard family own the site although Northcare control it as we have a missive in place with an option to purchase subject to planning permission.’
This arrangement is similar to that established between the Legards and Metropolis Property Ltd. As yet there is no entry on the Land Registry title referring to an interest in the landholding by Northcare.
Our letter to Savills of 14th February, following our online meeting with them and Concilio on the 9th February, can be read and downloaded below. This letter set out our understanding of the specific planning context of the site. An annex to the letter gives the conclusions of Mr Justice Dove in his 2018 judgment on the High Court case.
We want to be sure that Northcare have the full factual background to the 2014-18 period. We cannot tell what they have been told by the Legards. This company should not remain under any illusions as to the planning status and history of a 50 year period of attempts to develop this site. These include earlier applications (by RBKC in 1970) and by the Legards in 1981. Planning inquiries were involved in both cases, with the Inspectors deciding against the proposed developments, in the interests of retaining open space as designed into the street layout 120 years ago.
As an outcome of the 1970 RBKC application, the Inspector conceded that the southern part of the original backland could be a suitable location for sheltered housing. The present building a 1 Nursery Lane was built in 1979 as a result. The 38 flats in this sheltered housing continue to be managed by the Council. The flats are being upgraded with the installation of wetrooms as and when residents change over, and the interior of the building has been refurbished.
The Nursery Lane sheltered housing does not provide for clients with dementia or high dependency needs. Neighbouring care homes do so (at Princess Louise in Pangbourne Avenue and at Alan Morkhill House in St Marks Road).
The Council’s initial response to the proposals from Northcare
It is not unusual for companies involved in property development to seek out possible suitable sites to add to their portfolio. Savills act for many such clients. Savills on behalf of Northcare submitted a representation to RBKC as part of the autumn 2022 consultation on the Regulation 19 version of the new Draft Local Plan.
This representation can be read/downloaded below. It argues that the Draft Local Plan is ‘unsound’ in failing to provide for sufficient numbers of additional care home places during the ‘plan period’ of 2021 -2041. It continues by making a case for the suitability of the Nursery Lane site and proposes that the Local Green Space designation is unwarranted and should be ‘removed’ from the new Local Plan, as part of the Examination yet to be held.
The Council’s view on this representation is set out in the schedule of responses approved by full Council on 1st February 2023 and since submitted to the Secretary of State for Examination. This response reads as below:
RBKC response to Savills representation on behalf of Northcare (Scotland) Ltd (page 196 of RBKC Consultation Schedule – Publication Policies (Regulation 19) January 2023)
The St Quintin and Woodlands Neighbourhood Plan (July 2018) Local Green space designation for the Nursery Lane site went through examination and the independent examiner concluded that the site was demonstrably special to the local community and should be designated as Local Greenspace. In his report dated 26 October 2015 the Inspector found the site to be a tranquil green space where a significant number of households have a view of it. Reference was made to the consultation statement recording the wildlife and birds that had been seen on the site listing the species. It was also concluded by the examiner that it was an historical backspace that had been designed for this purpose. There is no justification for revisiting the Neighbourhood Plan designation as part of the Local Plan examination process and indeed the Neighbourhood Plan is part of the Development Plan for the borough. The site designation is not unsound and there is not a critical need for care home accommodation in the borough which dictates that a care home needs to go on this site. Paragraph 103 of the revised NPPF (2021) makes clear that a Local Greenspace designation carries significant weight stating, “Policies for managing development within a Local Greenspace should be consistent with those for Green Belts.”
We are disappointed that the Concilio letter of 20th February, widely distributed locally and launching the pre-application consultation, makes no mention of this response from the local planning authority. Nor does the material on the Concilio consultation website at https://nurserylanecare.co.uk/ A balanced picture of the planning context of the site is not being provided by the consultants acting for Northcare.
We have suggested to Concilio that the claims made on their website, on the need for care home places in the Borough, are misleading without also referring to what the Council has said above in its response to Savills. Yes, there will be demand for more care home places in this and every London Borough. Yes, ‘bed-blocking’ has been a major problem for NHS and social care provision for decades, given the UK’s post-war history of separating these two parts of the public sector.
But to claim that A number of very high-dependency and vulnerable residents would otherwise have to have an enforced hospital stay without access to this new care home is in our view alarmist, unevidenced, and a simplistic attempt to gain public support for a commercially driven planning proposal.
As the Borough with the highest housing values in the country, the Borough already has a range of ‘luxury’ care homes. More will appear in the coming years, in response to market demand. Meanwhile we have sufficient faith in the Council’s planning department to believe that it has prepared a Local Plan that addresses future ‘need’. No other representations were made questioning this aspect of the Local Plan.
StQW/SHRA will be holding one or more open meetings on these proposals from Northcare, before commenting on planning application. Our initial view is that the best time to undertake any form of new care home or housing for the elderly would be when RBKC chooses to rebuild and/or expand the current sheltered housing at Nursery Lane, making full use of the land currently occupied by the roadway and the fact that the southern third of the original backland is already ‘developed land’.
This project by RBKC was consulted on for 6 weeks in the summer of 2021. The scheme includes a new zebra crossing at the St Helens Gardens/St Quintin Avenue junction. Works on the project began in June 2022, after a long interval. A notification letter was sent to residents in the immediate area on 12th May with a plan of the scheme and giving an estimated programme of 25 weeks. The section of the road was closed, with diversions round the northern part of Kelfield Gardens and St Quintin Avenue.
The StQW/SHRA newsletter for January 2023 explains the issues which are causing the most concern now that the near completed scheme is in operation and the traffic diversion removed. Very briefly these are: • safety from traffic, especially for children at the Kelfeld/St Helens Gardens junctions. Kerbs have been entirely removed and replaced by what the consultation leaflet referred to as ‘continuous crossings’ and in the May 2023 notification letter as ‘Copenhagen crossings’. Not many of the public are familiar with these terms used by traffic engineers. • a worsening scenario on the number of vehicles mounting the footway and driving across to the privately owned forecourt areas at the front of the shops, in order to park or for deliveries/collections. The consultation leaflet referred (in text and images) to ‘bollards to prevent informal parking on the forecourts’. • Doubts about the construction of the areas of ‘rain gardens’ and whether planting in these areas will survive, coupled with uncertainty over the future of the existing (but aged) timber planters outside the shops.
Key documents issued by the Council are available below. The consultation leaflet went to 1,200 homes (we are told) and featured in an earlier post on this website. The geographic coverage of the May 2023 notification of works was a more narrow circulation of which we do not have details of the addresses included.
The StQW/St Helens Association held an open meeting on Zoom on June 10th 2021 to discuss the scheme. Zoom polls were used to canvass views from the members for a response to the RBKC consultation. Attendance was 35 members, 80% of whom took part in the Zoom polls used at the meeting. Some chose not to vote as they lived some distance from St Helens Gardens.
The response which we submitted to the Council’s consultation in 2021 can be downloaded below. We set out the percentage of those who completed the Zoom polls at our meeting. This made clear the level of support for some elements of the scheme and of objections to others.
The Council has been consulting in recent weeks on a near final version of a new version of the Local Plan for the Borough. This key planning document sets the policies on which planning applications are decided and forms the main part of the ‘development plan’ for the Borough.
Our own StQW Neighbourhood Plan also forms part of the development plan. Its policies apply in our neighbourhood, where they vary from Borough-wide policies. The new Draft Local Plan confirms full support for the StQW Neighbourhood Plan and its site allocations and policies will remain in force after the new Local Plan is adopted.
The consultation on the new Local Plan runs until December 22nd 2022. The main points that we are making in our response were outlined at our last open meeting in St Helens Church Hall on November 29th. These are:
support for retaining the Local Green Spaces on three of the ‘backland’ open spaces at the Bowling Club, Nursery Lane, and beside Kelfield Gardens.
welcoming a bespoke Employment Zone policy for Latimer Road, which should make it easier for any redevelopments of Units 1.14 to be financially viable at a lower height than would otherwise be needed.
objections to the unrealistic target of 3,500 new homes at the Kensal Canalside Opportunity Area. If maintained in the new Local Plan, this will lead to very high density housing in towers up to 31 storeys in an area with poor access to public transport and limited vehicle access (this target would have been plausible were an Elizabeth Line station to be built st the site. The new Local Plan accepts that this is not going to happen).
support for a continued campaign to ensure that Imperial College and LBHF honour the commitment to build a cycle/pedestrian underpass between Latimer Road and Wood Lane.
support for what could be a temporary 10 year Overground station at ‘Westway Circus’ (beneath the elevated Westway roundabout) given that the opening of the HS2/Elizabeth Line station at Old Oak Common (north of Wormwood Scrubs) is now delayed to 2030-32 (originally 2026).
The draft of our response to RBKC can be read or downloaded below (warning – a long document on a RBKC template). If you have views or comments on what we intend saying to the Council please email to sthelensassn@aol.com by the morning of the 22nd December.
This application for a replacement building at the southern end of Latimer Road was discussed at our AGM on May 30th. Objections have outnumbered expressions of support, albeit that most of those asking for the scheme to be refused do not give specific grounds based on RBKC and StQW planning policies
The letter of objection from the StQW Forum can be downloaded below.
Our letter addresses claims made in many objections that a single developer has bought up most or all of Units 1-14 on the western side of Latimer Road. This is not true. Units 2-14 remain in individual ownerships (with Nos 13 and 14 having the same owner).
Planning applications often prompt strong responses. But these need to stick to facts rather than rumour.
A previous post has explained the history of the ‘borough-wide’ Article 4 Direction adopted by RBKC in 2013. This removed the national permitted development rights for change of use between commercial and residential floorspace (in existing buildings).
Ministers have instructed the Council to review and reduce the coverage of this Direction, so that it applies only in those areas where change of use would cause significant harm.
The strong view at our open meeting was that Latimer Road should not be included in revised and reduced areas to be covered by the Direction. Our reasoning is set out in the letter below. The final decision lies with the Minister and not with the Council, so we wait to see the outcome.
Latimer Road, as the main concentration of commercial floorspace in the neighbourhood, is the street most affected. After this review by the Department of Levelling Up and Regeneration, many streets in the Borough will be in the same position of including a mix of residential and commercial floorspace and will no longer be covered by an Article 4 Direction on change of use.
These include the outcome of elections for the management committees of St Helens Residents Association and the St Quintin and Woodlands Neighbourhood Forum, along with an update on local planning issues.
Along with planning applications in the pipeline the slides explain the implications of different outcomes on the current review of areas of Kensington to be covered by an Article 4 Direction, removing national Permitted Development Rights on change of use from commercial to residential.
The vote at the AGM was strongly in favour of requesting RBKC and the Department of Levelling Up Housing and Communities to leave Latimer Road out of a revised set of Article 4 boundaries, so that national PD rights would apply in the street as in other mixed use streets in the Borough.
Since 2013, Kensington and Chelsea Council has used a Borough-wide Article 4 Direction in order to disapply the national Permitted Development right allowing change of use of buildings and floorspace from office to residential. These ‘Directions’ are usually applied to named streets in a Conservation Area to remove Permitted Development right to e.g. install front rooflights or vary roofscapes and frontages.
The Council obtained agreement from Government on the Borough-wide application of this Direction, by arguing that the differential between office and residential values is so great in this part of London that the loss of office space would have a substantial and damaging impact on the local economy.
An extension of time for this ‘Borough-wide exemption’ from national PD rights was accepted by the then Ministry for Housing and Local Government in 2019.
In July 2021 the Council introduced a further ‘non-immediate’ Direction with similar aims. This was due to be confirmed this summer, and applied to proposed change for use from the new E1 use class to residential. The E1 class includes most commercial uses (shops, businesses, warehouses, restaurants, cafes) as well as ‘offices’.
Since the start of the pandemic, the Government has been keen to make the planning system more flexible in terms of change of use. Future demand for conventional office space in London seems likely to fall as ‘hybrid’ working becomes the norm for many businesses and organisations. Traditional department stores are having to think about alternative uses for their floorspace.
In February, the Minister of State for Housing Stuart Andrew wrote to six inner London Boroughs along with Kensington and Chelsea, asking them to revisit their proposals for Article 4 Directions. His letter said that these councils have failed to take a sufficiently targeted approach to their assessment of the impacts of the permitted development right in each location.
His letter continues ‘Additional evidence is requested to demonstrate that you have considered the applicalion of Article 4 Direction to indlvldual streets or smaller areas wilhin the Central Activities Zone, and taking consideration of the safeguards that apply to the new commercaal to residential permitted development right to ensure that the Article 4 Direcilon is proposed only where it would have wholly unacceplable adverse impacts and applles to the smallest geographic area possible.
Where you :a re also proposing an Artide A Direction an areas oucside of lhe Central Activities Zone. the same policy applies and therefore you are also requested lo provide additionaI evidence for each of these areas lo demonstrate why lhe application of Article 4 Directions are necessary or cannot be reduced to apply to a smaIler geographic area’.
So the Council is having to come up with a revised set of smaller areas, and better evidenced justification for the use of an Article 4 Direction.
The StQW Neighbourhood Forum has consistently opposed restrictive policies on use of buildings and floorspace in Latimer Road. Many of the office buildings have remained under-occupied with some vacant floorspace since the days when we were preparing the neighbourhood plan back in 2014/5. At the examination of the Draft plan in 2015, the independent examiner accepted our evidence for more ‘mixed use’ in the street. This introduced a new policy allowing for housing use at Units 1-14 provided the existing employment floorpspace is retained.
We also asked the Council in 2017 and again in 2021 to leave out Latimer Road from the area to be covered by an Article 4 Direction.
We have made the same request again, now that the Council is redrawing its map of areas to be covered by a Direction. It is not yet clear whether a revised Direction will apply only to the main business areas and ‘town centres’ (e.g. Kensington High Street, Notting Hill Gate, Sloane Street) or whether the Government will accept wider areas. It is clear that a ‘Borough-wide’ Direction is not acceptable to Government.
We are hoping that this time round the Council will accept that the best future for Latimer Road lies in mixed use, combining housing alongside a range of employment activity and ensuring that buildings remain in use rather than lying part empty.
The Council has been consulting on the ‘Regulation 18’ of a new Local Plan for the Borough. This will replace the version adopted in 2019.
This consultation draft is not a finalised set of proposals. The current consultation ends on March 23rd 2022. The Council will then consider all responses and publish a revised Regulation 19 version of the Draft Local Plan in late 2022. Independent examaination of the Draft Plan by a Planning Inspector will follow. Adoption of the final new Local Plan is expected in the second half of 2023.
The joint management committee of the StQW Neighbourhood Forum and the St Helens Residents Association has drawn up a response to the consultation.
This response document can be downloaded by clicking on the green link below. The text is too small to read onscreen. (A warning that this is a 40 page document that covers all of the questions asked by the Council on the whole of their Draft Local Plan).
This reponse will be submitted to RBKC on March 23rd, to meet the Council’s deadline. If you have an comments or concerns about what we are saying in this response,, please email sthelensassn@aol.com by March 22nd so that there is time to liaise on any amendments.
Anyone can of course send in to the Council their own views responding to any part of this consultation exercise.
RBKC Highways Department are consulting on plans to install speed bumps in Latimer Road W10. This is in response to a funding bid made by the Latimer Road Residents Association, from the Council’s Neighbourbourhood Community Infrastructure Levy budget (NCIL).
The costs involved are £7,000 and the installation will be for speed humps with a relatively low profile similar to those in place in Oxford Gardens. More details below.
The consultation will be open until Sunday 12th December 2021 and any comments can to be sent to Traffic@rbkc.gov.uk, referencing NCIL/2021/SH1.
