The Council’s Planning Committee on 11th November will be deciding the largest and most momentous planning application that the Borough has seen in several decades. Development proposals drawn up by a joint venture formed between developers Ballymore and Sainsbury’s Ltd were submtted to RBKC in October 2023, with revisions submitted in 2025.
This ‘mixed use’ scheme involves a replacement Sainburys superstore and 2,519 new housing units, with additional commercial floorspace. A previous post on this website gives more details of the scheme, and includes a second objection submitted by the StQW Forum in June 2025.
In recent weeks we have been working with a coalition on local organisations and residents associations, in preparing final objections to the proposals. Since 2023 the developers have promoted their development via their Project Flourish website. After pressure from residents, the Council arranged a ‘Factual Briefing’ session for councillors on the Planning Committee. The aim was ot ensure these decision-makers they were adequately informed about the scheme.
The team from Ballymore/Sainsburys duly presented their view of the ‘facts’ of the proposed development. Members of local amenity societies and residents groups were allowed to attend this session at the Town Hall. But in a change from past precedent, we were not allowed to speak or to ask questions.
In response to this lack of opportunity to present councillors with alternative ‘facts’, local groups have come together to assemble our own Residents Briefing Pack. Given the range of issues involved, this is a detailed document of over 60 pages. The input from StQW/St Helens RA (see below) focuses on the development capacity of this eastern part of the Kensal Canalside Opportunity Area.
Whe RBKC began consultions in 2012 on ‘options’ for this large area of brownfield land, the view of planning officers was that 2,000 new homes could be accommodated, in a scenario where levels of connectivity and accessibility to and from thise ‘island’ location wre not improved by the arrival of a Crossrail station, or new bridges. Such new infrastructure is not included in the application to be decided on November 11th. Yet the officer recommendation is to grant planning consent, for 2,519 homes.
The application from Berkeley Homes/St William for a second development of 891 homes is waiting in the wings at the Town Hall. The third site (the strip of Network Rail land along the southern part of the Opportunity Area) has yet to see any development proposals come forward.
Since 2012 an Opportunity Area carefully ‘planned’ for 2,000 housing units has become the location for over double this number, with no changes to its geography and no improvement in access to public transport. This is the result of London’s ‘developer-led’ planning system. This has finally overwhelmed one of very few Boroughs to have hitherto held out against high-density high-rise schemes.
These new homes will be ‘car-free’ (i.e without resident parking permits) and with the nearest Underground (Ladbroke Grove) a 16 minutes walk, even from the eastern edge of the site at Ladbroke Grove. Such an outcome does not confortm with London Plan policies. But RBKC has in recent years put in place a Supplementary Planning Document and a Site Allocation in its 2024 Local Plan which seek to underpin the grant of a planning consent as being ‘policy compliant’.
Objectors to the application will be speaking at the Planning Committee meeting on the 11th at 6.30pm and a ‘peaceful demonstration’ will take place ahead of the meeting.
