{"id":863,"date":"2014-04-26T12:15:38","date_gmt":"2014-04-26T12:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stqw.org\/?page_id=863"},"modified":"2015-05-17T13:53:00","modified_gmt":"2015-05-17T13:53:00","slug":"open-spaces","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/stqw.org\/wordpress\/draft\/open-spaces\/","title":{"rendered":"Open spaces"},"content":{"rendered":"

Objective 4\u00a0 Protect and enhance our open spaces, gardens and trees, both private and public,\u00a0bringing \u2018backland\u2019 green areas into community use where ownership permits<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

4.1.1\u00a0 \u00a0The main public open space within the StQW neighbourhood is Kensington Memorial Park (sometimes known as St Marks Park). \u00a0This park includes a well-equipped childrens playground and some informal sports pitches.\u00a0 The very large area of Wormwood Scrubs lies immediately to the north-west of the neighbourhood boundary, and the smaller Little Wormwood Scrubs to the north.\u00a0\u00a0 These amenities are important to residents in the area and are extensively used for dog-walking, and for formal and informal sports and recreation.<\/p>\n

The St Quintin ‘backland sites’<\/strong><\/p>\n

4.1.2\u00a0 \u00a0The neighbourhood also includes a number of private open spaces of significant size.\u00a0\u00a0 These are a particular feature of the layout of the St Quintin Estate.\u00a0 At the time the estate was built (1880-1910) these open spaces were designed as an integral part of what was then a new community.\u00a0\u00a0 Before the creation of municipal government bodies with responsibilities for leisure and recreation, these pieces of \u2018backland\u2019 behind each terraces street were used for differing types of sporting or recreational use, administered by clubs and societies of different forms.<\/p>\n

4.1.3\u00a0 \u00a0During the 2nd World War, several of these open spaces were used as allotments.\u00a0 In the post war period a number became waste ground as London was rebuilt.\u00a0 London County Council development plans of that period designated these sites as ‘private open space’.\u00a0\u00a0 In the subsequent decades, a number of these backland sites have been lost to new development.\u00a0 The current position on each site is set out later in this section.<\/p>\n

4.1.4\u00a0\u00a0 The RBKC Oxford Gardens Conservation Area Proposals Statement notes the important part played by these pieces of land, in these terms:<\/p>\n

\u2018The designers of both estates (<\/em>referring to that developed by Henry Blake and that by St Quintin family) took care to incorporate open space in the street layout.\u00a0 Road widths, gaps, return frontages, backlands and gardens combine to create a distinctive open character for the area.\u00a0 In the St Quintin Estate the use of space has produced a pleasant \u2018suburban\u2019 enclave within a busy high density part of the city.<\/em><\/p>\n

Backlands formed by the enclosed terraces of the St Quintin Estate exist at Highlever Road, Barlby Road and Kelfield Gardens.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Some leisure and recreational activities have made good use of these spaces and proposals to develop them for housing will not be permitted\u2019<\/em><\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

4.1.5\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>The introduction to this chapter of the 1990 CAPS document explains that statements made in\u00a0super bold type<\/strong>\u00a0(as above) \u2018signify specific policies and proposals which the council will implement using its town planning development control powers\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n

4.1.6\u00a0 \u00a0The status of \u2018policies\u2019 set out in the Council\u2019s Conservation Area Policy Statements has changed since these documents were first adopted by the Council. These policies were never subject to formal examination or found to be ‘sound’ so their adoption process did not meet current more extensive requirements for any part of a statutory Local Development Framework.\u00a0 Hence the Council considers that it can now give only very limited weight to CAPS ‘policies’ themselves. \u00a0Notwithstanding this position, the Council has continued to rely on the Oxford Gardens CAPs documents as its source of relevant policy guidance for each CA, and as a material consideration, when determining planning applications.\u00a0 Planning Inspectors have paid similar heed to the documents, when deciding appeals.<\/p>\n

4.1.7\u00a0\u00a0 At borough level, RBKC Local Plan Policy CR5(a)iii states that the Council will resist loss of private communal open space and private open space where the space give visual amenity to the public.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

4.1.8\u00a0 \u00a0Given this history and planning context, this neighbourhood plan proposes that the three surviving backland sites on the St Quintin Estate should be designated as Local Green Space.\u00a0\u00a0 The national designation was introduced in the 2012 National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).\u00a0\u00a0 The three criteria that designation requires are set out at Paragraph 77 of that document and in Annexe C to this Draft Plan.<\/p>\n

4.1.9\u00a0 \u00a0These sites are unusual in the borough in that they are private land originally intended for shared community use.\u00a0 While not of identical status (in planning or legal terms) they can be broadly compared with the 100 and more garden squares which are a key feature of the heritage of Kensington & Chelsea.\u00a0 Regrettably the status of the backland sites on the St Quintin Estate has not been protected in the same way as the Borough’s other garden squares, by either the\u00a0Town Gardens Protection Act 1863 or by the Kensington Improvement Act 1851.<\/p>\n

4.1.10 \u00a0\u00a0Two of the three surviving backland sites currently remain in communal use (West London Bowling Clun and the Kelfield ‘sports ground’, as it was originally known.\u00a0 Local residents consider it important to protect these, and to find ways of bringing the third site (land at Nursery Lane) back into a use which provides for communal outdoor activities, or (if this cannot be achieved) for valued public services such as social care or health provision.<\/p>\n

4.1.11\u00a0 \u00a0As stated in paragraph 77 of the NPPF, designation as Local Green Space will not be appropriate for all pieces of open land and the criteria for designation involve a high threshold.\u00a0 \u00a0On examination of the StQW Draft Plan, it may be that not all three sites will be seen as meeting the necessary tests.\u00a0 In order to achieve a continuation of the Council’s stated policy commitment in the 1990 Oxford Gardens CAPS (that in relation to the three named backland sites on the St Quintin estate ‘proposals to develop them for housing will not be permitted\u2019<\/em>) StQW Draft Policy 4b has been included in this Draft Plan.<\/p>\n

4.1.12\u00a0\u00a0 StQW Draft Policy 4b, if accepted at examination of the StQW Draft Plan will have the effect of replacing the Council’s policy commitment in the 1979\/90 Oxford Gardens CAPS, and of giving this renewed material weight in the determination of planning decisions.\u00a0 It is a policy that repeats the site-specific policy commitment in the Oxford Gardens CAPS, and hence the Forum considers that it must thereby ‘generally conform’ with RBKC Local Plan strategic policy.\u00a0 It reflects paragraph 34.3.10 of the Council’s recently adopted Conservation and Design Policy which states \u00a0‘Backland sites – sites surrounded by other development with limited or no street frontage – may be difficult to difficult to integrate into the surrounding context’<\/em>. \u00a0It also reflects the direction of RBKC Policy CR5 on Open Space quoted at 4.1.7 above and RBKC Policy CL3 (‘The Council will require development to preserve and to take opportunities to enhance the cherished and familiar local scene’).<\/em><\/p>\n

4.1.13\u00a0\u00a0 In early 2015 a petition organised by local residents, asking the Council to continue to protect the 3 remaining St Quintin backlands, triggered a debate at the Kensington & Chelsea Council meeting on April 15th. In a report to that Council meeting and in subsequent correspondence, the Council made clear that it considered that it could not support StQW Draft Policy 4b at examination, on the grounds that it was not ‘positively prepared’ as required by the NPPF.<\/p>\n

4.1.14\u00a0\u00a0 Faced with this new situation, the Forum’s management committee in May 2015 decided to add a further Draft Policy 4c to this neighbourhood plan.\u00a0\u00a0 The aim of this policy is to ensure that any development of previously undeveloped land within the conservation area part of the StQW neighbourhood takes place only where significant public benefit is achieved as result.\u00a0 The application of this policy will therefore apply only to sites that are undeveloped, and fall within the boundary of the Oxford Gardens CA.\u00a0 Its application to the St Quintin backlands will depend on whether or not these sites are determined to be previously developed. The StQW Basic Conditions Statement, and Annexe C to this Plan cover these issues in more detail.<\/p>\n

4.1.15 \u00a0\u00a0In the context of the StQW Draft Plan as a whole, the Forum considers that StQW Draft Polices 4a, 4b and 4c have regard to the NPPF in three respects:<\/p>\n