Planning officers have recommended Southwark Council refuse Grosvenor’s £500m build-to-rent scheme in Bermondsey, SE16.
The hybrid application submitted in October 2017 proposes a mixed-use scheme comprising 1,343 residential units, with additional office space, a school and buildings ranging from four to 28 storeys on the 12-acre site of the former biscuit factory.
It seeks full permission for 1,218 homes and outline planning for a further 125 homes.
Lack of affordable housing
Southwark’s planning team said the development fails to provide a reasonable amount of affordable housing and does not comply with private rented sector tenure requirements in the 2018 New Southwark Plan.
Officers have recommended the plans for refusal at the planning committee on 6 February.
Grosvenor intends to deliver and manage the homes as BTR, with 27.5% of the habitable rooms available at an average 25% discount to market rent. The affordable housing statement accompanying plans stated policy aspiration of the council’s emerging New Southwark Plan, at the time of the application.
Consultation
The plan, designed by architects Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, also incorporates a new 600-place secondary school, more than 100,000 sq ft of new office space and 100,0000 sq ft dedicated to retail, culture, leisure, community and food and drink uses.
The application followed four years of stakeholder consultation, with an environmental impact assessment submitted in August and public display at the beginning of October 2017, ahead of plan submission later that month, stressing that the rental proposition was a suitable tenure option for people living in the borough.
In response to Southwark’s recommendation to refuse the plans, a Grosvenor spokesperson said: “Our proposals are for a neighbourhood that is accessible to the growing majority of Londoners who simply cannot afford to buy, do not qualify for social housing and want the advantages of a secure professionally managed home to rent.
“This includes Southwark’s many health, education, public order and fire service workers who want to – and can through our proposals – live close to where they work.”
First BTR scheme
The BTR scheme is the first undertaken by the 340-year-old Grosvenor, the Duke of Westminster’s property group.
Grosvenor, owned by the current duke, 26-year-old Hugh Grosvenor, acquired the site for £51m from Workspace Group in 2013.
The scheme supersedes Workspace’s existing consent for 800 homes. As part of the deal, the co-working developer will retain a small plot.
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