Responding to planning application 20/1730/O
On behalf of Greenwich and Bexley Green Party, I write to oppose the Morden Wharf planning application.
It is beyond dispute that large buildings change the areas that they are constructed in.
The area targeted by this development is comprised of low-rise/mid-rise buildings and open areas that will be harmed by the establishment of a cluster of skyscraper buildings. In particular, the levels of daylight at lower levels of accommodation will be negatively affected, which violates the council’s own guidelines.
Adding huge amounts of housing without concomitant improvements to public transport will increase pressure on already stretched infrastructure. The idea of a private shuttle bus is proposed, which is unlikely to work and liable to dropped at the moment it becomes unprofitable, while displacing the pressure onto already overloaded TfL buses.
The Green Party accepts that new housing needs to be built and that encroaching onto green spaces is not the solution. However, new build for our growing population must fit into existing communities and sympathetically enhance them. The existing plans look more like simply squeezing as many people into high-rise towers as possible to maximise profits.
These proposals need substantial revision to make them remotely acceptable. Regrettably, there are grounds to think that this is all part of the developer’s tactics in negotiating with the council making a completely unreasonable planning request, then getting most of what was originally wanted as they are “scaled back” in the face of opposition.
Regards,
Matt Stratford
Chair, Greenwich and Bexley Green Party