These images tell their own story. They are in London Square’s new document, published on the Leegate regeneration website, which reproduces the material they displayed at the recent exhibition about their plans for the site. You can read the entire document here.
Michael Haste, Lee Manor Society’s planning expert, has been counting the storeys in the artist’s impression and thinks it’s even more than the proposed eighteen.
He says: ” I am certain that there are a total of 19 floors shown above ground, which when the basement level is included provides for a building of 20-storeys (including basement level) not ‘up to 15-storeys (including basement level)…’ as is currently approved. This gives an increase of 5-storeys not 3-storeys over the current approved Application as London Square are quoting.”
Lee Manor Society will be objecting to the current section 96a planning application by London Square which just asks Lewisham Council to remove the reference to the number of storeys on the tower. If approved they will then be able to apply to raise the height of the tower by way of a further section 73 application under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.
Pretty sure the new plans show the tower as 18 storeys but also includes an additional 2-3 storeys of plant so total height will be 20-21 storeys.
This image of the proposed building replacement for the failed lower height Leegate Centre isn’t architecturally in keeping with the immediate surrounding buildings. This is apart from perhaps the faecal brown facing material has been used on the already outdated and uninspiring ersatz vernacular supermarket building across the road.
It belongs in the centre of Lewisham adjacent to the train and bus stations.
Or it could be hidden amongst the much taller edifices at Canary Wharf.
It would be useful for the current potential developer to be carefully audited.
Which other developments have they completed and is there a pattern to their approach in deciding which sites they have targeted and which have turned out to be controversial? Money will almost certainly be the driving force here both for the developers as well as a cash strapped council.
Perhaps more developments like the one in Lee might somehow generate enough revenue to remove the borough’s debt burden but personally I doubt it.
There is a similar story to be told in other parts of the country.
Bristol for example has its own rash of high rise mostly anaemic brown coloured high rise buildings that existing local residents resent even when they have been left in limbo and not even completed. One of these brown elephants that should stand at 17 storeys with Kier Starmer and a former Bristol mayor sporting hard hats on the top of the still unfinished and unwanted structure is built on the bank of the River Avon which may or may not provide long term stable foundations.