London Square has made its first move towards getting permission to raise the height of the planned Leegate Tower to 18 storeys.
It has submitted a planning application to Lewisham Council to make a small but crucial alteration to the original planning consent granted to Galliard, which London Square took over when it bought the site.
In their covering letter (which you can read here) London Square are asking Lewisham to remove just five words from the original description of the project: ‘15-storeys (including basement level)’.
If granted it would mean the consent would read: “Proposed development at Leegate Shopping Centre SE12, bounded by Burnt Ash Road, Eltham Road, Leyland Road and Carston Close, for the demolition of existing buildings, and the construction of buildings to provide a comprehensive mixed use development including residential (Use Class C3), flexible commercial floorspace (Use Class E), a community centre (Use Class F2) and a public house (Sui Generis), together with associated public realm, landscaping and highways improvements, vehicular access, car parking and servicing arrangements, cycle parking and stores, and all other ancillary works.”
London Square make clear in their letter that this is the first step towards getting permission to raise the tower to 18 storeys – an approach agreed with Lewisham planners. They say: “ Therefore, the Applicant is seeking to amend the description of development by removing the words ‘up to 15-storeys (including basement level)’ to allow the abovementioned amendments to come forward. This approach has been agreed with London Borough of Lewisham officers in advance of submitting this S96a application.”
Lee Manor Society’s planning expert Michael Haste explains “If they do not do this then any further application to increase the height of the main tower (and to increase the number of housing units) will not comply with the previously approved application description and therefore could not be a ‘non-material change’.”
Michael says it’s likely Lewisham will OK this, because it is only a loose description which is being changed, but this is by no means certain. If passed London Square would then be free to make a further application under Section 73 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, asking for a “non-material” change to conditions of the original planning consent issued in November 2024, which could allow London Square to vary both the height of the main Block A tower accommodation as well as increase the number of residential units over the whole development.
It will be up to Lewisham Council to decide if adding three extra storeys to the main tower of the development is “non-material” or not. Michael says “Objectors would have to try to show that the current height of the tower was a hard-fought over issue at the time of the original application and that increasing its height further would be in breach of Lewisham’s own design and planning guidelines.”
Those guidelines – under which Lewisham would not generally allow tower blocks higher than 12 storeys in the ‘Lee Green District Centre’ area – could be critical. They are contained in Policy QD4 of Lewisham’s own Local Plan which is not expected to be fully adopted until Summer 2025 at the earliest.
The application number is DC/25/140113 and objections need to be filed to the Council by at least June 12th 2025. If you want to comment on the proposals you can do it on the planning website, but you can also write direct to your councillors and the Mayor. You can find all their contact details here.
The banners along Burnt Ash Road and Burnt Ash Hill including one outside the Leegate Centre displayed by Lewisham Council states that it is proud to be the first “Borough of Sanctuary “ in the UK.
It welcomes migrants and refugees by safeguarding their rights.
To accommodate new residents will presumably require additional housing and in particular affordable ones.
In an already high density borough there will need to be a further increase in high rise buildings.
There was a large sign on the Eltham Road further along from the Leegate Centre that stated that the Borough of Lewisham was a nuclear free zone. This has since been removed presumably because the now decommissioned Dungeness B nuclear power station had it’s radioactive waste taken in railway wagons to Sellafield and the rail route included passing through Hither Green Station and the centre of Lewisham.
Aren’t there enough tower blocks in Lewisham as it is?
Where is the provision for surgeries and schools. Shops. Green spaces. Gardens.?
For how much longer are planners intending to continue insulting their fellow human beings?
It has been common practise for developers , architects and builders to propose plans for larger and taller buildings than they expect to have permission to create and a slightly smaller option agreed to later.
I don’t know if this might be an example at Leegate.
Unfortunately the very existance of the neglected buildings has already set a precedent for a large scale replacement that may not in the long term prove to be an improvement both in social and aesthetic terms.
As the old Leegate Centre has steadily deteriorated over many years and is not a village green, it seems many local residents are in favour of the proposed new development albeit with some concerns over the scale and detail.
I think that to house so many more people on this relatively small footprint will not contribute much in the way of quality of life for both the new residents or the nearby existing ones.