Sutton’s biggest development in recent years, with nearly 1,000 flats on the site of the current B&Q store, has been granted planning permission – with a scheme which some warn will create a ghetto and others described as ‘Croydonisation’
Chalk canyon: with eight tower blocks of up to 21 storeys, the development is one of the biggest ever in Sutton
We need more homes. That’s a given. But local councils are supposed to deliver their housing projects, whether private or public, within the constraints of their Local Plan – part of the statutory development plan that sets out the development framework for the local area.
The B&Q site, wedged into the one-way system at the edge of Sutton town centre, is designated for development in the council’s plan. Any development was projected in the Local Plan to offer around 480 homes, with buildings between two and eight storeys high.
But the Liberal Democrat council’s planning committee has just approved Chalk Gardens (the site was historically chalk pits) which will deliver more than twice that number of flats, 970, in eight blocks of up to 21 storeys, as proposed by St George plc. The estimated retail value of the homes is more than £275million.
The council was expecting a backlash to the plans and moved the planning meeting to the Central Library. However, there were three times more officers, applicants and their agents present than members of the public.
The complex will include 337 “affordable” homes, over which Sutton Council will have nomination rights. Many of these homes will be kept separate from the rest of the development.
Shopped out: the B&Q store, nestled in old chalk pits, will be demolished to make way for the flats
It is “Ghettoisation”, according to independent councillor Tim Foster, or “A poor door development”, in the words of Tory councillor Tony Shields. It was later described as “the Croydonisation of Sutton”.
Three car club spaces will be provided, together with just 63 leased parking spaces, of which 29 are for disabled drivers. In this sense, the development is essentially car-free, and residents will not be able to park within the local controlled parking zones (CPZs). This is based on the locality having the highest level available of public transport.
Council planning officials claimed there would be no impact from car parking displacement in the local area, even from visitors. One resident argued that the council had not even considered the parking issues that already existed on roads where there was no controlled parking.
The council’s response was to say that this issue would be addressed after the flats had been built. So that’s OK then.
Supported scheme: LibDem Luke Taylor
The car parking displacement issue was dismissed by officials on the basis that there were adequate car parks within the town centre. This ignored the fact that the 740-vehicle capacity Gibson Road car park is proposed for demolition and redevelopment as houses.
Conservative councillor Eric Allen then listed the other car parks, explaining how most were already full.
But the Chalk Gardens scheme will provide 1,764 cycle storage spaces.
LibDem councillor Patrick Ogbonna asked what tradesmen who rely on their vans would do about parking overnight. Answer came there none. Ogbonna also asked how the low-paid staff who would be working in the bars and restaurants proposed for the site would get home after an evening shift. The committee chair, Councillor Richard Clifton, answered that himself, singing the praises of Uber. Council planning officials, whose job it is to know these things, claimed that public transport was adequate – even though the last buses and trains run at around midnight.
Before: the view down Sutton High Street as it is today
There was also much discussion around public infrastructure, such as the provision (or lack of it) of GPs, dentists and schools for all the new households that will be moving into the already crowded town centre.
Councillors questioned whether there was adequate school provision in the immediate area, particularly for primary school children. All the local schools, including Manor Park Primary, are already heavily oversubscribed. Jack Cutler, Sutton’s acting head of pupil-based commissioning, said that there was plenty of room at St Dunstan’s in Cheam, in the extreme west of the borough, one-and-a-half miles from the B&Q site. In fact, St Dunstan’s has 22 places.
After: and how Chalk Gardens towers will dominate the skyline when completed
“At about 8am, according to the mapping software we use, the travel time by car to St Dunstan’s would be approximately 15 to 20 minutes,” Cutler said.
Foster rose in his chair and said: “Your calculation for the car travel to St Dunstan’s School is rather irrelevant because no bugger’s going to have a car.” Ouch.
It emerged that the council has already allocated most of the proposed Community Infrastructure Levy to be paid by the developers towards dealing with issues for children with special needs, and two other projects. “It was as if the council expected the application to be granted,” a councillor commented to Inside Sutton.
Bulk: Chalk Gardens is supposed to be a car-less development
The sheer bulk of the development will change the skyline of Sutton, and was the cause of the majority of the 315 public objections. Planning officers demonstrated the bulk by showing before and after streetscapes, indicating significant overshadowing of heritage Victorian houses and Manor Park, with its war memorial.
“It’s the Croydonisation of Sutton,” another councillor confided, and not meaning in a good way.
Shields summed up the objections of those opposed: this application throws the rules away. “There’s no point being here if we ignore the Local Plan. Three or four thousand extra people will of course have a local impact.”
Shields noted that the applicant had been working with the council for more than three years, preceding lockdown. The Local Plan was only two years old at the time.
Another member of the committee was Luke Taylor, the Liberal Democrat who fancies his chances at being selected by his party as their candidate for Sutton and Cheam at the General Election. Taylor praised the development as being appropriate for the post-covid world. He failed to mention that the council could expect an additional £1.7million every year in Council Tax income.
Opposed: Tory Tony Shields
Taylor also noted that the number of homes being built matched the number of families in Sutton in temporary bed and breakfast accommodation, not that any of them would likely be able to afford to live in any of Chalk Gardens’ new flats, where even the “affordable” homes are likely to be resoundingly unaffordable for many on average salaries.
“Yes, develop the site,” said Shields. “No, do not overdevelop the site. Don’t turn it into a Croydonesque dystopia. The public are being systematically ignored in this borough.”
The vote went as expected, with the LibDems in favour, and Tories and independent against, although Ogbonna abstained.
It’s likely that once the 21-storey and other blocks of Chalk Gardens start to rise into the sky about Sutton, locals will truly begin to object. By then it will all be too late, of course.
As one public objector said, “I moved to this part of Sutton as it had a semi-rural feel. Trashing the Local Plan is ecocide.”
Read more: Council’s stalled housing development could cost £50m-plus
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“… the last buses and trains run at around midnight.”
Not strictly true as far as buses are concerned.
N44 to Mitcham – Tooting – Earlsfield – Wandsworth – Battersea, etc.
213 to Kingston
run half-hourly through the night.
Both are a couple of minutes walk from the site.
Not that I’d fancy waiting for up to half an hour in Sutton at any time of the day or night.
Admittedly no use for those going South or East.
Just about what you would expect from the Lib Dems , lets put up 1000 flats, we wont worry that an impact assessment would say you need more parking complete with EV charging and school places not to mention GP services, did anyone consider a commercial size heat pump to service the flats which you had constructed with Nordic standard insulation ( you are doing proper insulation aren’t you ) , Nope we just dump 2500 people into the flats and then let them sort it out for themselves.
The reason for the smaller than expected number of objections is that we have given up. The council will do what it likes and if on the off chance their plans get rejected, they can rely on the Planning Inspector to overturn it.