Developers have submitted a £250million proposal to build 507 flats on a site opposite Sutton railway centre, the latest tower block for the town centre.
Press ganged: developers are proposing more than 500 homes opposite Sutton Station
The scheme, which has been dubbed “Press Works”, will retain and repurpose a 19-storey office block on the site. The developers say that they want to retain more than half of the existing structure, in an effort to make the project more sustainable.
The proposals, from Amro Partners, will deliver 312 build-to-rent homes and 195 co-living apartments. They say that they intend to make 35% of the build-to-rent flats “affordable”. The tower block will also include coworking space, gyms and children’s play areas, while the ground floor will provide a dedicated community hub for use by locals, charities and community groups at a subsidised rate.
The name of the scheme is a nod to the site’s heritage as home to multiple publishing firms and local Jose Glover, Rector of Sutton in the 1600s, who was a pioneer of the early printing press.
Amro are the same developers who grabbed a bargain from Croydon Council when they bought the Croydon Park Hotel on Altyre Road, where they are building 33- and 36-storey residential blocks in another vast “build-to-rent” scheme of 450 homes.
In Sutton, Amro Partners have been working with Network Rail and the Sutton Women’s Centre on proposals for public realm improvements. The plans will see the space between the station and the building opened up with enhanced visibility and CCTV coverage, new paving and street lighting, and the installation of new public art.
Amro’s Tom Donnachie said, “Situated on a crucial gateway site, The Press Works will deliver much-needed new rental housing of different tenures, including affordable homes, and significantly enhance the public realm around Sutton Station.
“The embodied carbon re-use will make this one of our most sustainable projects to date and we look forward to working closely with the London Borough of Sutton, local charities and residents to deliver a lasting legacy for the town.”
Building work had originally been meant to have begun by now. Subject to approval from Sutton Council’s planning committee, development work is scheduled to start in 2026.
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500 new flats opposite Sutton station, so they will have easy access to (slow) trains from the station and there are probably loads of (even slower) bus routes serving the station. This means that the Public Transport Access Level (PTAL) will be very high at this development, which will be useful as the closest place you can park a fume-belcher is probably a few miles away outside the Sutton Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ).
Hopefully there will be plenty of secure cycle parking at this development(?).
Also, the developers say that they “intend” to make 35% of the flats “affordable”. If this was in Croydon, they would later reduce this figure, claiming that to provide the 35% proportion, would make the whole project uneconomic, and Croydon Council would cave in and allow them to build a more unaffordable development, but hopefully Sutton Council have more backbone ?!
FFS – I used to work at Quadrant House – didn’t realise Reed-Elsevier, the magazine publisher, had abandoned Sutton. This is a similar fate to that visited on their block on Throwley Way, Surrey House, which was home to Farmers Weekly, Motor, Motor Cycle Weekly and other famous titles. They moved all those titles from Fleet Street back in the ‘seventies.
What does “crucial gateway site” mean?
I suppose “embodied carbon re-use” just about makes sense, but what’s wrong with plain English?