Planning permission was refused last night for a scheme that threatens a South Norwood heritage building which was once home to Arthur Conan Doyle. But this case is not closed yet…
Local heritage: the blue plaque at 12 Tennison Road
And so it came to pass…
The first planning application at the first meeting of the LabCon stitched-up planning committee at the start a new council administration is almost certain to be appealed to the government’s Planning Inspector, potentially at huge public cost, after the new committee managed to refuse permission for a scheme to build 24 flats in South Norwood in the middle of a housing crisis.
The profit-hungry developers Walker Properties Ltd claim that they could not include a single “affordable” home and still deliver a “viable” development at 12 and 14 Tennison Road – where their flats could sell for an estimated total of £7million-plus.
A distraction from the commercial purpose of the developers is the use of 12 Tennison Road, which for three years in the 1890s was the family home of Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes.
The house even has a GLC blue plaque (or “plague”, if you are to believe the website of a little-read local newspaper) to mark the world-famous author’s stay there between 1891 and 1894, at a time when he was giving up his medical practice to become a full-time author.
A plague on all your houses: how Retch’s wretched Croydon website got it embarrassingly wrong about the blue plaque, which dates from 1973, long before English Heritage existed
The developers want to knock bits off No12 and chunks off its neighbouring, “twin” Victorian house, 14 Tennison Road, to convert them both from current use as HMOs, homes of multiple occupancy, into 12 flats, and to create pedestrian and vehicle access to a plot of open space at the rear of the buildings where they want to build a particularly ugly block with 12 more flats.
No12 and No14 are locally listed buildings, but have no other planning protections. The council’s heritage officer submitted remarks with the planning report which underlined concerns about the damage that might be caused if the project went ahead, describing the buildings as a “distinctive pair” whose architectural value depends on their symmetry.
You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes, though, to work out where this scheme is heading, after three years of “extensive discussions” (and pre-app fees to the council) between the commercial developers and Croydon planning officials.
No protections: locally listed, 12 Tennison Road has no planning protections from development. Used as an HMO, it has been painted cream, covering the Victorian red brick
The council’s planners, led by the developers’ friend, “head of development management” Nicola Townsend, had produced a report strongly in support of the scheme, even though it would not provide a single affordable home. The council’s policy is that new residential schemes with 10 or more homes must provide up to 50% affordable housing.
At last night’s committee meeting, Townsend urged “caution” over the possibility of an appeal if the councillors refused permission on affordability grounds. Townsend had gone out and got an independent assessor to consider the scheme’s viability, and they had – most conveniently – agreed with the developer.
Yet not a single Labour or Conservative councillor on the now eight-strong committee would vote in favour of the project. They couldn’t even find anyone to make a proposal to grant planning permission for the scheme.
Instead, Tory councillor Mark Johnson and Labour councillor Sean Fitzsimons, mumbling something about the “incongruous” design of the new block of flats, cobbled together an alternative proposal which saw seven of the committee vote to refuse planning permission, with just one abstaining.
So it is not only Tory councillors, and MP Chris Philp, who opt for full-on NIMBY mode when it comes to building housing in Croydon.
Pyrrhic victory: Labour’s Melanie Felten was claiming success after last night’s committee
Labour councillor Melanie Felten made a three-minute presentation against the scheme (which Townsend later criticised for raising objections that are not strictly allowed under planning law), and afterwards said that she was “pleased” that “the committee voted to reject the ill-designed application and protect the heritage of this important building”.
Felton said: “We need high-quality affordable homes in South Norwood that compliment the local character well.
The building “is a valued part of our community”, Felton said, and “it is an important part of our local history and character, and I am pleased that its significance has been recognised”.
Conan Doyle’s house has been painted a cream colour, has been much altered at the rear, and currently provides homes for 16 people in 12 rooms. Felton failed to state whether she has done anything to get the “valued” building nationally listed, to provide proper protections from redevelopment.
She probably has less than six months to do so, before Walker Properties Ltd have their day with the planning inspectorate and overturn last night’s anti-development decision.
Read more: Labour’s secret deal with Tories to block Greens on planning
Read more: Planning control has got worse under developers’ friend Perry
Read more: Stink from Arkwright Road flats smells of council failures
Read more: Home owner’s victory after four-year battle with planners
Read more: Planners’ unconditional love for developers is unchanged
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And at the other end of the Borough, there are the partly built but certainly unoccupied blocks (plus tall cranes) adorning the Purley skyline. Plus the 5 or 6 small blocks alongside Purley Oaks Station. What is going on (or not) there?
Has the Council got any answers please? They never reply to any questions about them.