There will be a drop-in exhibition at the Town Hall of the latest plans for the redevelopment scheme, on Friday 20 April 4-8pm and Saturday 21 April 10-2 pm, as shown in our diary. The plans will be on the Council website thereafter. The designs will form the basis of the planning application so it is not a consultation event - but there will be the opportunity to submit comments as part of the planning process.  The Council's letter of invitation sent to the areas closest to the Town Hall is attached.

For reference, the visualisations shown here are from the February 2018 consultation - we understand that these have been updated subsequently.

Members of the Hammersmith Society, Historic Buildings Group and HAMRA committees met the team in charge of the major works planned for Hammersmith Bridge.

Jane Bain of HAMRA delivered an  impressive visual presentation about the effect of surrounding developments on the Bridge silhouette and general loss of visibility over time, using archive photographs (small selection shown below) to support our contention that the paint treatment of the Bridge should be revisited so the Bridge is visible, distinctive and can be fully appreciated in longer views. The agreement of Historic England will be needed to any change in the colour treatment, which may be a challenge.

The works, which will involve bridge closure, are still scheduled for the end of this year. At the moment studies are still being carried out on the Bridge: stress tests, load assessments, effects of previous repairs. A feasibility report is being prepared on the basis of this information which will give options for the scale of the major repairs: financial viability may not necessarily support TfL’s aspiration to have double-decker buses using the Bridge. 

Continue reading →

This site (between Hammersmith Library and the Broadway) is a 1960s office building, and developers are proposing to re-clad it and remodel the interior as a Premier Inn hotel. Members of the Committee attended an exhibition of plans. The scheme is effectively remodelling,  not  redevelopment from the ground up, and so offers limited scope for a real improvement to the streetscene. Our opinion was that the proposals were broadly neutral in terms of impact on Shepherd's Bush Road. The developer's illustration is shown above.

It is with great sadness that we report the news of the death of our Chairman, Tom Ryland RIBA. Tom died peacefully on 9th March in Hammersmith Hospital.

It is hard to imagine the Hammersmith Society without Tom. He had been on the Committee for many years, and Vice Chairman for some twelve years, before becoming Chairman nearly three years ago - a role to which he brought his knowledge as an architect, a lively interest in local affairs and a belief that it was always possible to do things better. His wisdom, and his calm, balanced approach to planning issues were an immense asset to the community.

Working with Tom was always a pleasure. He was unflappable, interested, sociable, kind, and had a wonderful quiet sense of humour. He had a great gift for getting people on his side, and committee meetings with him at the helm were enjoyable affairs. He will be hugely missed by the very many people across the wide range of activities he gave his time to. We extend our thoughts and all our sympathy to his wife Liz and all his family.

A more detailed appreciation of Tom’s contribution to the Society will be included in our April Newsletter.

A service of thanksgiving will be held on 21 April at 12.00 at St Peter’s Church, W6 9BE. Donations in Tom’s memory may be made to The Blood Fund, which supports the Haematology Department at Hammersmith Hospital: www.imperialcharity.org.uk/the-blood-fund.

Further to my News Update last week, we have received notice that there will be an ‘interim’ report to the Council’s ‘Community Safety, Environment and Residents Service Policy and Accountability Committee’ on Monday 29th January at 7pm.
You can see the Report  here

This Committee is open to all and I strongly recommend you attend if you can. (Unfortunately I shall be away).

The report is completely noncommittal and there appears to be no recognition of the considerable local opposition both in Hammersmith and Chiswick where there are various active anti-CS9 groups and petitions. Continue reading →

We have been pressing the Council – so far unsuccessfully – for us to be involved in decisions regarding the refurbishment of the bridge which is due to take place later this year.  As you will all be aware, the bridge is in need of strengthening so that it can support the weight of double decker buses and some lorries.

This a joint project between Transport for London and the Council who have responsibility for the maintenance of the bridge. Several short term closures have been necessary for temporary works and we understand further closures are necessary to allow detail survey work to be carried out. There still does not seem to be a formal programme for the main works. For obvious reasons we do not expect to be involved in the technical detail and our main interest is in the lighting and redecoration. Since the last lighting upgrade for which the Hammersmith Society gave its Environment Award in 2000 for the ‘blades of light’ created on each side of the bridge, lighting technology has moved on in leaps and bounds so that the individual incandescent bulbs will almost certainly be replaced by strips of modern LEDs. Continue reading →