As a Member, you will receive at least two printed newsletters and regular email updates each year, outlining our activities, and giving you the opportunity to participate in our campaigns. Members are always encouraged to take an active part in the work done by the committee – come along and see if you can help.
The membership year runs from 1st Jan, and only costs £6 for individuals, £8 for couples or families, and £15 for organisations. Additional voluntary donations always welcome.Cineworld in King Street have finally announced the formal closure to make way for the Town Hall Redevelopment Scheme. This will close in Mid. April.
To many of us this will be a sad loss with many family memories. A small replacement cinema complex is promised as part of the later phase of the Town Hall scheme. In the meantime, we will have no local cinema and Riverside Studios is not due to re-open for a couple of years.
Our day to day work of monitoring and commenting on planning applications continues relentlessly. Recent and current schemes include Savoy Circus (Student Housing) – turned down by the Planning and Development Committee in February in spite of officer support : Proposals for Latymer Upper School Boathouse, St Paul’s Girls School, Cambridge House, Auriol Road, Dimes Place, the Walkabout site, the Triangle site and many others . . . There has been a focus on several applications for tall Telephone Masts by mobile phone providers : In themselves they sound relatively harmless – except where sited in front of Listed Buildings – until you realise they also require up to three large metal cabinets on the footway nearby. Fortunately planning officers agree with our view and those of other groups that the siting of these on public footways is unacceptable. The suspicion is that the companies do not want to pay the tall buildings owners (where they should be mounted) for putting them there.
Bush Theatre
The theatre has got approval and funding to undertake some alterations and a small extension. The theatre will close shortly and hopes to re-open at the beginning of 2017.
Information can be found at : www.bushtheatre.co.uk/our-plans
The 16-page April Newsletter has been published and circulated to subscribing members. Subjects include:
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Following on from my previous brief report (7 November 2015), some of your Committee (with Committee Members from the Hammersmith and Fulham Historic Buildings Group) have attended two consultation meetings with the management of the Dorsett Hotel and their consultants who are designing the new scheme for this building which sits between the hotel and the O2 Empire Theatre.
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The Council have published this draft strategy and are seeking comments before the end of January. The report can be accessed here. The Hammersmith Society is currently assembling its response.
There were worrying reports in the Evening Standard and local news bulletins before Christmas, suggesting that there were problems with the funding of the fit out of the replacement studios which are due to re-open in 2017.
The Hammersmith Society strongly supports the return of the Studios in its new home and format. You can see the layout of the new premises at www.riversidestudios.co.uk
Unfortunately William Burdett-Coutts and Guy Hornsby are both out of the country presently so I have been unable to get their comments : A meeting is being arranged with them on their return.
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In the next few weeks, you can expect to see the closing of the Cineworld Cinema in King Street. Many have used this for all our years of living in Hammersmith. This will mark the commencement of the Town Hall/King Street Regeneration Project. The revised and generally more popular mixed use scheme was approved back in November 2013. It will be a phased scheme providing replacement offices for the Council where the cinema is now, about 200 new residential units, a new public square with shops, restaurants and a new Curzon cinema. No doubt there will be publicity and more specific information on the programming of the project. Watch this space!
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I am delighted to announce that the local artist Ben Johnson has agreed to be our second Annual Honorary Member.
Last year its was Annette Albert. Hopefully Ben is known to most of you and he has an international reputation. He has lived in Hammersmith for more years than he cares to remember with Sheila his wife, and has a studio both at his home in Hammersmith Mall (usually open as part of Open Studios) and in Dalling Road which he shares with Peter Blake. He does extraordinary super realistic pictures, painstakingly crafted and his most famous are probably his views of Liverpool, Jerusalem and Hong Kong. He is currently working on a fantastic painting of the Alhambra Palace and other Muslim buildings. He currently has a major retrospective exhibition ’Spirit of Place’ in Southampton City Art Gallery. He has done much to promote and support Hammersmith.
For more details of Ben’s extraordinary work, visit www.benjohnsonartist.com
Best wishes
Tom Ryland
Chairman
The Hammersmith Society
Campaigning for over 50 years
Triangle Site : The last commercial scheme was refused permission: A new residential scheme has been submitted but officers are waiting for additional information before the scheme is ‘validated’ and consultations can commence.
Walkabout Site : The developers (Dorsett Hotel) are in the process of setting up consultation on a new scheme prepared by the architects for the hotel conversion and not the perpetrators of the much disliked 16 storey tower.
Cambridge Grove : Former piano and aircraft factory : Currently offices behind Banim Street – to stay as offices. Pre-app. consultations with the developers/architect are on going including a site visit. There are contentious items on the scheme to be resolved.
Savoy Circus : We have written criticising the external appearance of a student hostel scheme (but not the principle) on the site of the former cinema/bingo hall on the corner of Westway/Old Oak Road. It is an important gateway coming into Hammersmith.
Latymer Boat House : We have responded to an application to refurbish and update the 1960s glazed building on the Mall. The plans also involve an extension at the side adjacent to Latymer House which is a Building of Merit. Generally we liked the scheme but have one or two concerns around the location of the extension.
Town Hall Development : It seems that the revised scheme will finally commence on site in the spring with demolition of the Cineworld cinema as the first phase. (There is to be a replacement cinema in due course). Some details are currently being reviewed.
.@LBHF are currently asking residents to share their thoughts on a proposed weekly Parkrun at Ravenscourt Park. Whatever your views, make sure your voice is heard - lbhf.citizenspace.com/environment/pa…
— Hammersmith Society @(HammersmithSoc) 2 days ago
Good news @TheStreetTree! @LBHF have had 2 dead stumps replaced with new street trees in King St. #Hammersmith - London Plane & Magnolia. Please @saigonsaigonuk / @Potlirestaurant adopt them, & water regularly this summer? Always opportunities for tree pit improvements too🙄
— Hammersmith Society @(HammersmithSoc) 3 days ago
@hammersmithandy @PutneyFleur Thanks for the mention: "A letter from the Hammersmith Society, which is a strictly non-political and very civilised body, to the Prime Minister two weeks ago..." - letter in our recent article: hammersmithsociety.org.uk/hammersmith-br…
— Hammersmith Society @(HammersmithSoc) 5 days ago
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Campaigning for over 50 years