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The council’s short-notice decision to make C9 permanent was reported in HammersmithToday in March. That would be less significant if the January to June Key Decisions List had mentioned it, or if the cycle and walking commission had been in the loop.
This key decision was made on 6th March – on the cusp of a legal minimum five working days notice, but despite being ‘key’ was not sufficiently important to be discussed at the 17 minute Cabinet meeting that day.
We are in the business of being a ‘critical friend’, as a former chair once put it, and here we need to be critical. An apparent reluctance to encourage public – or even cabinet – scrutiny in such a significant decision making process is concerning. Let’s be clear: we expect a well-designed, safe and efficient public transport system for everyone, and the C9 bidirectional design unnecessarily precludes that simple and democratic vision, marginalising those unable to cycle – and that’s quite a few. We might also reflect on the fact that bicycles are ‘vehicles’ in law, and while cycling is classed as ‘active’, it remains a form of private transport being favoured over actual public transport, while at the same time being encouraged to use a less safe infrastructure.
Without independent design and vetting, the council created and reported on it’s own survey in October/November 2022, on which the decision appears to rest. The detailed report has been redacted which raises its own questions, but the summary is problematic too. Firstly it’s a small self-selecting sample of around 700 people, of whom only around half live in the borough. Secondly, 45% of the able-bodied, and 22% of the disabled respondents said their preferred mode of transport was cycling. But only 3-4% of the public actually cycle according to TfL’s cycling counts, casting respondents as ‘keyboard warriors’, unrepresentative, or both.
The survey data, redacted as it is, shows a design successful enough to split the public 92% against (drivers), 89% for (cyclists), with 68% of disabled respondents not regarding C9 as beneficial. Overall, only 52% of the respondents thought C9 to have a positive impact, and last time that percentage voted for something of significance, there was some notable buyer’s remorse.
It’s been widely reported by others that this two-way design is, rather then the moniker ‘safer’, actually the more dangerous cycle path, as the accident rate (above) confirms. We’ve disregarded the council’s collision data supporting its decision, as it erroneously compares three years of pre-C9 accidents with less than one year with, while failing to normalise the data as an accident rate, per the chart above. Nevertheless, it still shows a higher percentage of cycle-related accidents since C9.
The risks were evident before implementation as a result of advice from transport experts, including those that have studied Dutch and Danish implementations (the latter removing bidirectional paths in urban areas over a quarter of a century ago on safety grounds), through the council’s own unflattering public engagement exercise (painfully extracted by FOI), it’s own Walking/Cycling Commission – which was not consulted in detail – it’s own Disabled Residents Commission, and, last but not least, us! 80% of accidents continue to happen at junctions, and much vaunted segregation does little other than provide a false sense of security for unwary users, to which we might partly attribute the increased accident rate.
The Disabled Residents Commission didn’t support the existing ‘temporary’ scheme, or the bus bypass concept, their abandoned bus shelters, or staggered pedestrian controlled crossings, and were as surprised as we were to see the 22% claim above. For reference, TfL’s latest data says 83% of disabled and 82% of able-bodied Londoners have never used a bike.
We put these and further specific points to Cllr. Holder, responsible for this policy, who passed them on to officers for detailed response, yet to be received. At the moment, we have no idea what a proposed ‘permanent’ C9 looks like, such is the lack of communication and consultation on this important transport artery.
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Under the banner ‘Taking a View’, from time to time, we’re pleased to publish articles by members on a subject of their choice, which they believe will be interesting to the wider membership.
In this article, our member Dr. Alex Reid revisits the work done on the original Flyunder proposal, and in recognition of the times we live in, looks at how the essence of it could be reworked into a vision for the 2020’s, recognising a much-prolonged lifespan for the flyover, and the longterm declining pollution levels on the A4.
As cheerleaders for the original Flyunder proposal, we support the essence of these proposals, especially in respect of possible improvements to the environment, and the prospect of measurably safer cycling facilities along the A4, as long as A4 capacity can be substantially maintained, which earlier research suggests is possible. The creation of the Society was of course as a result the A4 ‘cutting a great divide through the townscape’ in the early 1960’s.
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Articles are unedited personal viewpoints, and may not always represent the views of the Society
Breathe London solar-powered wireless AQ monitor – close up on a lamp post on C9. These are Clarity node S sensors
As an off-beat way to mark the half-century since that iconic song Can the CAN topped the charts in June 1973, in the last six months LBHF has sponsored air quality monitors installed on roadsides near a number of primary schools, and on the C9 cycleway. The short and long-term numbers show that air quality isn’t very poor as claimed, suggesting instead that the Clean Air Neighbourhoods policy should be canned, or rather better, renamed and prioritised towards the basket of the other proposed environmental improvements in an unfortunately misnamed policy. With London Climate Action week around the corner, this is especially true when the extra miles, economic and other downsides of the proposed LTN’s are considered.
The policy aims to improve the overall environment in H&F, and who can deny that’s a good idea? But the unnecessary LTN part of the policy is likely to make the air worse in the worst hot spots, and the PR fails the fact-check, which we explore further below.
50 monitors in H&F were supplied by Breathe London, as part of a 430+ fleet across London supported by Imperial’s ERG (Environmental Research Group). When they produce data, which can be intermittent because they’re radio linked, they appear to give reasonably consistent results in line with the council’s ‘regulatory’ stations HF4 and HF5 at Shepherds Bush Green and the Broadway, plus a new one, HF7 by Frank Banfield Park, which are run professionally by Ricardo Environmental. Those stations are rather more sophisticated and reliable, covering more pollutants than the NO2 and PM2.5 measured by the new monitors, which are nevertheless of most interest. We’re told that the council is also supplementing these with a private network of sensors, details of which are unavailable, though this from 2021 turns up in searches. In this article, we set the scene for an ongoing citizen science project, building on a previous article
Contrary to many reports, since the H&F Air Quality commission first reported in 2016 (and the 2015 publication of the KCL report the council relies on), average nitrogen oxide levels in the borough have nearly halved, in line with the national figures shown adjacent. The decades-long steep straight-line downward trends previously described, suggests a proportionate and realistic plan is needed to address causes of the remaining local issues, rather than the imposition of unhelpful LTN’s.
PM2.5, though a quarter of the level it was in 1970, is still said by the WHO to be the main concern. While the council’s CAN page describes a good range of issues, it relies on short term pandemic-skewed data to shore up a fragile argument, ignoring long-term trends. If the graph adjacent represented rates of infant mortality, road accidents, heart attack, cancer rates or obesity, everyone would be singing from the rooftops, celebrating great successes. However normal rules don’t apply to Air Quality.
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Ideas for the development of the Ravenscourt Park Hospital campus are beginning to emerge from the new owners Telereal Trillium with their architects SPPARC Studio. There’s an interesting ‘information pack’ with historic photos and maps on their project website; here we include the key views from the May 2023 exhibition boards.
We’ve also seen detailed comments from the two adjoining Residents Associations – Ravenscourt Gardens and Ravenscourt Square – who both have significant concerns about adjacency and the effect of access requirements for a substantial housing development on their doorsteps. These have been submitted to the council, and while noting them, here we look more at the effect the proposals would have on the Grade II* listed building and its setting.
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As proposed, the development would harm the buildings it’s supposed to improve.
The scheme proposes that the 1930’s hospital buildings would be enlarged by adding two, three or four upper floors, generally set back from the building edge, and faced with saw-tooth profile glazed curtain wall shown in the CGI’s above. The roof extensions would be limited to one level on the outer blocks of the principal building “Block A” facing Ravenscourt Park, which would be refurbished and converted for a community use yet to be defined; the remaining buildings would be refurbished and converted to residential use. We would welcome an open and inclusive process of co-design to evaluate possible future uses of Block A, to arrive at a defined and sustainable use that works for the community and developer.
The 1978 surgical and ancillary building on the northwest corner, beside Ravenscourt Square, is proposed to to be replaced by a residential block and a separate care-home block, shown as undefined white blocks “E” and “F” in the model above.
The hospital building is a stand-alone architectural whole, a form which does not readily invite extension. It employs a restrained, consistent architectural language, with regular geometric brick forms, orderly window perforations, playful articulation separating the building elements with circular balconies and pavilions, and a bold, heroic principal block facing the park. These unique qualities would be overwhelmed by the changes proposed. The roof extensions would impose an architectural levelling-up, bringing an inappropriate sameness to the distinctly separate elements of the buildings. The eye-catching angular glazing design would be at odds with the quiet regularity of the buildings below, and would hardly reflect the visual subservience required in planning policy.
The new buildings proposed for the northwest corner “E” & “F” are shown only in diagram form on the display board image adjacent, and further design information is needed, including contextual views showing the relationship of the new blocks to the hospital buildings, the overall campus, and the neighbouring buildings of Ravenscourt Square – especially Grade ll No. 11, and locally listed No. 17 on the corner.
There is also proposed access East-West through the site, between blocks “D” and “E”, which is not currently possible, and it’s fair the say that there are mixed views about this proposed feature in the adjoining communities.
The NPPF (National Planning Policy Framework) sets out the relevant policies for listed buildings, and requires that alterations proposed to heritage assets are assessed by Historic England according to the extent of harm they would cause, and states that ‘…substantial harm to a grade ll* listed building should be wholly exceptional’ (NPPF para 200). Some concessions may be allowed where the changes would support the future conservation of the building, or would bring about significant public benefit.
These criteria rule out the current proposals: the extensions would bring very substantial harm to this wonderful building. While they could generate funds for the conservation of the building and gardens, the accommodation they provide would bring no benefit to the public.
The early opportunity for public involvement is welcome, and we have carefully reviewed the May 2023 proposals, and set out our response above, together with a letter containing the same points to the council planners.
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The Origin and Possible Future of Hammersmith & West London College by Hans Haenlein
Click on the image to open the pdf
Under the banner ‘Taking a View’, from time to time, we’re pleased to publish articles by members on a subject of their choice, which they believe will be interesting to the wider membership.
In this article, our president, Professor Hans Haenlein, updates us on an issue close to his heart: Hammersmith & West London College, both from an architectural but as importantly, a topical Further Education point of view, tracing its origins back to the Arts & Crafts movement and William Morris.
If you have an article you would like to be considered, please contact .
Articles are unedited personal viewpoints, and may not always represent the views of the Society
On a brisk March morning, we looked at the new West Hall music venue, the most advanced of the structures being built at Olympia, and viewed some of the rest of the site. As you can see, it’s still a major construction site and will be for the next couple of years. From the roof, we could see the theatre building now coming out of the ground, other parts of the site pictured below, and a wide swathe of North West London. Below we take a detailed look at the tall buildings on the horizon.
The music venue is substantial, holding c. 4000, with easy loading access immediately to the side of what will become the stage (left of photo). Of particular interest is the design and construction of the façade, to keep any noise emanating to a minimum, bearing in mind the existing residential buildings in Blythe road opposite. The capacity makes it twice the size of the O2 Empire, and comparable to the Apollo – though that’s usually seated these days – in the guise of the Hammersmith Odeon it took around 5000 standing.
Keeping to the theme of the entertainment and hospitality, the Emberton House theatre school foundations can be seen being built at the Western end of the former Maclise road car park, of which only the (listed) outside shell remains, plus the hotel foundations on the side nearest the railway. Operators for all venues are now established, so they will be able to open for business once construction is complete – phased from next year to early/mid 2025. Click on any of the images below for larger versions.
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Property company Yoo Capital, who are currently undertaking the ambitious expansion of Olympia, bought Shepherds Bush Market in 2020. Over recent months we’ve advertised and attended a number of public consultations, revealing plans for the area. These include (i) the redevelopment of the Old Laundry site, the triangular area behind the east side of the market, and (ii) the upgrade and renewal of the market facilities.
Two buildings are proposed for the Old Laundry site: (i) a mixed-use commercial building, of 6 upper floors, ground floor and mezzanine, and a full basement floor below, together providing for office space and Imperial College research facilities, and (ii) located on the north end of the site, a smaller building providing 40 affordable flats in 5 upper floors and ground floor.
This is a dense, complex scheme, inserting a substantial building bulk in a site landlocked behind the 2-storey shop terraces of Goldhawk Road, and 2 & 3-storey residential terraces of Pennard Road. For reference, the main commercial building is the same height as the Dorsett Hotel.
Looking North, this building would be visible from Goldhawk Road, rising above the shop terraces, and the substantial stepped, craggy elevation would not be out of place in the busy mix of style and scale, and could enrich the visual jazz of the area. From the west the building would be seen chiefly from the passing trains, and would form a new, east side to the market thoroughfare, with stalls partly tucked into the ground floor area, this would create an enclosure which could bring a sense of urban intimacy to the market thoroughfare, akin to the feel of Borough market.
On the east side, the building would be a dominant presence for the adjacent terrace of houses on Pennard Road, close to the rear gardens and crowding the outlook from rear windows. The design of the new building acknowledges this problem, and brings some mitigation with progressive stepping back at upper levels, and a landscaped area alongside the Pennard Road boundary: rules for this arrangement are set out in the Local Plan SPD (Section HS6), and the developer advises that the proposals comply with the dimensional restraints required. Resolution of this possible discord is fundamental to the development concept.
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In the last week there have been well-publicised consultation meetings either side of the river, covering the repair and refurbishment of the bridge together with proposed Foster/COWI temporary bridge. Below are photos of the models of the proposals, but there’s one further public exhibition in Barnes this Saturday – details in the diary
We’re delighted to see that the designers have adopted our 2020 proposal to widen the pathways alongside the bridge to at least 2.3m, to better facilitate walking and cycling which are currently rather less than ideal. One of the photos below shows before & after views, and you can see that the visual impact is minimal [click on the images for larger versions]. We understand that Historic England are satisfied that this won’t harm the setting of the Grade 2* bridge.
There’s a further piece of thinking to complete the necessary crossing of both 2-way cycling and pedestrians. Crossings naturally exist under the bridge at each side as we recall from the heights of COVID, but there remains a risk of paths crossing awkwardly. Subject to agreements, there may be an opportunity for the temporary walkway pictured to be part-repurposed into better crossover(s) after completion, with perhaps a smaller scale nod to the recent Dukes Meadows Footbridge.
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We attended the first Placelab session held next to the North Acton gyratory at Gypsy Corner, to help shape plans for Old Oak West. Representing our affiliate Old Oak Neighbourhood Forum, Henry Peterson was there, as were a good cross-section of neighbours and resident groups. For those of you unfamiliar with Old Oak, please read Henry’s piece Taking a View from last year, where he sets out the issues around this Mayoral Opportunity Area, and its planned expansion westwards in the wake of the CarGiant debacle.
Currently the area comprises around 90 acres of post-industrial no man’s land, and is proposed to provide 9000 homes and 2.5m sq. ft. of commercial space to the northwest of Victoria Road, between North Acton and Harlesden/Willesden Junction.
With notable resonances of Earls Court, including comparable planned housing density of 250/ha, though twice the land area and in a rather less salubrious spot, the main development area is triangular in shape and similarly surrounded by railways, which provide mixed blessings for access, but it has the benefit of the Grand Union Canal rather than the West London Line through the middle. It doesn’t include the large Elizabeth Line depot alongside, because as reported, someone unfortunately forgot to specify foundations strong enough to support over-development! HS2 enabling works currently occupy a significant portion.
Though strictly in Ealing, it’s right on our borders, closely associated with Wormwood Scrubs and HS2/Oak Oak Common, and your skyline is likely to be affected as it has been already, by the 55 storey tower pictured below and adjacent, during the boat race. We think Historic England could ‘champion England’s Heritage’ better by proactively managing this ‘listed building setting’ rather more effectively.
If the developers have their way unfettered, as Henry describes, and as is the M.O. in Opportunity Areas where the normal planning shackles are largely off, they’ll add several more, and significantly overbuild. The leader of our council was the sole dissenter at the Local Plan adoption last year as Henry describes – the plan really must be deficient.
The workshop format was a sort of mini-charrette organised on behalf of the Mayoral development organisation, OPDC, by consultants Soundings, where about 30 people spread among 3 tables, were asked a series of questions about desirable locations for particular types of infrastructure, beit shops, parks, workspace, housing etc. There were, unsurprisingly, no picture cards of anything like Pilbrow’s planned 50+ storey towers for Imperial at 1 Portal Way.
The fashionable subject of 15 minute cities was aired as we show above, which these days is a byword for walking and cycling. We were asked to prioritise what type of infra should be located in annular zones 5 minutes’ walk apart from the centre. The range of views you can see shows how difficult placemaking can be, not least with a lack of an identifiable ‘centre’ or even definition of what a centre looks like, causing significant consternation on our table. In another similarity with Earls Court, we didn’t get a strong steer from OPDC as to any particular identity, making the area again fall into the awkward category of all things to all (wo)men.
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Earls Court site panorama, on “The Table”, looking approximately North. Temporary BBC Experience under construction in foreground.
Earls Court is one of those projects that keeps on giving. We wrote about the shenanigans surrounding former owners CAPCO at the hand of a well-known former prime minister, while reviewing 25 years of property development in one of our 2021 lockdown projects.
Earls Court and Earls Court 2 were totally demolished over the period 2015-18, leaving the huge empty, but complicated, 40 acre site pictured, straddling our borough and adjacent RBKC. At a stated demolition cost of £97M, needing the world’s largest crane to lift 61 of the up to 1500 tonne beams, this and other factors inevitably broke the former owners, never mind the carbon budget, with over 15,000 tonnes of concrete beams removed.
On the LBHF side, there was a long-running battle over ownership of the social housing – Gibbs Green and West Ken. estates – which were once sold to CAPCO and eventually returned in a deal with Delancey and the council in 2019. The net effect is that by not involving the adjacent estates, this master-plan covers the smaller area of 40 acres compared to the original CAPCO proposal that foundered, covering around 80 acres. According to some resident representatives we met, the condition of parts of these estates remains poor.
Enter the Earls Court Development company (“ECDC”) with Delancey and others joining forces with TfL again. The recent site walk showed us just how much railway there is around and under Earls Court, and why little can be done without TfL involvement. Blessed with a station at each corner (Earls Court, West Brompton and West Ken.), the site unsurprisingly benefits from the maximum 6b PTAL rating.
Over the last couple of years, ECDC have run a number of workshops and local community engagement exercises to steer the master-plan, several of which we advertised to members and/or attended. Now it’s ready for all to see, and exhibition details appear in our diary (starting 23rd Feb), together with a webinar and public meeting date.
Earls Court model looking approximately SW. The white translucent model (foreground) is the consented Tesco redevelopment (100 West Cromwell Road)
The scale of the proposed development is as immense as earlier the demolition task, with buildings up to 39 storeys around the existing landmark Empress State Building (ESB) shown, itself 31 storeys high. In West London, this makes the proposed tall buildings second-only to the North Acton towers – no boasting matter.
The model shows that the masterplan uses much of the railway and existing infrastructure to guide new structure placement – the routes through the site are predominately directly above the tunnels which are only just below the surface and insufficiently strong to be built on. A pleasing advantage of this more carbon-friendly approach, is that the routes have to be curved, indeed some of the smaller scale housing in the foreground (above) is in crescent format, the like of which we’ve rarely seen since the brutalist Hulme or Golden Lane crescents of the 60’s, or subsequently more successfully at the Barbican.
“The Table” is a concrete cover over part of the West London Line that bifurcates the site, forms the borough boundaries and was the camera location for the above panoramas. Built as part of the base for former Earls Court 2, it’s of unknown strength and therefore assumed too weak to be built on, but forms an above/below grade datum for much of the site. Servicing of all varieties is most definitely below stairs.
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