The implications for North Hammersmith of adoption of the OPDC Local Plan by Henry Petersen
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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.

Our member Henry Peterson has a a lifetime’s experience in the world of planning, and been a long-term adviser to affiliate St. Helens Residents Association and the Old Oak Neighbourhood Forum.  He’s written on OPDC matters extensively, including for us, and his comments were mentioned several times in the recent Local Plan adoption meeting.

Here he takes the long view of what’s happened at OPDC, specifically in its long Local Plan development and eventual adoption on 22nd June, with reference to the falling-out with CarGiant that unravelled its original aims, and suggests what the plan now means for North Hammersmith.

The alarming vision presented is a land-grab to replace the lost CarGiant area, coupled with yet more ultra high-rises on the horizon in North Acton, and indeed 15-20+ storeys all along the boundary of Wormwood Scrubs with poor local public transport, sufficient for LBHF’s leader to withhold his support for another likely overbuilt Mayoral project.

In Henry’s words: “One of London’s last large brownfield areas deserved better.” 

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

Mayor presents Environment Award 2022 to Flanagan Lawrence [Jason Flanagan & Barbara Twine]

Mayor presents Nancye Goulden Award 2022 to Elder Press Cafe [Lindsay and Andrew Elder]

Mayor presents Jane Mercer Award 2022 to Green Project SB [ Maria Helena Scott ]

Mayor presents Jane Mercer Award 2022 to Green Project SB

Mayor and Nicholas Boys Smith at AGM 2022

NB Smith + Chairman Richard Winterton

The Palladium [ Photo: @sbcalling ]

Palladium Plaque

Elder Press Cafe

Sawley Road – Green Project nominated for Jane Mercer Award 2022

Hammersmith Society Chairman + former chairs

Full House at AGM 2022

Andy Slaughter MP at AGM 2022

Members view presentation boards at AGM 2022

members of Green Project at AGM 2022

(AGM Photos: Franco Chen. Click for full-size versions)

Summary

‘Gentle Density’

Our guest speaker was Nicholas Boys Smith, of CreateStreets, and the CreateStreets Foundation, who gave an inspiring presentation, showing why we don’t need 55 storey towers to solve housing problems, and that real people prefer what CreateStreets refer to as “gentle density”.

The Environment Award was given to The Palladium on Shepherds Bush Green. We visited it earlier this year and were impressed with the design quality provided by the same architects, Flanagan Lawrence, who transformed the Dorsett next door, and to whom we also gave our Environment Award in 2015.  This area of the borough has seen significant improvements in the last few years, and we hope that the hotel currently under construction on the North side of the Dorsett lives up to the high standards set.

Unfortunately this year there were no projects of the right type or scale nominated for the Tom Ryland Award for Conservation.

The Nancye Goulden Award was given to the Elder Press Café which recently opened in South Black Lion Lane, W6. This conversion has been carried out with unusual care and sensitivity – the shop window is retained to bring life and light which animates this little street and the builder’s yard is brought back to life as an outside seating area with fine new timber gates thrown open during the day.

For the first time in several years we presented the Jane Mercer Award for “proactive co-operation, collaboration and communication”. The Green Project, Shepherds Bush provided exactly this, an initiative setup by local residents to make the neighbourhood around Sawley Road W12 greener, and at the same time to bring the community together.

Wooden spoons were awarded to the council for a failure to fully engage with their own green agenda by keeping new street trees alive and overseeing the generally inadequate tree pits partly responsible, which were similarly awarded in 2013, 2014, and 2015; and for an unfortunate lack of inclusivity afforded by the King Street Cycleway, C9, with everyone but cyclists losing out unnecessarily, some significantly.

27 of yore, at Hammersmith bus station

There’s some evidence that politics are again in charge of poor transport policy. Those of you taking note of the words in the article on Cycleway 9 just three months ago, may be rightly disappointed that the gambit proposed – actually somewhat tongue-in-cheek – was in reality already planned.

“Perhaps this is part of the grand plan, to make TfL redundant, the Mayor abandon most of his responsibilities, and the great unwashed go back to using their feet ? “

A logical extension of converting peak-time multipurpose bus lanes into full-time single-purpose cycle lanes – not just in Hammersmith – but across London, with a consequent disbenefit to 97% of the population, was that something like this could well be on the way.

While the Mayor of London blames a 4% central government funding cut, the Transport Minister has responded that the cuts were already planned over a year ago, and there’s some evidence deep in a sustainability plan from Jan 2021 to support that. One side of the political divide may also be playing games with the other, choosing to “park its tanks on the opposition’s lawn” by perhaps imposing more cuts on their supporters patch, and also meaning that our bridge continues to be unfunded as the Cinderella of this melodrama. Overall, the reduction in total peak bus frequency is 424 to 324 per hour, or a 25% reduction in the affected services, according this spreadsheet made from TfL data by Sian Berry, chair of the GLA transport committee, which might reasonably surprise you.

Please complete the consultation by 12th July so that there is a record of dismay, regardless of outcome. The story is covered in local press in more detail, the summary being that some of the oldest routes such as 11, N11, 14, 27, 31, 49, 72 and 74 will be cut, or no longer serve the borough, The 27 is again a pawn in this game, it having already been cut back as the picture above reminds us – it went as far as Chiswick Business Park in recent memory. It’s now proposed to replace the C3 route where it’s never ventured before, and no longer serve H&F at all. 

As we mentioned in the 5G article a couple of years ago, some Freeview TV channels provided by the Crystal Palace transmitter in London are being given over to 5G services, and a further switch-off is happening at the end of this month, OFCOM having auctioned off the 700MHz TV band to EE in 2021. Although little publicised by Freeview themselves, we found comprehensive details here. Update – Freeview have now published the changes.

In summary, the one remaining multiplex in that band is being switched off with the loss of several channels, and movement of others. You may have to manually retune your TV apparently.

Channels closing: BBC News HD, Forces TV, FreeSports, More4+1, NOW 80s, Quest HD, Quest Red+1, QVC HD, QVC Beauty HD, PBS America+1, That’s TV Music, That’s TV UK, Together.

Channels moving: BBC Four HD, CBeebies HD.

5G mast [ photo: Chiswick Calendar ]

Rylett Road cycle cut-through

5G of course brings the benefits of speed to those that need it, and 5G handsets are now becoming mainstream. We covered issues around the oversized base stations last time, and subsequently managed to help the council to see off the specific example at Rylett Road, (which as we suggested at the time, has now become a convenient cycle cut-through instead, as shown).

Our affiliate SPRA was very active in opposing a proposed base station adjacent to the A4 on their patch, and ultimately successful. Having seen the immensity of the masts “in the flesh” (as opposed to just line drawings), and the somewhat outlandish amount of associated street clutter (for the 21st century), this was a good result.

Hammersmith School of Art and Building
[ Illustration: Roger Warry : H&F HBG ]

The college buildings together with their boundary wall are listed Grade II by Historic England, under the original title ‘Hammersmith School of Building and Arts and Crafts’, and sits in the Coningham & Lime Grove conservation area.  The site also contains about a dozen mature trees, including a mulberry.

The buildings are now up for sale as the college is rationalising to their other site in Stratford by the end of next year. Allsop are marketing the two acre Lime Grove site, and indicating potential for continuing educational use, but there appear few safeguards against inappropriate (over)development.

We could go on to use many of the same words contained in our popular recent article on the Royal Masonic Hospital similarly on the market for redevelopment, which, as well as being a hospital, was also partly an educational institution for nurse training. Instead, here we reproduce an article from 2006, written for H&F Historic Buildings Group by our president Prof. Hans Haenlein, who has the additional distinction of having been a student of architecture at the college from 1955-1960.  Firstly, some local context:

The origin of Hammersmith &West London College in Gliddon Road W14 is firmly rooted in the history of the London County Council at the end of the 19th century, and the actions of Architect William Lethaby (1857 – 1931) who was appointed in 1894 as the LCC’s Inspector to its Technical Education Board. William Lethaby’s dominant role in the Arts and Crafts movement, his friendship with William Morris, a Hammersmith resident, as well as with his connections with the Weimar Bauhaus through Walter Gropius and Hermann Muthesius, provided a unique and strong European foundation for the LCC’s setting up of Hammersmith College of Art and Building in the late 1890s in Lime Grove. This in turn was the foundation of H&WL College.

William Morris by Chris Tranchell
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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 our second article, committee member Chris Tranchell writes a personal appreciation of the life of William Morris, describing what it means to him, and to Hammersmith.

We’re fond of our local Kelmscott House celebrity, not because of his often overplayed politics, but because he embodied a well-rounded life as an original polymath, a founder of the Arts and Crafts movement, who matches our interests in both architectural conservation and design quality, or as our president Hans Haenlein neatly puts it, Head-Heart-Hand.

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

Edward Woods Estate : solar panels on southern elevations

Our beady eye on planning applications has noted the seemingly innocuous application 2022/00504/CLP for removal of the arrays of a total of around 1000 solar panels across the southern elevations of the three tower blocks alongside the A3220, that form the Edward Woods Estate on the edge of the borough, but also ‘the largest building-integrated renewable energy array in London’.

The panels have recently been assessed as a high fire risk, and the plan is to remove them all, without replacement.  Just a few hundred metres from the Grenfell Tower, this is another aspect of the ongoing cladding scandal, with added spice.

We’re fans of renewable energy, (this website is 100% renewably powered by way of a miniscule example), and it was good news seeing such huge arrays installed here in Hammersmith just a decade ago, and now equally disappointing that the greenest borough, can’t find a way to economically replace or remediate them by reducing the risk to acceptable levels, especially in the current energy crisis, in visible support of a very public climate change strategy. We’d like to understand if there are any implications for other buildings with such PV panels, including small residential – read on…

The situation helps highlight more arcane yet significant structural problems in the energy market, which we expand on below, and which despite all the recent column inches on the subject, have not been talked about in mainstream media. Your reward for reaching the end of the article is an insight into why you’re still regularly paying the gas price for wind or solar power.

Edward Woods was ‘The largest building-integrated renewable energy array in London’, the solar part of the project costing around £1m a decade ago. To put it in context, this scale is equivalent to about two years of the entire borough’s Solar Together buying scheme applications (and rather more than actual installations), a scheme which is being promoted by the council at the moment.

Perhaps a significant lesson is staring us in the face?  As the climate change team say below, they’re focusing on other interventions instead, namely insulation and boiler replacements which are a more effective use of limited funds, especially on buildings taller than 18m with new post-Grenfell constraints. Take your cue, and look at this offer from the council to provide free Ecofurb Plans to help you identify what’s best to do in your particular circumstances, which can otherwise be a challenge to work out, as we mentioned before.

We approached Cllr. Wesley Harcourt, cabinet member for the Environment, for comment. The council’s climate change team responded with the statement in the blue box below.

108-116 Glenthorne Road – Hotel Proposal

Dalling Road Open Space, St David’s Day 2019
[Photo: Richard Jackson]

We’ve been keeping an eye on the plans to redevelop the parade of shops that many will know as ‘The Fireplace Shop’ at the western end of Glenthorne Road, seen in the background of adjacent photo, before it closed a couple of years ago.

The plans (ref 2021/03464/FUL) are for a 23-bed boutique hotel with café on the ground floor, and are not out of scale with the road or the existing buildings (the addition of a set-back mansard is planned as shown, similar to others opposite). A public consultation was held in late September last year at the Grove Neighbourhood Centre, which we attended.

But a concern is that being on a busy corner of the one-way system, and needing regular servicing via Studland Street adjacent, the level of activity may be too intrusive for the residents nearby and would often occur during antisocial hours, plus there’s a particular overshadowing problem noted for 50 Studland Street alongside. The project really needs a little more development, and a thorough review of the transport statement and travel plan included in the application.

A joint letter of objection with our affiliate BRA is attached.

April 2023 update

A number of relatively small changes have been proposed as part of a revised planning application to address the planners, neighbour’s and our concerns under ref: 2022/03664/FUL, but there remain a number of issues on which we and BRA commented: Comments

Do we need to think differently when when solving problems?
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.

By way of introduction to this new set of member-contributed articles, here we present a thought-provoking article from longstanding member Emeritus Professor Derek Clements-Croome, discussing the tension between specialists and generalists, so-called hedgehogs and foxes, leadership, and how we think, with reference to sustainability and the tension between cost and value, with examples such as the Grenfell Tower.

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

It’s been a relatively quiet six months at the bridge since we last reported on it.  LBHF announced the award of a 9-month stabilisation contract to deal with cracks in the cast-iron pedestals, at a cost of £8.9m, and there’s been some to-ing and fro-ing on who’ll pay (finally equally split LBHF, TfL, DfT), setting aside the cost of the future major repairs necessary, still undecided.  The stabilisation will enable the main repair and renewal of other components of the bridge to follow in a separate contract.

During the stabilisation contract cyclists will not be allowed on the main carriageway but must wheel their bikes on the walkway – hoardings have gone up to that effect, though social media suggests that the dismounting instructions have yet to reach all quarters!

We noted late last year that the council had observed planning niceties by applying to itself for permission for the stabilisation works under ref 2021/03680/LBCHF. which it formally approved at the end of February. We understand similar has happened on the South side with LBRUT.  Subsequently, an application has been lodged for temporary removal of sections of the handrail to allow pedestrians/cyclists to still cross while bypassing the pedestal housings, under 2022/00786/DLBC. 

Engineering

Concrete infill from 2021/03680/LBCHF

We remain a little disappointed that the plan still involves pouring concrete into the now infamous cast iron pedestals – not recognised bedfellows – but this is an old comment that has so far been met with a tin ear. We must hope the thermal effects and regular bridge vibration which have been written about at length, and even reported by a concerned member of the public last week, don’t gradually separate or crumble this unusual mixture. If it was a recognised and tested process, a standard method statement would be referenced, but instead the designer has listed an array of materials and notes on the drawings, the word “suitable” signposting a degree of conjecture.  We can find no risk assessment to cover the effect of the additional mass, in the light of concerns about the strength of the pedestal footings noted during earlier investigations. The figure mentioned was 6 tonnes per pedestal, and it would be sensible to properly address this risk.

The documents state that Historic England is satisfied that the proposal respects Bazalgette’s design because the pedestals are not visible, which was precisely the point we made last year. If invisible, then remove them and do the job properly as a self-respecting engineer such as Bazalgette would do, having recognised a design or material weakness, and with the existence of better modern materials. Replacing them with something stronger, lighter, maintainable, and built offsite, allowing a quick like-for-like replacement (12 bolts), and future bearing maintenance, without all the onsite paraphernalia and disruption now planned, is the right thing to do, and also cheaper – especially long-term.  The existing plan falls into the unfortunate category of being neither fish nor foul – not comprehensive enough to improve function, future maintenance and de-risk the structure, not quick or cheap enough to say it’s a disposable fix until major repairs can be undertaken.

Repair and Renewal

The  repair and renewal contract involves replacing 172 hangers, repairing the bearings at the top of the four towers and dealing with defects in many other components to restore the bridge to its former glory, strength and usefulness.  There are two options for providing a temporary crossing for the public during this repair work:

• 

  Foster & Partners bridge proposal

  The Foster scheme on which we reported last year, involving a ’tube’ structure within the Heritage bridge passing between the towers and allowing the progressive replacement of bridge sections and components.

• The Beckett Rankine scheme involving a 5-span crossing adjacent to the Heritage bridge.