181 Talgarth Road is the site where the former West London Magistrates building stands, located between the Ark office building and the BP garage, at the foot of the flyover.

West London Magistrates court: Initial design – now superseded

After the closing of the court facilities in 2017, the site was sold for commercial use, and in January 2019 the new owner submitted a planning application for a 800-bed  hotel development.  The proposals attracted widespread opposition from the local community including the Hammersmith Society, and as a result, in an unusual and public-spirited move, the developer, The Dominvs Group, chose to set aside the application, despite receiving a planning report recommending approval.

After discussions with LBHF, the Dominvs Group appointed a new design team with architects Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners (RSHP), who are also the architects for the Town Hall Civic Campus project.

West London Magistrates Court: RSHP redesign

The new design team were set to work to a demanding programme, and the Society joined a series of consultation meetings with the site neighbours, in particular the residents of the streets south of the site, whose outlook would have been dominated by the double slab block of the earlier scheme.

A planning application for the new scheme was lodged at the beginning of April, and the Society has now reviewed the proposals and returned comments to LBHF. The application may be viewed on the planning website here: 2020/00915/FUL. 

UPDATED: Our detailed review is here:
 Letter to LBHF – Hammersmith Society comments

In view of the planning history, the new scheme has unfortunately been permitted to extend to the same development density and height as the earlier proposal, which imposes an excessive development load on the site and its surroundings.  The new scheme is planned around a landscaped open space, which is surrounded by hotel buildings ranging from a 5 storey block on the south side, 7 and 10 storey blocks on the east and west sides respectively, and a 23 storey block along Talgarth Road:  this tallest block is finished with light cladding and sited as far as possible from the housing to the south. It is a complex scheme, providing separately a 442-bed primary grade hotel and a 440–bed tourist-grade hotel, with the central open space incorporating a ‘tempietto’ single storey feature building which provides restaurant and bar facilities beneath a 4-storey high pitched roof, covered externally with stepped planting.  

As a gesture to the community, the scheme includes a rooftop public viewing platform, use of meeting rooms within the front hotel, and access to the richly landscaped central open space.