ECDC review meeting at ‘Conversation Corner’
November 2024

The size of the hybrid planning application for Earls Court – 826 weighty documents – means that to address it meaningfully needed substantial resource. We teamed up with local civic and amenity societies and London Forum representatives to review the proposals in detail. This was helped in no small part by the work that each group has put in over the last three years of consultation and discussion with the developers, Earls Court Development Company (ECDC), and the huge level of institutional knowledge they brought.

The Earls Court team suggest that the plans are easier to read on their website, as they’re organised by subject, though you may need both as the ‘flipbook’ format used in places won’t cover all needs. The application appears in the respective planning portals under refs 2024/01942/COMB (LBHF) and  PP/24/05187 (RBKC).

The word ‘hybrid’ means detailed for phase 1, outline for the rest; there’s a useful planning guide on their site including the helpful timing graphic showing phasing until 2038, included in the montage below. Note that some CGI imagery uses extremely wide-angles, and would not be what we, or the planners, would call ‘verified views’ – i.e. as your eye would perceive.

While we clearly support the redevelopment of Earls Court – a huge empty site for over a decade, known formally as the Mayor’s Earl’s Court/West Kensington Opportunity Area  – we’re yet to be convinced that this plan is so much better than the original CAPCO one, appearing higher and much more dense – four times the original gross density in the 2012 SPD – and about twice the gross density of the CAPCO scheme by our best estimates – much of the density being on the LBHF side of the tracks. This has resulted in much greater pressure on open space, reduced spacing between buildings, increased building heights, especially around the Empress State building, and greater impact on surrounding conservation areas, especially Brompton Cemetery and the conservation area of Philbeach Gardens and Eardley Crescent.

ECDC review societies

We recently submitted Joint comments to both LBHF and RBKC, which we fully endorse, objecting to the proposal on the following seven grounds:

1. Density – with buildings up to 42 storeys – exceeding the Empress State building next door by nearly ten storeys, and with a net density estimated at 600 dwellings/hectare in LBHF, approaching twice the level of the most dense inner city aspirations of the 2016 London Plan, unaligned with current London Plan Housing policy H1, and LBHF local plan policy HO4.
2. The density and heights would bring substantial light and overshadowing issues for Philbeach Gardens, Eardley Crescent, Lillie Road, West Kensington & Gibbs Green estates and the West Cromwell Road. 
3. The development is unsympathetic to the local neighbourhood in many respects (heights and  architecture), contrary to the Local Plan policy DC2. The choice of multiple architects has not so far created a harmonious mix of complementary buildings – an almost unique opportunity here – more a White City jumble, which has been the hallmark of many Mayoral Opportunity Areas.
4. A rather overdesigned park that is too small with inadequate actual recreational space and facilities, and that would arrive later than the tall buildings around it.
5. The cultural offerings are piecemeal and lack ‘The Wonder’ that Earls Court aims to restore. This proposal represents a missed opportunity, resulting in a generic mixed-use development that could be anywhere.
6. Inadequate vehicular access for much of the site for servicing and accessibility.
7. A lack of necessary improvements to public transport provision, given the car-free nature of the proposal. Despite the top-rated 6b PTAL, Earls Court is the only station that is ‘step-free’, but there are long walks and specific mini-ramp locations to achieve this. West Brompton is partly step-free, requiring temporary ramps on request, and West Kensington station is not at all accessible, unchanged in decades. Significant upgrades are needed using developer contributions to improve them.

Lyric House, 149 Hammersmith Road [33 flats]

255 Hammersmith Road (former L’Oreal) [137 flats]

Former William Whiteley’s Depositories (photo: GLIAS) [119 flats]

161 Hammersmith Road (former Virgin Media) [94 flats]

Since the election of the new government, we’ve seen a significant rise in medium to large offices in Hammersmith being proposed for conversion to residential use, under Permitted Development (PD) rules which are much more relaxed than normal planning rules. So far, nearly 400 potential flats have been proposed, all on busy main roads, with Hammersmith Road a particular hotspot. The Chairman’s annual report highlights developments at 255 and 149 Hammersmith Road, as well as the former Whiteleys Depository near the railway/A4 in West Kensington. Another proposal at 161 Hammersmith Road (Griffin House, formerly home to Virgin Media), was recently refused by planners, but likely to return with revisions, or an appeal.

The Telegraph recently reported Hammersmith a ‘refusenik’ in accepting such conversions, and we can see plenty of reasons why they might refuse. But Deputy PM, Angela Rayner, has just requested 81,000 new homes per year in London (a doubling compared to recent achievements), as part of the new government’s electoral commitment for 1.5m homes in this parliament. There will be significant political pressure.

As a Civic Society, how should we best respond?  Should we welcome the provision of more housing, albeit potentially substandard as reported, with few, if any, of the amenities we would normally expect – just to be a place to sleep – and lament the likely permanent loss of business and commercial space? Or just celebrate The Brave New World?

The office Merry-go-Round

London’s vacancy rate stands at 10%, a 20-year high and up from about 5% when the pandemic struck, though still well below the circa 14% level seen in New York

Olympia redevelopment offices (photo: LDRS)

We have a number of substantial buildings being proposed for conversion, while an equal, possibly larger number, are still being constructed – we refer mostly to Olympia in the same road of course, starting to open next year according to recent news. We’re aware of other smaller developments still on the drawing board, or at early planning stages, such as proposed offices at Shepherds Bush Market and 76-80 Hammersmith Road. The developers of most of these mention “biotech” and “lab space”. Why the merry go round? In an ideal world, wouldn’t we just (re)use what we have?

Many larger offices appeared in the 1980-2000 period when desktop computers arrived making office requirements pretty uniform, and open-plan became a thing. These were refurbished once, twenty-ish years ago, and are all now past their sell-by date – literally – and can no longer be rented because the better, newer ones are what people want to rent, and be seen renting. Hammersmith suffers through having an oversupply of what is said to be dated stock – expensive to refurbish to the expected rentable standards, and perhaps impossible to repurpose for biotech. Some developers claim the restrictions of existing floor-ceiling heights rule them out even as modern offices, though there’s always a way, should one be determined.

Property data company CoStar reports “London’s vacancy rate stands at 10%, a 20-year high and up from about 5% when the pandemic struck, though still well below the circa 14% level seen in New York,” Away from the centre, vacancy rates in Hammersmith are about 19.3% and Docklands about 16.2%, CoStar says.

The developers of 255 Hammersmith Road, the largest PD conversion currently proposed, told us a year or so ago – when they were proposing an extremely green office refurb – that ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) were high on renter’s shopping lists. In building terms, that means green, plus providing better amenities for employees. Existing buildings such as 255 score pretty poorly here – L’Oreal moved to a new building in White City, with its recent award winning landscaping, and 245 next door – formerly Bechtel – was totally demolished and rebuilt with amenities, such as its award winning landscaping.

Then there are prevailing economic conditions, added to redevelopment time – Olympia was consented exactly a year before the pandemic – it might not have come forward as the proposal we see now – and 245 was built in a different economic climate, becoming that most modern of things, shared workspace.

This now all points to the quickest path of least resistance – PD conversion to resi, eschewing all those ESG aspirations, with pretty much guaranteed sales, rather than the more expensive pre-pandemic option of rebuilding like for like, in the hope of finding a tenant to pay premium office rates, when offices per-se, are just a little bit last year.

Chairman’s Annual Report 2024
Click on the image to open the pdf

Attached is this year’s Chairman’s Annual Report, reviewing the key activities of the Society, plus a look at emerging trends in Hammersmith.

Subjects include:

• Royal Masonic Hospital
• Earls Court
• Purpose-Built Student Accommodation (PBSA)
  • 181 Talgarth Road, M&S & 2 Queen Caroline St.
• Town Centre Masterplan / SPD
• Transport
  • Hammersmith Bridge
  • Roundabout consultations
• The Society
  • Prof. Hans Haenlein’s retirement
  • Committee changes & recruitment
  • Hammersmith Weekly

The agenda, accounts and other AGM information are on the dedicated 2024 AGM page.

Community Schools Programme – Avonmore Primary School  and flats as proposed

As advertised in our diary and mentioned in recent news, the council consulted on its proposals for a new Avonmore Primary School in the first week of October via three events: two in-person at the current school in Avonmore Road, and one online. We attended the two in-person events, and noted that they were quiet.

Residents were also invited to comment via the council’s website. The council say that a hundred people responded, which included us as attendees, and we noted the survey did no more than provide a comment box, lacking specific questions.

We supported our affiliate Avonmore Residents Association (ARA) in their running of an independent and much more specific consultation to enable residents to have their say. 102 individuals responded, and of these 46 also provided their comments.

The quantitative survey results are clear: by a large margin the majority of residents are ‘concerned’ or ‘highly concerned’ on each of a dozen specific issues, including those relating to residential amenity and loss of public land which we’ve raised in the past.

Avonmore Consultation – Feedback

Equally importantly, the vast majority (>80%) agree that the council has not consulted adequately and further, that its claims of majority public support can’t be substantiated. The full background to the building on school land issue can be found in our education section.

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

Earls Court site panorama, on “The Table”, looking approximately North. Temporary BBC Experience under construction in foreground.

Earls Court site panorama – TfL’s Lillie Bridge Depot

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.

Background

Earls Court Crane March 2017 [Keltbray]

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.

Railways

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.

Tall buildings

Members of your committee, affiliates and resident groups around two primary schools – Avonmore and Flora Gardens – were concerned to see the revival of an unreconstructed Community Schools Programme on the recent council cabinet agenda.

Community Schools Programme – proposed Avonmore Primary School. Note that most greenery is actually Marcus Garvey Park

The agenda item was in effect crystallising the May 2022 Labour manifesto into council policy. However, we wrote 4 letters to the council and an article on the subject in 2020, highlighting concerns about the proposal to develop school land, and doubted that the policy was either wise or even justified on a number of specific points of planning and development practice.  Furthermore we are aware that other options have been tabled at both locations and rejected by the council.  Early consultations were curtailed by the pandemic, and specific promises were made by the council to pause and continue the conversation before proceeding.

To date, this has not happened, although some undocumented discussions amongst various parties have taken place. Under the circumstances we saw little option but to make a formal deputation to the council meeting, re-iterating community concerns, and making the following points:

The Council is struggling to finance the upkeep of its school estate, a portfolio which includes over forty primary schools.  Limited funds have been available since the government Building Schools for the Future programme was terminated in 2010, and in March last year the Council introduced a “Community Schools Programme”, proposing to finance the improvement works by the building of affordable housing on school grounds. The programme starts with Flora Gardens and Avonmore Primary Schools.

Flora Gardens School Site

We are concerned at the direction of this policy: the unquestionable priority of good public education facilities does not justify the loss of public open space.

Public open space is sacred, it is a rare and precious commodity, and the acceptance of a practice which permanently removes the open space to alleviate a temporary financial shortfall is a mistake: it erodes the quality of our urban surroundings to the detriment of the public realm, and removes potential sites for future social facilities such as youth clubs and provision for the elderly, but also removes spare capacity essential to accommodate the likely increase in space requirements arising from the current review of school standards. 

Click on the newsletter image to open the pdf 

The Special 20-page Anniversary Newsletter has been published, celebrating 30 years of Hammersmith Society Awards. Printed copies are being distributed to subscribing members.