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.

Nomination for a Wooden Spoon, 2024

Planting at 181 Talgarth Road – the new Premier Inn and PBSA, still under construction

181 Talgarth Road border planting

181 Talgarth Road Premier Inn planting

The small bed which is the first thing you see as you arrive at the Premier Inn from Hammersmith underground station is almost bare, and compares especially badly after the very good planting at The Ark next door.

The planters to mask the new building from the houses in Margravine Road are nearly dead and planted in what looks like builders rubble not compost, which makes it unsurprising that they won’t grow.

Nomination for a Tom Ryland Award for Conservation, 2024

The office of Beata Heuman

Beata Heuman, 188 Hammersmith Road – exterior

188 Hammersmith Road – exterior (night)

See Beata Heuman and House and Garden

Nominated by a member who says  “There are often members of the public taking photos of this building, especially at night, as it is beautifully lit as well as sympathetically restored. It is a joy to walk by. The small “Wildlife” Garden is very well tended and is a great addition to having some plants and greenery to admire along this road”

King Street – M&S proposed frontage elevation

Many of you will have been to the exhibition at the Lyric recently to view the proposals and displays.  We exhorted the development team to show full elevations, but the best we achieved at the time were partial CGI images.  They have now come forward with North and East elevations, which are on the consultation website, along with the exhibition boards, and above / below, and appear to be part of a pending planning application. The large towers in the background are the proposed Landmark House, as yet unbuilt, and we believe subject to change of ownership, and therefore possibly design change too.

As you can see, our very approximate CGI in the earlier article was reasonably accurate dimensionally, if not aesthetically, and at 47m, this undistinguished proposal is of alien scale, substantially higher than the Lyric, and a large intrusion on the King St. horizon.  The 15m setback from the street helps reduce this intrusion only marginally, which you can see below.

King Street – M&S elevation, East

More importantly, acceptance at this dimension would set a bulk and height precedent along King St., much as we’ve recently seen used in the 66 Hammersmith Road proposal, especially in the continuing absence of an issued Town Centre Masterplan, or planning brief, a subject on which we repeatedly remind the council is nearly 5 years overdue. We haven’t even mentioned a likely West-East prevailing wind tunnel, increased if others were to follow suit.

M&S Hammersmith King Street – historic image – 50’s/60’s

You  may have seen the website https://27kingstreet.co.uk recently created for a consultation related to the proposed redevelopment of Marks and Spencer in Hammersmith.  Like many high street shops, this location has become a little tired in the nearly 100 years of its existence, and our M&S has additionally had a curiously broken roofline for as long as anyone can remember, caused we’re told by partial demolition and the machinations of former planning constraints. The above historic photo shows it as it was before its front teeth fell out.

M&S visualisation 27 King St

Fresh from a dressing-down over the proposed Oxford Street redevelopment with Pilbrow & partners, M&S have unsurprisingly chosen a different group to work with here – Reef Group – and with rather different intents. We were provided a fuller picture of the plans for a welcome refurb at a presentation meeting with the developer and M&S in the first week of July.

The plan, though only mentioned in passing on the above website, is a complete rebuilding of the site to create 400 student rooms in a substantial 10 storey block above the store, thereby we assume funding its redevelopment, which like Chiswick’s, would become a larger, but food-only affair of 15000 sq. ft (currently 6000), and based on a market hall concept developed in Clapham. The façade would be retained, the existing gaps filled sympathetically, and the 10 storey block would sit behind and above the façade.  This would considerably improve the food offering, but other offers, such as clothing, would become click-and-collect only.

M&S visualisation with the proposed Landmark House some way behind (22 storeys). The proposal is 10 storeys + podium.

Unfortunately the website visualisation provided (reproduced above) is at such an extreme angle as to mostly hide this substantial building, which is higher than the Broadway buildings, and about the same as the striped glass-clad office building next to the Hammersmith & City Line station, known officially as ’10 Hammersmith Grove’.

We were provided with the adjacent visualisation, still at a rather unsatisfactory angle, and over the long hot weeks since, we’ve been pondering the developer’s coyness at showing the scale of the student blocks, and their effect on the streetscape, light and the Lyric. We’ve asked for ‘Verified Views’ or ‘Accurate Visual Representations’ (AVR) more than once now.

With time passing and the requested visualisations unavailable, we had little option but to use the above information to project our own approximation overlaid onto a Google Earth 3D view of King Street, which is shown below. It uses the above visualisation to project the view at an appropriate angle, showing the approximate scale of the proposal.

With the Lyric on the North side, predominant light from East, West and importantly the South, is not blocked.  By contrast, this proposal would cast a substantial shadow over the street, Lyric and particularly Lyric Square, significantly reducing it’s appeal.

Marks and Spencer proposed redevelopment – approximate 3D overlay onto ‘Google Earth’

West London Magistrates proposal 2021

The third iteration of this project has been submitted to council planners for approval under ref 2021/03561/FUL. After the closure of the courts in 2017, the usual procedure of retaining the site in public ownership to provide facilities for public benefit was set aside, and the site was sold for around £45M to the Dominvs Group, a major hotel developer. We commented on the latest proposals formally, (see our letter at the foot of this article), here we present a summary.

Context

West London Magistrates hotels – first application 2019

The first planning application in January 2019 proposed a luxury hotel and a tourist hotel, together providing  over 800 bedrooms in a development area exceeding 37,000 sqm including buildings over 70 metres high. These proposals were endorsed by LBHF despite vehement public opposition, especially from the residents south of the site and the Friends of Margravine Cemetery. Hammersmith Society comments to LBHF concluded that the application offered ‘… a very substantial and visible development offering so little to the Hammersmith streetscape.’

West London Magistrates hotels – RSHP – April 2020

In the light of this opposition, the developer generously agreed to reconsider, but on the notable condition that there would be no compromise to the very substantial area and height of the first scheme. So a new design team was appointed, and a planning application followed in April 2020. This second scheme provided the same accommodation, in an imaginative design, a transformation after the disappointments of the first proposal.

Hammersmith Society comments and analysis were submitted in April 2020. While the proposals were developed in consultation with the neighbouring residents, bringing about the relocation of the taller elements to the back of the site, furthest remote from the neighbouring housing,  residents’ concerns remained unresolved, to a degree which was not appreciated until later in the process. The scheme received planning approval in December 2020.

Third Iteration

West London Magistrates proposal  2021 – view across railway

With the change in market conditions brought about by the pandemic, the project had to be changed again:  the luxury hotel has been replaced by a purpose built student accommodation block (PBSA) with 730 rooms, maintaining the same development density as the first two schemes, but in a form which was to be acceptable to the residents south of the site and the Friends of Magravine Cemetery.

2021 Environment Award – Quaker Meeting House

Quaker meeting room 2

Quaker meeting plaque

Quaker meeting outside and garden

Quaker meeting wooden ceiling

Quaker meeting house frontage

245 Hammersmith Road landscaping

245 Hammersmith Road Plaza

245 Hammersmith Road Green Wall

Mission Hall, 1883-4, by H R Gough. 41 Iffley Road

Chainman Richard Winterton & committee

Sherry Dobbin of FutureCity

Environment Award 2021 – Quaker Meeting House – Mayor + Stewart Dodd

Conservation Award 2021 – Mission Hall – Neil Davies Architects, HUT Architecture

Nancye Goulden Award 2021 – 245 Hammersmith Rd – Mayor +Sheppard Robson + Exterior Architecture

Summary

Our Guest Speaker was Sherry Dobbin, from FutureCity, who spoke about unlocking the potential of city places with some fascinating ideas for how this might work for Hammersmith Town Centre.  She showed several existing examples from around the world and an installation opened at The Shard on the same day.

Our Environment Award was given to The Quaker Meeting House in Bradmore Park Road.  We first visited as it was completed in October 2020, and were immediately impressed with the quality of design and construction, its environmental credentials, and the feeling of serenity. Our original article is here 

The Tom Ryland Award for Conservation was given to the Mission Hall in Iffley Road which has now been given a new lease of life through a major conversion and refurbishment to provide office, meeting and community facilities.

The Nancye Goulden Award was given to the landscaping of 245 Hammersmith Road. The unusual stairs & inclined lift immediately set it out as something different.  The landscaping and recreational benefits provided by this very substantial development set a great example of how we can restore people priority in the bustle of traffic and commerce which makes up the town centre.

Wooden spoons were awarded to two utilitarian horrors – 5G masts and their associated street clutter, and the ugly Thames Water fountains.

After the Awards, we turned to our usual AGM business, including Chairman’s report. Finally we reminded all present that in 2022, as our new banner and anniversary logo shows, the Society turns 60.  We are seeking ideas to celebrate the occasion next summer – please send us your thoughts.

Michael Cartwright unveils the Capability Brown Statue

The Hammersmith Society very much regrets the recent death of Alderman Michael Cartwright, Councillor for Hammersmith Broadway ward from 1992 to 2018, Deputy Leader 2014-2018, and Mayor 2017-2018.

A diligent public servant, Mike became Deputy Leader of the Council in 2014, leading the Administration to introduce the largest number of Council-funded police in the Borough’s history. 

While chair of the Association of London Government’s Transport and Environment Committee, he was key to saving and expanding the London Freedom Pass – an invaluable benefit for older residents.

Mike was also a local magistrate for thirteen years, becoming Chair of the Bench. He was instrumental in a series of measures to support women dealing with domestic violence.

He was governor of three borough schools – Flora Gardens Primary School,  Sacred Heart School and Larmenier and Sacred Heart Primary School, chaired Mortlake Crematorium Board, and served on the Western Riverside Waste Authority.

This Society came to know him best as a longstanding member of the Council’s Planning Committee. As a Chartered Surveyor he was not only expert but trenchant and perceptive. Combined with long experience, his qualities made him a formidable force on the committee. We were honoured that he should unveil the Capability Brown Statue in one of his first Mayoral duties, in May 2017.

With grace and good humour Michael Cartwright flourished as Mayor of Hammersmith and Fulham in his final year as a Councillor. Such was his stature, in 2019 he was given the honour of Freedom of the Borough, its highest civic distinction, and was made an Alderman following a unanimous vote of thanks by all the Borough’s councillors – an honour which meant a lot to him.

A rock for colleagues, wise, witty and kind, he made a huge contribution to the wellbeing of others in a life of public service.

181 Talgarth Road – April 2020 RSHP scheme

In April last year we reported on the hotel development proposed for the former West London Magistrate’s Court site at 181 Talgarth Road, a proposal which would include two hotels:  a 442-bedroom, 23-storey luxury hotel, and a 440-bed, 10-storey tourist hotel. Permission for the development was agreed in July, and after referral to the Mayor’ office the consent was confirmed in December.

Since then, with the change in economic circumstances, the developer Dominvs Group has chosen to revise the scheme:  retaining the tourist hotel, but providing Student Accommodation for up to 696 students, possibly linked to the Imperial College White City campus, in place of the 23-storey luxury hotel. 

181 Talgarth Road – March 2021 proposed scheme

Initial proposals are for a student block with massing generally similar to the approved luxury hotel block, but adjusted to reduce the maximum height by two storeys, to 68 metres, and to enlarge the plan to add 2,400 sq. m floor area. We understand that TP Bennett, architects of King’s House at the other end of Shortlands, are to be appointed for this building, and that the accommodation would be run by Scape who are well-known in the sector.

No change is proposed to the tourist hotel design, but the landscaped public realm within the site would become a student amenity space, providing access to the student cycle store – a more mundane provision which lacks the tempietto, restaurant and bar which created a welcome spark in the earlier scheme. The prospect of a revised planning application has revived the considerable public opposition to the earlier development, and the Society is participating in consultations currently taking place.

181 Talgarth Road – 2021 proposed public realm

This new scheme opens a further chapter in the uncomfortable history of this important site. The story began with the sale of the land by the Ministry of Justice, evidently failing to follow Cabinet Office guidelines which require that, prior to commercial sale, sites in public ownership should be assessed for residential, educational or similar public benefit. The sale of the Magistrates Court site was advertised with enticements including ‘precedent for tall buildings’ and reports of ‘positive pre-application feedback from LBHF’  without revealing the LBHF advice received.  It is not clear if the £42m purchase price paid by Dominvs was based on a development valuation gleaned from the ‘evolving’ Town Centre Masterplan – a plan which has been evolving since 2015, but has still not been reviewed through public consultation. The provisional Masterplan currently circulating is based on a plan which incorporates the completed A4 fly-under tunnel, describing a misleading urban context for the hotel site.