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.

The council has reworked several pieces of longstanding planning work, and is asking for feedback from you in a series of consultations – details in our diary. We’ve been keen to progress this matter for a while, and it’s good to see new activity. Firstly we should set the historical context, to better understand how we got here, what’s new, and not so new.

2015: Town Centre Working Party supports “West London Link” vision/Flyunder

Longstanding members will recall the 2008 Flyunder proposals that were developed originally by the West London Link group of architects and Hammersmith BID, including our former chairman Tom Ryland as a leading light, and then presented to the London Festival of Architecture that year. A significant part of that plan involved a reworking of Hammersmith to face more towards the river, by removing the awkward A4 spur road to the Broadway (seen above), and connecting King Street to St Paul’s Church, creating a much better and more identifiable ‘centre’. The flyunder would have been funded by building over what is now the A4, linking the roads cut in the 1950’s. This website maintains a series of articles under the flyunder tag, that details some of this work, along with the WLL website above which includes a detailed archive and feasibility study from the time.

Flyunder as proposed in 2008

The potential money ran out fairly spectacularly a year later when the finance industry melted down, but the whole issue had its first revival in 2011 when the flyover closed and was thought to be doomed. However the 2012 Olympics came to the rescue, because, as those imbued in the dark arts of Olympic transport will know, there are very strict maxima laid down for journey times between Olympic venues, no doubt causing the Parisians sleepless nights ahead of this year’s games. Without a flyover, the time to the western venues such as the rowing in Eton would be easily exceeded. That logic led to the special Olympic Travel Lanes, of which there is still the odd vestige if you know where to look. The flyover, as a piece of critical Olympic transport infrastructure, was patched up quicker than you can say ‘Hammersmith Bridge’, and then said to be good for about another fifty or sixty years.

The Hammersmith Residents Working Party was an early version of what came to be called resident-led commissions, which produced the Grimshaw report of 2019 addressing the central Hammersmith regeneration area. Sadly due to the range of topics covered and the divergent nature of the competing demands and constraints, the HRWP couldn’t agree the outcomes in the report and it was never adopted as a Town Centre Supplementary Planning Document as intended.

Transport for London TfL is progressing its Better Junctions and Cycle Superhighway proposals for the Broadway and Town Centre in conjunction with the Council’s Highways Department. There have been concerns raised over various issues including bus lanes in Beadon Road and further consultations are due to take place at the end of June.

The long term ambition for the Flyunder is still part of the Local Plan but needs further and more committed engagement by TfL.

Preparation is still in progress for the major repair works scheduled for Hammersmith Bridge next year : No dates for the repairs and related closure have been announced yet : The Hammersmith Society have asked to be consulted on the colours and lighting of the bridge.

Melanie Whitlock and I have tried very hard – since the beginning of the year – to secure a hustings for the people of Hammersmith to hear what the main candidates are offering us and ask them questions. There are so many issues that are important to us including of course housing, Heathrow, air quality, the Flyunder, plans for Hammersmith Broadway, tall buildings generally and much more . . . Regrettably although we had secured a venue, St Paul’s Church, and a chairman, Sarah Montague of the BBC Today programme, we have been unsuccessful in persuading either Zac or Sadiq to find time.

Flyunder

At a packed meeting at the Town Hall on 12 February the Transport, Environment and Residents Services Select Committee presented the draft Feasibility Report on the Flyunder, and took questions from the audience. The report is clear and well presented and may be read  here (See pp.6-29).

The completed report will be sent to the Mayor in March with a view to enlisting GLA support. There is much still to learn about the implications of a tunnel but a surprise to many – including myself – is that the longer the tunnel, the less traffic is likely to use it (p.14), i.e., a shorter Option 1 tunnel will scoop up more traffic (and be less expensive). The shortest proposed version buries the Flyover only – if it was extended west by a few yards to clear the Town Hall and Furnivall Gardens it would help deliver the environmental and amenity benefits that we seek while not increasing surface traffic.

Hammersmith Town Centre as it could be with the flyunder

The first meeting of the group of local residents to review proposals for the Town Centre including the Flyunder took place on 3 December.

There are 25 on the panel and the Hammersmith Society Committee is represented by myself, Melanie Whitlock, Rosemary Pettit and Richard Winterton.

The first meeting involved a summary of the group’s terms of reference and what the Council hopes to achieve. The brief is wide ranging and ambitious. Meetings will be held once a month and the outcomes will influence the Local Plan and the Supplementary Planning Document proposed for the Town Centre due to be published in May/June. The next meeting on 21 January will include a briefing by Transport for London (TfL) on their various proposals for the Broadway site including a rumoured threat of 40 storey towers. We understand that the Council will issue progress reports on the Working Party from time to time.

Details of this scheme for a panel to advise the Council on emerging plans for Hammersmith Town Centre (including the Flyunder) were posted in previous News Updates : The Council have now announced membership of the panel. Apparently they received a very large number of applications to choose from.

A initial meeting is due to be held with the next few weeks : Watch this space.

If you missed the exhibition in King’s Mall in the week of 8th June and at the Lyric Theatre, together with the Question Time on 18th June in the Studio Theatre hosted by John Humphrys, you can read about it and the many reviews on the West London Link Website :

www.westlondonlink.com

The exhibition is due to move to a venue near the Town Hall in the coming weeks.

At the recent Question Time event based upon the ‘Flyunder’, which formed part of this year’s London Festival of Architecture events arranged by West London Link and Hammersmith BID, Cllr Stephen Cowan announced the setting up of a Residents’ Panel to act as a consultative group for the various projects affecting Hammersmith Town Centre. These include (Principal Organisation in brackets) :

• Town Centre SPD Planning Document as part of the development of the Local Plan (LBHF Planning)
• The Flyunder Options (TfL Roads Task Force)
• Re-organisation of the Hammersmith Gyratory (TfL Better Junctions)
• Potential Replacement Bus Station and Re-development of the Broadway Site (TfL Properties/London Buses)
• Cycle SuperHighway East-West route through Hammersmith (TfL)

The application form can be found here
Closing date 5pm Friday 3rd July.