Magistrate’s Court site (graphic: JLL/HM Courts service)

An exhibition of plans for a new development on the site of the former Hammersmith Magistrate’s Court is being held on Friday 23 November 3-6pm, and Saturday 24 November 12-3 pm at the adjacent Lila Huset Professional Centre, 191 Talgarth Road W6 8BJ.

This site is between the Ark/Lila Huset and the Talgarth Road BP garage as shown. The planning consultants say: “The proposals include two complimentary hotels which will bring with them significant community benefits. The site has potential to deliver a significant number of jobs, community meeting space, rehearsal space for local performing arts groups, a rooftop bar and terrace, the largest living green wall in London, affordable workspace to meet the needs of the Council’s Industrial Strategy and a new publicly accessible garden square”.

Do go and look at the exhibition – as always, keep an eye out for height and density, and check to see if the fine view of the unique Ark is still retained as one approaches Hammersmith.

Update – we wrote this letter of objection in March 2019, the application was subsequently withdrawn in October 2019 before reaching the planning committee. We understand a revised application will be submitted in due course, on which we will report.

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The planning application for the Town Hall development has been lodged, and is available on the council’s planning portal, with listed building consent application here.  A good starting point is the Design & Access Statement.  Summary details are also now available on the council website if you don’t have time to go through all 488 planning documents!

There are a number of design developments: the addition of a brise soleil over the substantial roof extension, and a slight modification of the King Street/cinema frontage following comments by ourselves and others.  The Committee will be studying the application carefully.  The slide show above shows the main CGI images published with the plans.

We would be pleased to hear your feedback.

Town Hall Redevelopment February 2018

There will be a drop-in exhibition at the Town Hall of the latest plans for the redevelopment scheme, on Friday 20 April 4-8pm and Saturday 21 April 10-2 pm, as shown in our diary. The plans will be on the Council website thereafter. The designs will form the basis of the planning application so it is not a consultation event – but there will be the opportunity to submit comments as part of the planning process.  The Council’s letter of invitation sent to the areas closest to the Town Hall is attached.

For reference, the visualisations shown here are from the February 2018 consultation – we understand that these have been updated subsequently.

Town Hall January 2018

We have been advised that there will be an exhibition in the Town Hall to update progress on the scheme. There are two dates for these which are Thursday 1st February (4pm to 8pm) and Saturday 3rd February (10am to 2pm)  – as shown in the society diary (right)

We hope that you will be able to get to one or other of these dates, and we would be pleased to hear any feedback.

Westfield Phase 2 is nearing completion and will be opening soon including the John Lewis store. Westfield, Australian owned, are in the meantime selling out both White City and Stratford East to French giant Unibail-Rodamco for the small sum of £18.5billion and the sale should be completed in the Spring.

DIMCO buildings [Photo: Wikipedia: Alexander Williams]

We were recently invited, together with members of the Historic Buildings Group, to look at proposals for the larger of the DIMCO buildings, the only Listed buildings remaining on site. This one is currently used by Transport for London for storing buses but come the completion of Phase 2 there will be a purpose built facility allowing the freeing up of the Listed shed. The current proposals, still at an early stage, are to convert the building into an entrainment/event venue. Although the the scheme involves inserting of a full mezzanine floor, none of the original fabric will be damaged so that all the interventions will be reversible. We liked the proposals in principle and our concerns were mainly centred on access and egress of up to 3000 people and the capacity of the adjoining streets and public transport system to cope with the potential surge of visitors.

Centre House, Wood Lane

Also in White City we were recently given a presentation of proposals for Centre House. On the site are the rather tired 1960’s buildings on the east side of Wood Lane opposite to old BBC tv centre. The buildings were all used as part of the BBC facility including prop storage, scene building and their engineering department. First sold to Helical Bar, then Imperial College, they will now transfer the site to St James who will develop approximately 520 units of housing, much of it for rent and specifically graduate accommodation for Imperial. It is another large scheme, mainly linear blocks of 9 storeys with a possible towers of 21 and 31 storeys. The architectural treatment has been well considered.

The landscape proposals are potentially excellent although there is limited private or public amenity space. Many of our concerns about scale, height and density and reduced open space have already been eclipsed by decisions already made on White City.

Proposals for the adjacent site at 66 Hammersmith Road have now come forward as an application. (Ref 2017/04752/FUL).

We are concerned at the excessive bulk of this building and the adverse effect which it would have on the Listed buildings and Conservation Areas nearby. You can read our response to the application as attached.

 66 Hammersmith Road