Dear Planning Officers
Re: Convoy Wharf Objection – Reference
DC/13/83358
We wish to object to this development on the following
grounds:
Jobs
Whilst the developer states
that this 13 year building project will take 13 years, they have not had talks
with Lewisham College or any other building training project in Lewisham. Deptford has 55 per cent youth unemployment
and yet the developer has ignored our calls to start training local people with
the skills the developer will need over the next 13 years, seeking to bring in
cheap labour from outside the area.
Clearly, this would result in widespread community unrest and is in
breach of Lewisham Council’s own Job Creation Policy.
Housing
This development, on closer
inspection, will only produce 8 per cent affordable housing. This is, once again, clearly in breach of
Lewisham Council’s Housing Policy; we need affordable housing that reflects the
fact that the average Lewisham wage is £24,400 per year and that the units
reflect what the Council needs – not just dozens of studio apartments to meet a
quota.
Housing Units are being
marketed at a starting price of £300,000 for a studio. By marketing these as ‘trophy flats’ across
the globe, the wider Lewisham community is not likely to see any benefit
whatsoever from this. We consider that
the Council should impose both a restriction on units sold abroad and restrict
the number sold as buy-to-let investments in order to stop the local rental
market from seeing mass rent increases and more local people being priced out
of the Borough.
Energy
We believe the roof spaces
should be used to generate low-cost green energy to benefit all local
residents. It seems odd that the
developer has made a deal with Selchip to use the energy created by local residents’
waste to give low-cost energy for the super rich on this development. This is demonstrably unfair and wrong.
Access
This is a poorly served site
with terrible access. Evelyn Street is
currently deadlocked most of the time and the scale of units could undermine
the entire local business community whilst causing massive health issues due to
poor air quality and the scale of works, which have not been taken into
account. Deptford Green School Oxstalls
Road is totally unsuitable as main access for lorries. The small road on which this primary school
is situated is used constantly by parents and small children. We have constantly put forward Dragoon Road
as the safest access and, further, more effort should be put into using the
river for material access rather than by road.
Business Space
We propose that all these
commercial units should be used to launch a new Green Business Hub for new
start-ups or to boost the link with the wider Artistic Community, which plays a
huge part in the local economy.
Consideration should also be given to the development of a long term
sustainable business community and not, as is presently obvious from the plans,
more Tesco Metro.
Historical Importance and the River
More must be done to reflect
the area’s marine and docks history, giving greater access to the river and for
tourism. We would support the idea of a
link to Greenwich and the building of the Lennox as well as the idea of
developing boat building repairs on site.
This is a £3 billion a year business and would hark back to the area’s
water history whilst boosting local economy through the huge number of jobs it
would generate.
We believe that this offshore
developer is only paying lip service to Lewisham Council’s planning ideas for Deptford. The present proposal will not generate a single local job
unless this Council enforces it as part of planning consent. The Council should not be fooled into
thinking the developer will not be making any money if it builds Lewisham
Council’s 35 per cent affordable homes quota – At almost every level this
proposed project fails.
This is a development to make
billions with absolutely the minimum community pay-back.
Summary:
In brief these proposals are
ill thought out. Plans for the listed
warehouse are for a community space as a possibility but would not be
sustainable. Who would cover the ongoing
running costs for such a proposal? This
is just aimed at being seen to be offering something for the community when our
proposal for Green Energy Hub or even centre for the building of the Lennox
would be sustainable long term and generate real advantages to the whole
community.
Size of Development: Greenwich and Southwark are set to see
population increase by 53,000 with Lewisham expecting an extra 42,000 householders. However, Convoy Wharf only has Evelyn Street
as the one road access which would lead to massive congestion should this
number of units be built. Building a
smaller number and giving real living space makes more sense. The proposed side road access to the site
from Grove Street and Evelyn Street are totally unsuitable for a high volume of
traffic. The site fails to address the
most basic requirements under both Government and EU Green Deal policy. The site should, as we have suggested, be
used to generate low cost energy for all residents in SE8 and SE14.
Health Risk Assessment: The site is highly contaminated and yet the
developer seems to have no clear proposal as to how the site will be cleared (and by whom) to ensure water
contamination does not take place and, further, the asbestos and other toxic
particles that would contaminate the air would impact on the health of local
residents. The site is in an area with
an acute shortage of health care provision and school places.
The cultural strategy is
flawed as at no level does this development reflect the area’s history and its
proud boat-building history from the start of the docks in 1513. The Lennox would make a real link to the past
and the future whilst a Green Energy or Artistic Hub or even further boat
building and repairs can be demonstrated as present and viable.
Community involvement has been
very poor. Whilst residents have been
constantly approached, their views and concerns are consistently ignored and we
have very real concerns that despite lobbying for 12 years to encourage the
developer to work with local colleges to train up the labour force needed,
nothing has been done to promote work for the local community and we fear that
should this application go through the developer will then say ‘we had to bring
in labour as not enough trained labour is available in Lewisham’. This could even lead to the site seeing sheds
and caravans being placed on site so that the work force can be claimed as
local residents – similar to what happened on the Olympic site.
This is a wonderful
opportunity to create a model sustainable development that the world could copy
and admire, leaving our Mayor with a true legacy. What can be better than creating a
development that ensures the whole community benefits? Furthermore, our proposals would increase the
demand for flats, thus boosting the profit the developers could make.
Ray Woolford, Barbara Raymond.
Jack Eccles ,Yvonne Iles ,George Hallam , John Hamilton.
Nicola & Micah walters.
Lewisham & Greenwich
People before Profit
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