Dear Neighbour,
Along with a number of community representatives, members of the Babbacombe Road Residents’ Association attended a consultation event for the Site A development this evening. The Council’s outlined some of the constraints they are working under and their architectural advisers described some of the proposed scenarios for the development.
A full set of slides was requested for residents and these will be shared with you all when we receive them. In the meantime, these are the highlights:
Preliminaries & Background
- The Site is owned by multiple landowners including Network Rail, LBB, Prime Place, TfL and the NHS.
- The Council’s opposition to the last proposal for 250 residences was rejected by the High Court. The Council was requested to revisit the numbers and told to make a new plan.
- There are directives from the Government and the Mayor to build more housing.
- Network Rail has also been ordered to build housing on their under-utilised land.
Suggestions for Site A
Approximate map created by BRRA. Accurate map to follow.
- The Council’s advisors are suggesting 500+ residences.
- There would be some space for Offices and some Retail.
- The two car-parks by Station Road and the Station would be removed.
- 320 other parking spaces would be created, possibly situated on two levels in area “C” (see map above). These spaces would be shared between Northside House, station users and owners of properties within the development.
- Along Station Road (Block B in the map above) , housing would be three-storey with four storey immediately behind it
- Between that and the railway line (Block C), five and six storey apartment blocks would be built. There would be a landscaped “gap” of 50m between the back of the gardens from Babbacombe Road and the start of these blocks. These blocks would be lower at the North end to reduce over-seeing the back gardens of adjacent properties at the top of Babbacombe Road.
- The buildings surrounded by Mitchell Way (Block A) would be removed to make way for a 15-17 storey apartment block
- On the other side of the railway, between the existing Sherman House and Tweedy Road (Block D), another 17 storey block would be built.
- Access to the site will be mainly from Tweedy Road to avoid increasing traffic through Babbacombe Road.
- Bromley North Station will be surrounded on both side by Northside House and two 15-17 storey apartment blocks
- The skyline to the East of Station Road will be irrevocably changed.
- No study has yet been completed to assess the impact on infrastructure – eg Street Parking, Bus-Stops, GP surgeries, Schools etc
There is a “threat” (as the Council positioned it) that any smaller scale development will simply get thrown out at appeal. This has already happened once before, with the Council being told by the High Court to increase the scale of the development. If this happens, the Council’s worse case scenario is that LBB could then lose total control over the development with the Mayor stepping in to dictate what should be done with the site.
My concern is that traffic and pollution levels in Tweedy Road are already too high due to it being the A21 trunk road between London and West Kent and East Sussex. The road infrastructure is not adequate to take the number of residential units proposed. Furthermore, if the Mitchell Road exit is blocked off for existing residents to filter onto the A21 at Bromley North Station then they will need to filter onto it via College Road instead. The traffic queues for the traffic light intersection of College Road and Tweedy Road can reach back as far as Plaistow Green on very busy weekends making it very difficult for local residents in the Babbacombe Road, Holligrave Road areas, both to drive to and from their houses in any direction.
Hello
I have several concerns about the proposed development.
1. The extraordinary height of the proposed tower blocks, which would be totally out of keeping with the surrounding area. Sherman House is approx 10 stories, and building should be kept to the same height as existing buildings.
2. What will happen to the bus turnaround. One of the attractions of living here is the fantastic access to bus/train which makes travel easy.
3. I echo the concerns about the potential blocking off of Mitchell Way, leaving residents of Babbacombe Road etc no alternative than to join already congested exits from the residential area.
4. Infrastructure. The number of cars using the surrounding area would increase exponentially making traffic jams even more problematic. In addition, pressure on parking spaces would increase.
5. Privacy. The gardens backing onto the station car park will be overlooked…unless the council/developer intends to plant trees in the landscaped ‘gap’.
Overall, as before, it is not the development per se that is problematic but the density of the proposed development.