Lavender-Hill.uk : Supporting Lavender Hill

Sprucing up Lavender Hill’s pavements

Posted on April 21, 2017 by David

A small project has kicked off outside the Church of the Ascension, to re-pave the pavement with better quality materials. It’s not granite like the work near the station, but these are decent quality slabs nonetheless.

This was unexpected, but it’s a very welcome development – experience elsewhere in the Borough suggests a better-looking street environment attracts more trade, and paving has a subtle but significant influence on the look and feel of the street. Plus the Church is a real feature of the area, that ought to be given the best possible environment.

It’s an interesting place to start, though, as the old pavement here really wasn’t too bad, other areas are far worse! The surface either side of Battersea Arts Centre is an eyesore and increasingly full of holes, and the eastern end of Lavender Hill towards Queenstown Road has some shambolic sections that have dubious accessibility and do nothing for the local businesses. We’re hoping these areas see similar improvement.

Update, 17th May

It now looks as though a significant part of the street, on both sides, will indeed be repaved – we understand the south side will follow. Definitely good news.

Unloading of more new paving, on the eastern section of Lavender Hill opposite Battersea Business Centre

In other news, Lambeth will be resurfacing the heavily-potholed main road surface at the junction of Queenstown Road & Lavender Hill (it’s just across the Borough boundary) in the near future.

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Large advertising hoardings masquerading as phone boxes

Posted on March 31, 2017 by David

phone box preview A recent BBC News article (‘Westminster council opposed to ‘advertising junk’ phone boxes‘) noted that a company called Maximus Networks has submitted dozens of applications to install payphones along Oxford Street and other parts of Westminster. Westminster is not impressed, as these are probably more accurately described as huge advertising hoardings installed on the pavement (1.3m x 2m), that happen to have a payphone attached to the back. The suspicion is that the ‘payphone’ part is just a ruse to install adverts on public land while arguing they don;t need planning permission – we already have many smaller traditional payphones so it;s hard to see them hetting much, or indeed any, use!

Sadly the same company seems to be hard at work in Battersea – with no fewer than five of the things being proposed on Lavender Hill (as well as several on other roads in the Borough including St John’s Hill and Northcote Road). Arguably these are just a lot of clutter, that will in all likelihood be a complete eyesore; similar ‘payphone advert hoardings’ previously installed in the Borough have become run down and (as expected) the phones, which are battery powered with a cheap solar panel, tend to stop working for good within a few weeks. To make matters worse, some are proposed within a few feet of existing payphones, some could block access along pavements, one is in front of the Grade II* listed Church of the Ascension, and a worrying number are being proposed for locations that are fundamentally dangerous as – in trying to find very visible spots – the developers seem to have chosen sites that prevent cars waiting to pull out of street corners from seeing oncoming traffic.

We’ve objected to these on behalf of Lavender Hill for Me (pdf objection letter), arguing that (1) these should have to seek proper planning permission rather than using a dubious planning loophole for payphones, and (2) the ones on Lavender Hill should be refused in any case for a whole range of reasons.

Wandsworth has successfully turned down some similar applications before (and even won cases where developers took this to appeal, in at least some cases), so with luck they will do the same again.

Posted in Environment, Planning | 1 Comment

Banning estate agent boards – has it worked?

Posted on January 15, 2017 by David

Estate agent boards near Wandsworth Common (an area not covered by these new rules), in January 2016

Back in March 2016, Wandsworth lobbied for, gained and implemented new legal powers to stop the proliferation of estate agent advertising boards in specific parts of the Borough – notably Clapham Junction town centre, and much of the length of Lavender Hill. The aim was to prevent tatty displays being left on otherwise elegant buildings, and make the street a more attractive place. This doesn’t completely prevent display boards, and there are still processes that allow them to be put up – but it does apply some hefty fines to prevent them being put up on the fly and left up for months and years. The areas covered are quite restricted – essentially focussing on areas where agents are tempted by what is effectively a free advertising opportunity, and where properties are split into flats meaning everyone probably assumes the boards are for someone else’d flat so they don’t get removed.

This was a UK first – previous schemes only covered designated heritage areas – and it got a fair bit of attention in the specialist press. Credit goes to Wandsworth Council for handling the process and enforcing it, and special credit also goes to a local resident and member Lavender Hill for Me who pushed for this very determinedly.

The area where estate agent boards face special restrictions, covering most of Lavender Hill (map extract source: Wandsworth Borough Council)

So – nearly a year after the new legislation came in to force – has this worked?

The obvious question to start with is – are there now fewer boards? Looking at Lavender Hill, it’s a resounding yes – there are far fewer boards, indeed a run along the road today found hardly any: one legitimate-looking one advertising recently vacated office space above Pizza Express, one on a flat just outside the designated area, and one ancient fourth-floor one that’s falling to pieces but so high up it’s hard to see how it got there or how it can be removed. The most problematic ones – ‘Let By’ boards that stay up for months as free advertising until they eventually blow off in storms – have vanished.

Does it improve the street? This also looks like a yes, especially at the eastern end. The Victorian terraces, some of which are pretty elegant, are decluttered and looking a lot better for it. The street no longer looks like a tacky closing-down sale, and it’s certainly a better environment for an aspirational new business.

Has it ruined the estate agents, or slowed down lettings, as some who opposed the move worried it might? It’s harder to give a conclusive answer, but there have been plenty of recent shop lettings, and flats above the shops were never realistically let on the basis of these boards anyway, so it doesn’t seem to have caused any real problems – after all, the value of these boards beyond general brand advertising for estate agent chains was always a bit doubtful.

All in all – this looks like a success. It’s even inspired a few other towns to go down the same road for parts of their town centres.

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Protecting Lavender Hill’s pubs

Posted on January 15, 2017 by David

These laminated documents stuck to lamp posts are more important than the usual temporary changes to parking restrictions – they’re protection for our pubs. Following the controversial death of the Castle on Battersea High Street, which was bought, closed and demolished by developers despite local uproar, Wandsworth has pushed the boat out to protect the Borough’s pubs. They’ve really led the charge on this, and got a fair bit of national media attention for issuing a so-called Article 4 direction restricting developers’ ability to change the use of no fewer than 120 pubs and bars.

This means that ‘permitted development rights’, which allow developers to convert pubs to other uses like mini supermarkets without the need to seek any permission (other than for trivial and hard-to-refuse issues like signage and changes to air conditioning and fire door layouts), have been withdrawn for these 120 pubs. This gives the Council a far better degree of control. This was quite a big job – the pubs and bars across the Borough had to be assessed, essentially to define whether they had an important community function.

This isn’t the end of the story of course, as developers can still apply to change use and national policy doesn’t give Wandsworth carte blanche to say no – but this is where the other change comes in, the new supplementary planning guidance (essentially, an agreed approach to developing the area, which is formally consulted on so carries a fair bit of weight) it means that local democracy should count for more.

Pubs on and near Lavender Hill which, thanks to some good work by Wandsworth Borough Council, now have some degree of protection from development (source: Wandsworth Borough Council)

This map shows the protected local pubs on Lavender Hill. There are no surprises, the pubs in question are the Crown (a good pub and a healthy business, although itself the subject of some recent planning issues), the Four Thieves, the Fox & Hounds (our only pub with a resident cat), Revolution, and of course the Falcon. These are all doing well, but then that was also the case at the Castle before it was demolished.

The Article 4 direction does include a handful of prominent recently-closed pubs, though Lavender Hill’s recently lost Ashtar at 5 Lavender Hill (formerly The Cedars) isn’t one of them, it faces an uncertain future after the most recent of a series of sometimes tenants seemingly moved to a new unit under the railway arches in Vauxhall. Clearly The Lavender – once a pub of sorts but now a successful restaurant – hasn’t quite fitted in to the ‘pub’ category either.

All in all, this represents some good work by Wandsworth, who deserve credit for finding a way through in a tricky policy area. Any pub still needs to succeed and attract customers if they are to prosper in the long term, but by ensuring changes to pubs that affect the whole community have to go through the planning process and be consulted on locally, this strengthens local democracy. Above all, it makes it harder for third party landlords to suddenly pull the rug from under the feet of viable local businesses in search of a quick buck.

Posted in Business, Planning, Retail | Leave a comment

New arrival: Sendero Coffee

Posted on January 11, 2017 by David

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Work is well underway on a new coffee shop and showroom, Sendero Specialty Coffee, at 2 Lavender Hill (opposite Sainsbury’s – formerly the A Modern World furniture shop, also formerly DesignME). We hear that – assuming all goes well – they will be opening at the beginning of February.

Certainly looks an interesting business – it’s worth a look at their coffee sourcing and importing work, which involved extensive travels to Uganda, Colombia and Ecuador, to source the coffee that will supply the new shop and the coffee sale business – lots of details on their blog. It’s rare to see somewhere that knows quite so much about where their coffee comes from!

Back when Caffe Nero opened opposite, coffee shops on the main stretch of Lavender Hill seemed a brave move, but that pioneering branch seems to have been a success, and they have since been joined by Cake Boutique, Il Molino, Social Pantry and several more. This new opening should be a good addition to the street – it looks like a good business and has plenty of potential to help trade by drawing people in from further afield, and experience so far suggests that the more good coffee shops open, the more people come here to visit them.

There’s a planning application in for the change of use (from the A1/Retail building use category to A3/Restaurants & Cafes). Although it’s a loss of a shop in favour of an alternative use (which usually sets alarm bells ringing if it is likely to reduce the viability of neighbouring businesses) this seems a positive development, and Lavender Hill for Me has expressed support (pdf) for this proposal.

Posted in Retail | 5 Comments

Lavender Hill

Posted on May 9, 2016 by David

Lavender Hill for Me is an informal community group working to support Lavender Hill, a neighbourhood in Battersea where we variously live, work, shop, eat, and travel. We take an active interest in new developments that could help the area and want to improve Lavender Hill – if you’d like to find out more about us and get involved, do get in touch.

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