We keep an eye on new planning applications in the Lavender Hill area – and from time to time we see one that we think has to be some kind of joke! This time it’s at Avery Walk, where an entirely new street was built a few years ago on the site of an old Victorian bakery, that had been a metalworking business for many years. We previously wrote about this completely new street, where the nine houses were put on the market for a total price well north of £10 million. It was quite a big development, which had been described as pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable for a relatively small plot given that it created houses that had underground living areas and that had no gardens – but the inclusion of relatively generous landscaping plans in the alleyway went some way to helping the development get through planning.
As a condition of being allowed to build, the developer was required to submit specific details of the landscaping for approval (which became planning case 2015/5603). The Council then agreed the proposals – which would include climbing plants on the boarded section facing Avery Walk shown below (four different types of creeper, which would be in the current y gravelled area at the base of the fence) – as well as five Wisterias spaced out along the main building wall on the right to climb on the brickwork to make the terrace as a whole (where the buildings have no front gardens) look less stark.
The main car parking area shown below was supposed to have a pergola above it to give the cars some protection, again with climbing plants growing on it, and the wall visible behind (which currently has loose black plastic and a few wooden battens – plus a helpful contribution from the neighbours’ own plants flowing over the top) was to have a green screen of climbing plants three metres high in front of it – all of which would give the flats something much nicer to look at, and improve the overall look and feel of the development and the new road.
There would also be plants screening the messy bin shed and utilities area shown below – giving some visual coherence to what is currently a complete mess. Unfortunately the developer – who had already made a whole series of design changes during the course of the works to simplify the builds – never bothered to do any of the promised landscaping works – leaving these supposedly luxury million-pound-plus houses facing a distinctly half finished mess of concrete, planks and flapping plastic. It’s also rather unfortunate as these houses – despite being large family homes (with basement areas that run under the street) – don’t have rear gardens, being limited to having small balconies and roof terraces. The relatively poor nature of the street makes it look uncared for, which is a shame for a development that started out with high hopes, and where the houses themselves are (we understand) built to a generally good standard.
Why the developer didn’t finish the job is a bit of a mystery. The sort of light landscaping workthey had planned is precisely the type of finishing detail that turns a bleak back alleyway full of cars and bins in to a desirable mews development, and which makes properties sell. Plus the plants, trellises and pergolas they intended to install are not exactly pricey (we’re probably talking a few hundred pounds, on a development they were selling for around £15 million) – at least on a development of this scale. And there was a formal commitment made to the landscaping that was part of the planning approval, which means the current development is in breach of its planning permission. We understand that only a small number of the original houses actually got sold – maybe because the street had not been properly finished and didn’t really look particularly attractive – with the remainder currently being rented instead.
Unfortunately a new landscaping proposal has now been submitted to Wandsworth Council by a firm called Parallel Property Management Limited. We usually share extracts of new planning proposals to help our readers understand and be able to comment… but there’s frankly no point doing that here as what is proposed is pretty much to do nothing – to just dump the landscaping promises altogether. Three green scribbles near some of the windows saying ‘floor planters with local planting’, which sounds to us like a code for ‘yeh, the residents may chuck a few plant pots here and there…’ – that’s it!
They bring in a cost argument: ”The increasing cost of living has already put an unnecessary strain on the residents and this has reflected in service charge budgets increasing annually. There is a concerted effort with us and the residents to reduce the maintenance and overall cost borne on the residents of this development and the existing proposals would only serve to increase that burden.“. However this just doesn’t stack up: these properties were built by the developer, and sold at top prices on the expectation that the development would be completed and compliant with what was allowed by the planning permission. Residents could reasonably expect the developers to finish the job based on what was approved (which hasn’t happened). Installing the pergola and plants is not part of the ongoing maintenance costs, it is part of the original development costs – so this is on the developer’s tab, and should have any effect on any service charge beyond maybe some very minor pruning that will take about 30 minutes every six or seven years. This feels more like a veiled threat to residents that if the developers are held to their commitments, they’ll try to find a way to dump the cost on someone else! Plus, in any event the cost of some trellises and trailing greenery is trivial: developers taking that sort of income from sales and rental rates can’t honestly rely on the “we can’t afford it” line of arguments.
Another surprising thing is that the applicants say in the cover letter to Wandsworth’s planning officials that they’re acting as property managers of the development and on behalf of the residents. They say “the development was completed over 4 years ago and there has been no desire to change the landscaping by any of the residents, who are content with the look and feel of the development as it is. We urge the planning department to reconsider in light of the new proposals, which we think are appropriate.“ But a fair few of the residents don’t agree!
At the time of writing there are five objections to these new plans, four from the residents of Avery Walk properties and another one from a resident whose property is on the other side of Avery Walk – who clearly aren’t happy with these proposals to abandon the landscaping, and aren’t happy with it being done ‘on their behalf’ either. Several of the residents note that leaving the landscaping work unfinished will be of detriment to Avery Walk. It’s one of those interesting things that the better a street looks, the more people tend to respect it – with more litter and minor antisocial behaviour on tatty streets than smart ones; and the residents consider that finishing the work will go some way to addressing a recent increase in minor anti-social behaviour incidences. Residents also question the truth of the statement in the application that Avery Walk residents were consulted on the proposal – saying that they didn’t hear about it until over a month after the stated date.
One comment notes that the owner and the managing agent argue that the cost of maintaining this scheme is too expensive for the owners of the houses – but points out that this is disingenuous, on the grounds that the builders are, in fact, the owners of most of these properties. The houses’ tenants change regularly, so they do not incur the costs as suggested because service charges are the responsibility of the owners, not the tenants.
One comment on the proposals notes that it is hardly surprising that the developers struggled to sell several of the houses despite a hot property market, given that they had given them a view of a back fence and various different wall surfaces that had been roughly patched up rather than the promised smart landscaping – “no family, it seems, would wish to live in a property with basement living rooms, no garden and little or no outlook“. They infer that it’s in the developers’ own interest do the right thing and finish this to the right standard – as doing it properly will make the houses more desirable. It’s also noted that the lighting in the development doesn’t match the original plans and seems somewhat inadequate, and also that there was supposed to be bollard access to avoid the general public driving through the narrow alleyway that is not intended for general traffic (it’s a privately owned road with a public right of access along it – but to walk, not to drive).
One respondent to the planning application sums the situation up rather well: “[they] should be forced to implement the consent granted immediately and without further delay. It has taken far too long for the current owners to address this issue […] The current owners have obtained the planning they wanted to build these houses; this was granted along with several conditions; now, they wish to ‘duck out’ of these conditions as to do so would incur further costs, which they would have to bear. […] it should not be possible for the owners to build what suits them and now seek to overturn the bits they do not wish to carry out.“
Fortunately Wandsworth’s planning officers have a solid track record in rejecting attempts like this to to ignore commitments developers previously agreed to (and to talk the talk on environmental improvement without then following through). Our article on a similar development at Gowrie Road tells the story of another developer who thought they could get away with it, and didn’t. Fingers crossed the developer will withdraw these dubious plans, and finish the job properly – making Avery Walk the nice new mews development that it should have been right from the start, giving the residents a decent view rather than something that looks like the back of a chip shop, making the place feel properly cared for, and – if it really comes down to the pounds and pence – enhancing the value of several properties they still own on the street.
Update (2025): Sure enough, the plans were rejected by Wandsworth – whose planning official noted that ‘The proposal is not of high quality, fails to maximise urban greening and positively respond to the local streetscape due to the lack of adequate soft landscaping enhancements on site’. For reasons we can’t really fathom, the applicant then took it to appeal! The planning inspector went to visit the site, and it was about as open-and-shut a case as we have seen – they concluded that ‘The proposal [to dump the landscaping] would conflict with the development plan taken as a whole. There are no material considerations that would indicate a decision other than in accordance with the development plan. I therefore conclude that the appeal should be dismissed’. There was never any chance of an appeal succeeding, we’re really not sure why they bothered. Anway – following all the expense and wasted time involved in this process, the developer just installed the landscaping that had been originally proposed. It’s a good outcome all round, it turns Avery Walk in to the nice-to-live-in mews it was supposed to be – and makes both the owner occupiers’ houses, and those the developer still owns, more attractive – but it would have been cheaper not to go through all that nonsense to get here.
If you would like to view or make a comment on the new proposals they are at the Wandsworth planning website, search for application number 2023/4230. Bear in mind that the fact that the developer of the street hasn’t built what they were supposed to is not the fault of the current residents, who are clearly as keen as everyone else to sort this mess out.If you found this interesting, you may want to see our other articles on planning issues in the Lavender Hill area.
The Fitness First on Lavender Hill recently closed, rather suddenly (so suddenly that the notice on the door gives instructions on how to recover things members may have left in lockers). This hasn’t been great for the members, with around 2500 more people now sent to the branch just a couple of minutes away in the upper levels of the mini shopping centre in Clapham Junction. That branch saw fairly extensive renovations earlier in the summer to freshen it up and give a better experience, but there’s only so much that can be done with such an increase in numbers, and we’ve had several reports of a distinctly overcrowded experience at that already rather busy branch.
Exactly why this busy Lavender Hill branch closed is a bit of a mystery. However a clue may be that the original lease for the whole building at 276-288 Lavender Hill (which had been running for c. 25 years) ends this month; we imagine Fitness First were keen to keep going as it was a busy gym, but they presumably no agreement has been reached.
This raises the question of what happens next at the now-closed site – and intriguingly, we have not seen any sign of either the site being up for a new lease, or of exploration going on on the planning front for potential changes or redevelopment at the site. We understand the freehold of the building changed hands around ten years ago (it was put on sale for £4 million) with the building suggested as being a redevelopment opportunity after the lease ended this year – maybe for partial conversion to flats. The market for small flats has dipped since then and this is a noisy location for flats with minimal outdoor space – so it may be more valuable to the landlord to maintain it as a more ‘town centre’ use like hotel or commercial space (or, indeed, a gym).
JD Wetherspoon are the ones who bought the building in 2013 – and a few years later, they converted the former Revolution site on the lower levels to the new London and South Western pub, making quite a sizeable investment (as we reported at the time). Wetherspoons prefer freeholds where they can get them, and own about 70% of their buildings outright – sometimes subletting the upper levels to others, but sometimes opening up their own small hotels in the spare space around pubs.
Clapham Junction Insider have heard from local Fitness First staff that Fitness First had intended to completely refurbish the gym - and wanted to secure a new lease – but that regrettably, an agreement on the renewal terms couldn’t be reached.
So it remains a mystery (though we have approached Fitness First for any further comment).Maybe another operator will take the gym over (paying more than Fitness First were willing to) – as the area round the station remains a prime location for gyms! Maybe Wetherspoons have expansion plans of their own for the pub on the upper level.Maybe a big build is on the way to convert it to something else. If you have any insight on what is going on at this site – do let us know.
As we posted a few days ago – perhaps stung by the criticism surrounding the plans for a new Rough Sleeper Assessment Hub / Hostel opposite Battersea Arts Centre, which came as a surprise to its neighbours and which saw over 500 (often very detailed) objection comments, Wandsworth organised a public meeting on the project earlier this week. Councillor Aydin Dikerdem was the lead for the engagement, and before the meeting told us – I completely understand why people were concerned or worried about the plans when they first heard about them. We’re holding the public drop-in session so we can reassure residents and field any questions they might have about the proposals but I also welcome people emailing me directly. We are very confident this will be a discreet and incredibly safe service. We want to improve things for the local area by helping people rough sleeping get back on their feet, and as a local resident myself it is very personal to me that this does not negatively impact anybody who lives off and around Lavender Hill.
The meeting ran for three hours and saw around 100 people attend, including some who supported the idea in general but had quite specific asks on the proposal and suggestions for how the impact on the neighbours could be reduced, those who had a more general fear about impacts and how they could be handled, and those who did not want this to go ahead under any circumstances. The general mood was fairly constructive, and the Council officers were noting the concerns and suggestions put forward. A four page Q&A was handed out covering some of the most frequently raised questions and concerns, which we’ve reproduced at the end of this post.
In addition to Aydin, the meeting was joined by a mix of Council staff, mainly from the housing department and the existing team who manage the Council’s rough sleeper provision – including a rough sleeper assessment officer, and the lead for moving people on to more permanent housing options, and the project lead for the new Hub. Aydin (pictured below) drew the largest crowd and also the loudest critics, while the other tables tended to be focussed on more technical discussions on the details of the approach to housing and developing the project.
If you’re coming to this issue new, you may want to look at the post we published in early October, which spilt the beans on this proposal. It’s still a bit of a mystery as to how the application went out unadvertised – seemingly something to do with the system classing it as a minor change of use rather than something more important like a loft extension – but our post got vast traffic and seemed to spread the word rapidly! The second post we published – a long one – summarised the comments on the proposal, and distilled down the points raised, both the 500+ objections and the dozen or so support comments, and used this to pick out 12 specific areas where action could be taken to reduce the impact if this project does go ahead.
Will the meeting this week have reassured people? On a fair few of the more technical points, yes it will. It was clear that the feedback had been quite widely read, and it did seem that the points raised had had some thought – as a fair few things have changed on the details front. It was clear that there’s a committed and hard working team behind this venture, who genuinely want it to work – this is not just a box ticking exercise.
However on whether this reassured attendees the underlying questions of why the provision for the whole of Richmond and Wandsworth is being concentrated here (which is largely down to it being a Council building that’s available), and on how the inherent challenges of housing residents with many challenges in a less-than-optimal non-central location that’s full of children and which already has challenges of its own – maybe less so.
Memories were clearly still quite raw for many attendees of the fiasco that was the now-closed drug rehabilitation centre in the Shaftesbury Estate, and the somewhat unhappy experience of neighbours of the Cedars Road hostel (which continues to cause some issues even in its current much reduced form), and there was some concern that Westminster and Lambeth have also placed their facilities close to this part of the Borough, leading to an unusually high concentration of provision in a small area.
Emotions ran high at some stages: one attendee shared very personal concerns about people with similar characteristics to the target demographic of the facility being aggressive to both adults and young children in the area, and were concerned that housing them nearby could make the issue worse. It was clear that despite some attendees clearly wanting the whole thing to go back to the drawing board, the Council is not planning to abandon these plans any time soon.
For those who could not make the meeting, we have gone back to the 12 points we published that summarised the suggestions from those who responded to the planning application on how these plans need to be improved – and we’ve tried to summarise what progress has been made (as far as we can tell) on them, on the basis of some of the discussions at the meeting.
1: The Hub must publish and implement a Good Neighbour Plan: Wandsworth must establish, and publish, a proactive plan that addresses the potential challenges and mitigates them, ensuring smooth operation and peaceful coexistence in the neighbourhood. This must set out the options for residents if they encounter abusive or antisocial behaviour, and have a clear complaints and escalation procedure including the ability to have issues appealed to someone independent of the local hostel management if complaints cannot be resolved locally.
We didn’t get explicit confirmation of this, though Councillors were keen to stress that they recognised the fears and concerns of neighbours, and wanted to make this work. The facility will remain directly fun by Wandsworth, even though it will have partner agencies including Spear and St Georges NHS trust working on site – which does preserve a higher degree of accountability than some of the hostels in neighbouring boroughs which are fully owned and run by charities (and where the standard of engagement with neighbouring residents ranges from excellent & constructive, to shambolic & really abysmal).
2: The Hub needs to commit to community engagement and awareness: The Hub should engage with the local community and businesses to understand their concerns and incorporate their feedback into the Good Neighbour Plan. They should also organise regular meetings or forums with neighbourhood representatives to discuss ongoing issues and solutions.
This meeting was a good start, after the lack of communication earlier in the development of the project. The Council is now working with the Police, and has also belatedly spoken to businesses next to the proposed site to work out ways to reduce the impact of the new development; and they confirmed they are now liaising with neighbours like the nursery. The idea of a dedicated community engagement lead in the facility was taken away for consideration. A lot more planning and operational detail needs to be shared (and formally committed to) before this is really ready for any kind of signoff – we’ll keep you posted if we see further updates on this front.
3: The Hub needs to operate controlled entry, and run by appointments only: An important one is the need for residents to exclusively be brought to the site, and those seeking services to only arrive on appointment, rather than being allowed to turn up unannounced – to avoid the sites becoming a late night magnet for anyone looking for a room, and people then going away disappointed and causing havoc. This is quite standard in some Hubs (but not all) and significantly helps them be calm and effective places. The Hub must, as a planning condition, be required to implement an appointment-only system for those seeking services to prevent unexpected arrivals and potential disturbances.
We learnt quite a lot about this aspect at the meeting. On the rooms, these will not run as a ‘just turn up; shelter – they will be allocated to people referred by the Council’s outreach service, on a strictly referral-only / ‘by appointment only’ basis (and this will need to be secured as part of the planning & licensing permissions). A major concern of several attendees was what would happen to the tenth, eleventh person who needed a room; the Council confirmed that they would continue to do what they do now, which can mean putting them up at Council expense in a local hotel, or for slightly longer term cases, sending them to the accommodation they use (which is often in Croydon and Surrey – and where the Council is increasingly being outbid for the supply of accommodation by the Home Office!).
In addition to the residents of the nine rooms there will also be day visitors, coming to meet with the various outreach services (and in some cases, book facilities to use IT to do things like get basic identity documents and apply for employment opportunities), in the ground floor appointment area. Running 9-5 and with four pods and a treatment room there could be 50 or so (ish) visitors a day – but again they will need to have made an appointment, and will not be allowed to just turn up unannounced. This will clearly bring a certain number of people to the area who would not otherwise venture to this side of the town centre, although Council officers were at pains to stress the (fair) point that the people they are working with and who are booked for appointments tend to be the ones looking to get things sorted and back on track, rather than the more chaotic and criminally active types. They also need to be reasonably receptive to support to be a priority for the Council’s finite funds – given that someone who is very entrenched in a rough sleeping lifestyle may not want to leave it.
4: The Hub needs to commit to an all-hours complaints hotline: A formal planning and licensing requirement must be that the Hub will operate a 24-hour complaints hotline within the service (which is not likely to be difficult if it is, as suggested, staffed 24/.7). They must ensure advertisement of this telephone & email contact service is prominent for local residents and businesses to see and use.
The Council agreed on this point, and there was a clear commitment to have a contact line that would be staffed on a full time basis from within the facility.
5: There must be a requirement for strict enforcement of House Rules: We recognise that the Hub can’t fully control who arrives, and that residents can be complicated people with their own challenges. However the culture of a hostel matter – not least for its own residents who will make better progress if they themselves feel safe there. Good behaviour is also essential for this venture not to cause severe harm to its neighbours. The facility should formulate clear and strict house rules pertaining to noise control, prohibition of begging/shoplifting, abusive or antisocial behaviour inside the facility but also in the neighbourhood, and illicit substance use/dealing. The facility must commit to investigating any neighbourhood complaints / concerns in a timely manner and reporting back to those who raised them, and to implement a swift eviction policy for repeat breaches.
New residents will need to sign a ‘resident expectations agreement’, covering issues like noise and antisocial behaviour – which will apply both inside the Hub and in the area around it. Breach of these conditions will lead to (at first) short term exclusions of a few hours, and (if the issues reoccur) eviction. This is a key point, as the Council recognises that some residents will have challenges – it pretty much goes with the territory – but that it’s also important to protect the neighbourhood. The details of these agreements are still being developed; we noted that this should explicitly include a prohibition on any antisocial behaviour or theft in retail premises along the whole of the street. The agreement will prevent any drug use on site; as far as we could tell alcohol would be allowed provided residents did not break the wider house rules (which may well be a sensible compromise: residents drifting out to nearby streets to drink isn’t especially helpful).
6: Security within the site – and in its neighbourhood: The Hub must more formally be required to commit to the 24/7 security staffing alluded to in the rather vague proposals, and these staff need to be assigned to regularly patrol areas around the hostel, as well as the site itself, to prevent offsite congregation and ensure the safety and cleanliness of the surrounding area. The hostel should introduce a plan to increase surveillance technology especially in darker alleys / car parking areas opening off Mysore Road and Sisters Avenue immediately behind the hostel where crime and loitering are especially likely.
A fairly clear and generally reassuring answer on this one: there will be 24 hour double cover security on site, and they will also have patrol duties around the site as a whole to ensure there is no loitering (some more details are in the Q&A below). The alleyway at the back of the hostel (opening on to Mysore Road) will have a gate fitted. The car park on Sisters Avenue is clearly a trickier one to deal with as it;s shared between several businesses, and the Council don’t own it.
Several of those at the meeting were also concerned about the impact on the dark and little-overlooked streets north of the Battersea Arts Centre, which already face challenges of drug sales and petty crime – both in terms of increased crime, and the risk of vulnerable residents being housed so close to temptation. This issue is already live (indeed, maybe to illustrate the point, a small crowd of dubious characters had taken up in a dark exterior alcove at the side of BAC during the meeting!) – but these plans could well make things worse for all concerned. The use by residents of this area is an aspect could maybe be made explicit in a good neighbours agreement and the resident expectations.
7: Provision of Supermarket Vouchers to all residents: As is done on some similar facilities, there must be a commitment to provide all residents who need them with supermarket vouchers to enable them to buy food and general supplies without resorting to shoplifting, in order to reduce harm to nearby traders and businesses through shoplifting and threats to staff.
A reasonably clear commitment was made that residents will be supported with food (most likely in the form of supermarket vouchers), as well as with clothing where residents need it, and travel passes to get to appointments further afield. This is clearly good news, and very important in a world where small business owners and even larger chains are having a tough time of it without another nightmare to deal with (and we’ll be writing in the near future on the headaches that residents of another nearby hostel have been causing one of our local retailers). This doesn’t solve everything – for example it won’t prevent people stealing to fund drug & drink habits – but coupled with a clear resident expectations requirement to not cause trouble in local businesses, it does go a long way to reducing the risk to nearby shops.
8: Support and Rehabilitation Programs: Develop and offer support and rehabilitation programs for residents to address underlying issues and assist with their reintegration into society. Potentially, the Hub could partner with local businesses to explore potential employment opportunities for residents, contributing to their stability and reducing potential strain on the community.
The team present gave a pretty convincing picture of the work they do, and how having the various agencies based in a single location, and having some of their customers on site rather than at far flung accommodation in Croydon or outside London, should significantly improve their ability to make an impact and offer the joined-up care and support needed to get people’s lives on track. Partnerships are being worked through with St George’s to be able to offer some clinical assessments, and the existing SPEAR outreach service is preparing to redesign its outreach activity to provide support for the teams at the new facility. The overall numbers aren’t huge but they’re not trivial either: as a guide to the numbers involved – in the recent cold snap (when the Severe Weather Emergency Protocol meant the Council was both allowed and expected to reach out to house all rough sleepers, rather than just the subset whose immigration status is above board), 20 people in Wandsworth borough and 9 in Richmond were temporarily housed.
9: Safeguarding neighbouring businesses: The rear facing windows should be non-openable (to avoid smoking and the throwing / dropping of objects), and the three bedroom windows that face the nursery playground must be permanently fitted with frosted glass as a planning condition. The Hub should also commit to screening any new longer term residents and avoid housing anyone on the sex offenders register next to the nursery school.
It’s fair to say that the impact on the immediately neighbouring and locally very popular nursery was high on everyone’s mind – with several parents (and tiny babies!) present at the meeting. That they had not initially been told about the plans at all was hugely unfortunate, to put it mildly. The plans have clearly had a bit of a rethink following the concerns we and many others have flagged.
The Council officer in charge of the designs of the fit out, who has a budget in the low hundred thousands to refit and equip the building, confirmed to us that the bedrooms at the rear of the hostel will have fully frosted glass to prevent overlooking, and Council officers confirmed that windows will not be more than minimally openable (which again will need to be a formal planning condition to ensure that it isn’t changed in the future). There will be no resident access at all to the rear yard, which will be closed off with alarmed fire doors, and only accessible to the staff.
The front of the hostel will have CCTV and the security service will have a task to prevent any loitering. This remains a pretty tricky area and the adjacency is far from ideal – but at least it seems steps are being taken to address the issues, and we are not likely to see a repeat of the disturbing scenes seen previously when squatters invaded the building.
10: Daytime activity: The Hub should ensure that its residents assigned to rooms can, while they are residents, be accommodated ‘full time’, rather than on a minimal overnight-only basis, to ensure that they get some stability, that they feel safe (and that they are confident their possessions are safe), and have somewhere warm and safe to socialise other than neighbouring streets. The design also needs to be amended to provide some onsite ‘living space’ other than just the small bedrooms. An important detail is that the Hub needs to make clear, as part of the application, whether it will allow the consumption of drugs & alcohol onsite to avoid consumption in the surrounding streets.
A clear answer here (and some changes that clearly followed feedback). This is medium-stay accommodation rather than a night hostel; and the target stay length is 28 days, though some may move on faster and others may take longer. Where people go next will depend on the person’s needs, what progress they make and what is available – there is some capacity at other comparable facilities with varying degrees of intensity of support, some supported housing, and some regular housing.
On the point about residents having somewhere to stay in the day that’s neither a small bedroom nor someone else’s front garden, the plans have been changed from what was on the planning application, to remove the first floor short-stay beds (which seemed to have a dubious prospect of success, not least as residents probably wouldn’t feel safe there), and create a resident lounge. As noted above, this will be a drug-free hostel, but seemingly one that allows reasonable use of alcohol.
11: Monitoring and Evaluation: The Hub needs to regularly (and at least annually) evaluate the effectiveness of the implemented measures and adjust strategies as needed based on continuous monitoring and feedback.
Not much clarity on this, though the fact that it remains Council-run should be a somewhat better arrangement to what was seen in some nearby hostels, which were sharply criticised both for poor engagement with their neighbours and lack of impact in moving people on from rough sleeping. After funding ends (in 2025), there will need to be a new bid for funding to continue the service – which will presumably take account of whether it has proven to be effective. Running costs aren’t expected to be huge; helpfully the Council owns the freehold of the right hand building (and has a lease on the other) – but there are clearly no guarantees at this stage.
12: Transparent Communication: The Hub should commit to and ensure transparent communication with residents and businesses about any upcoming changes or developments related to the rough sleeping hub, as well as with police – and agree to report any incidents to the police to enable their work to be linked with wider community crime prevention efforts, as well as to inform police if violent offenders from Category A & B prisons are housed.
No major updates on this point, but the Council team confirmed that they are now liaising with the police. Some attendees asked whether any risk assessments had been undertaken (the short answer seemed to be – not yet).
All in all – this story still has a long way to run, before it goes to Committee for a decision (potentially mid January) so there’s plenty of time to feed in further thoughts on the proposals (search for application 2023/3434 at wandsworth.gov.uk/planning – we’re well past the deadline, but late comments are usually also taken in to account where possible). It’s fine to submit more than one comment if you’d like to make further input based on what you have seen since.
A lot of local residents and traders clearly remain pretty worried about these plans, but there’s a desire in the Council to get this troubled project back on track, and the relatively detailed information shared at the meeting has clearly helped address some of the concerns. Thanks are due to the many readers who have been in touch with us with thoughts and suggestions, and who have also fed thoughtful and detailed comments to Wandsworth on the proposals – it does seem that these are being taken on board to some extent. There will obviously need to be more detail on the planning case before it gets to Committee, as it is still notably lacking in detail – and a fair few important points discussed above will need to be committed to as planning conditions. We and Clapham Junction Insider will aim to keep you posted if we hear further updates.
What follows is the full Q&A that was handed to those who attended the meeting –
Rough Sleeper Hub – Lavender Hill – Frequently Asked Questions
Why is the Council planning to open a Rough Sleeper Assessment Hub in Wandsworth?
There is currently no local provision to bring rough sleepers off the streets. Rough sleepers in Wandsworth are currently placed in expensive temporary accommodation far from the borough and without access to locally provided support services. Efforts to bring people off the streets are significantly hampered by this lack of provision.
A 2021 report by Shelter showed that 1 in 54 residents in Wandsworth presented as homeless and so this is a much-needed service to address this pressing issue.
Through working with the Government’s Department of Levelling Up Homes and Communities (DLUHC) and researching what works well in other boroughs that deliver the best outcomes for rough sleepers, we have identified that there is an urgent need for an offer that brings together the range of specialist services providing support , assessments, and advice. A local Hub with the facility for the co-location of key services with some short stay assessment accommodation was proposed to meet this gap and was strongly supported by the Government, who have allocated funding for this building.
Why has the Council chosen this building/ location?
201-203 Lavender Hill was previously occupied by the Council’s Leaving Care Service and has been empty since October 2022. In terms of location, similarly to other projects we have visited that work well in other boroughs, the building is on a busy main road as opposed to a quieter residential street, meaning there is very limited impact on residents. This site is also only one minute away from one of London’s few remaining 24/7 police stations with an open front desk, providing an added level of public security. The beds available at the Hub will reduce the need to place service users into temporary accommodation, which can be isolating and put individuals at risk of not being able to receive the level of support they need. In addition, having key specialist and support services on site will encourage connection and engagement with services.
People who are experiencing rough sleeping often depend on local support systems and therefore offers of accommodation that may be in faraway or unknown areas may not be accepted or are unlikely to be occupied, risking a return to rough sleeping. The proximity of the building to Clapham Junction, the borough’s busiest rough sleeping hotspot, is also a positive as it maximises the likelihood of offers of accommodation being accepted, consequently increasing the chances of the Council and partner agencies reducing rough sleeping in Wandsworth.
The building consists of two properties which have been knocked through, and the layout of rooms lends itself well to a mix of short stay bedrooms and office space necessary for an assessment hub. The building has a secure reception area which was in place for the previous occupier and access to areas within the building will be controlled by staff on site and CCTV.
How will the Hub be managed/ staffed?
The Council will have a set of standard operating procedures to support the efficient and effective management of the Assessment Hub, including an admissions policy for new residents. During weekdays the Hub will be staffed by specialist rough sleeper workers from 07:30 to 19:30 Monday to Friday, and at all other times (i.e. evenings, nights and weekends) the Hub will be staffed by a minimum of two suitably trained members of staff, with management on-call at all times. There will also be a 24/7 ‘hotline’ for local residents and business owners to use to report any issues or concerns.
The Hub ‘rules and expectations’ document that new residents will have to agree to and sign before being offered a bedroom at the Hub will clearly set out a zero-tolerance approach to drug use on site. This will be enforced by Hub staff on site 24/7. Where these rules are not followed, the Hub Manager and Deputy Manager will follow the Hub Eviction Termination Procedure. Having visited other similar schemes elsewhere in London, a successful approach taken which we will look to implement at the Hub involves exclusion orders (e.g. for a certain period of hours) on residents not adhering to rules before permanent eviction orders are issued.
How will the immediate area surrounding the Hub be managed, namely the wide concrete path in front of the Hub and rear garden alleyway entrance?
CCTV monitoring will be in place with cameras inside and positioned around the exterior of the Hub The cameras will be monitored 24/7 by the Hub duty team. This team will also be responsible for ensuring there is no loitering outside the Hub and noise is kept to a minimum to ensure residents are not disturbed, especially late at night. On duty staff will complete an incident logbook and report any incidents to the Hub Manager and Deputy Manager. The Hub rules document that residents must sign also covers behaviour in the immediate area surrounding the Hub, the Hub Manager and Deputy Manager will follow the Hub’s eviction procedure where these rules are not followed by issuing exclusion and eviction orders where necessary.
Will the Council be accommodating ‘high risk’ individuals at the Hub?
No. The Hub requires residents to share communal space, kitchen and bathroom facilities. The Council and its partner agencies have a strong understanding of the risk factors that need to be considered when providing shared accommodation to service users, either on a long term or short term basis. Therefore, any service users who would be at risk of having a detrimental impact on the balance of the community, safety, or security of staff and other residents at the Hub will not be considered for Hub based accommodation. In these instances, the Council will continue to offer alternative self-contained temporary accommodation in the same way it currently does.
How will the Hub be used during the day-time?
The Hub is not a day centre for people experiencing rough sleeping, service users will be invited to attend services on an appointment basis only. The co-located partner agencies will offer appointments to service users where they will be seen either in the ground floor meeting booths or the ground floor clinical room for health interventions or private appointments. The 1st floor communal space may also be used to provide workshops such as tenancy training to residents. Appointments will be only arranged during office hours. The only access to the building outside office hours will be the short stay residents and this will be managed by staff who will be on-site 24/7.
How can I report any issues to the Hub staff/ management?
There will be a 24/7 hotline number that will be provided to local residents and business owners. The Hub duty team can be contacted on this number to raise any issues, worries or concerns at any time day or night.
How many rough sleepers will be provided with bedroom accommodation at any one time?
There will be 9 rooms in the Hub. In some instances, it may be necessary and appropriate to provide accommodation at the Hub to couples who are rough sleeping, meaning that occasionally there may be 10 or 11 people accommodated if one or two couples happen to be at the Hub at any one time.
How will residents be booked into rooms at the Hub? Will this be by appointment or at night?
Service users will be booked in on an appointment basis by the Housing team. Bookings will be arranged during the day.
Although the Hub will be staffed 24/7, new admissions into the 9 available rooms will normally take place during daytime office hours following an assessment of housing and support needs and risk assessment by the Housing duty team. New residents will be required to sign a range of agreements covering engagement requirements, Hub rules and expectations and disclosure agreements for partner agencies to share information and work collectively to support the individuals.
The Hub’s focus will be to achieve rapid throughput via successful long term rehousings. When the Hub is full, the Housing duty team can explore alternative short term housing options off the street such as temporary accommodation.
During periods of severe weather (e.g. when temperatures drop below zero), the Severe Weather Emergency Protocol will be activated and Councils across the country have a statutory duty to provide safe and warm spaces at night for people who are experiencing rough sleeping. It is common for people who have experienced rough sleeping, especially over a long period of time, to have physical health needs which can put them at serious risk of harm during periods of cold weather and in some cases this can lead to fatalities if people are not protected. The Hub may be used in this regard to protect a limited number of rough sleepers from serious danger and the depredations/ impact of extreme cold weather.
What is the expected length of stay for service users accommodated at the Hub?
The principle behind the Hub is based on a short stay assessment model, replicating the approach taken by similar schemes in London, with a target of 28 days stay before move-on. However, the anticipated stay will vary between residents depending on two main factors: firstly, the complexity of a service user’s support needs, where more time may be required to facilitate engagement with various support agencies; and secondly, the rehousing pathway identified for the service user, which may depend on units in various schemes becoming vacant/ properties sourced in the private rented sector.
How will the Hub residents be supported whilst they are at the Hub?
Each resident at the service will have an allocated Housing officer responsible for exploring suitable move on options and a SPEAR worker responsible for welfare and linking in with partner agencies co-located at the Hub such as mental health and drug and alcohol teams. Hub staff will take a person-centred approach which will place the service user at the centre of decisions around engagement and rehousing.
The Council is working with partner agencies and the voluntary sector to explore food options for residents at the Hub. Hub residents will also have access to a kitchen and communal space where they can spend time outside of their rooms although these facilities will be closed to residents late at night.
Is it likely the Hub will lead to an increase in crime locally?
No. One of the overall aims of the Hub is to reduce not only rough sleeping in Wandsworth but also behaviours sometimes associated with rough sleepers such as shoplifting, ASB and burglary. Although weight is often unfairly attributed to rough sleepers for such criminal activity, it is in some cases, nonetheless, a consequence of underlying behaviours linked with people in poverty and substance misuse/ mental health issues. This is perhaps an oversimplification of the systemic issues surrounding rough sleeping, but the Hub aims to provide services which will seek to reduce the need for those experiencing rough sleeping to engage in criminal activity by supplying food, clothes and transport costs as well as taking an outcome focused person-centred approach to engagement.
Thanks to Aydin and colleagues for their engagement as this story has developed. Sign up here if you’d like to receive occasional updates from lavender-hill.uk (most of which are not about planning or the Council’s rough sleeping).
An plan is emerging to build a block of flats on an unusually awkward scrap of land on Wandsworth Road. It’s currently home to a garage, as well as an unofficial late night club, on St Rule Street next to Heathbrook School. The site currently houses a ramshackle series of corrugated iron structures, which are no beauties, that seem to have been put up in some haste in the 1940s after the Victorian-era terrace houses previously on the site were destroyed by German air raids (which fortunately left the rather elegant and spacious school building next door undamaged). The garage has been a general purpose repair shop for many years, while the separate venue behind has a long and complicated history that led to a closure order by Croydon Magistrates Court in September last year. It was described by the police at the time as an illegal nightclub that was ‘linked to a number of unlicensed music events and antisocial behaviour’. The site looks set to become a six-storey block of 22 flats – with similar numbers of one-, two- and three-bedroom flats – as well as some general retail / commercial / office / light industrial space on the ground floor facing St Rule Street.
It’s not the first time there have been plans to develop the site. None of the earlier proposals led to anything actually being developed, but this one has been developed in much more detail – with a substantial and presumably expensive team involved covering everything from daylight and planning consultants, to companies brought in to advise on tree protection, acoustics and overheating – suggesting that this time the owners of the site are serious about actually building something on the site.
It’s a complicated bit of land to build on – quite narrow, with a school playground behind who are not keen on being directly overlooked – but who are also very understandably not keen on having a large blank brick wall facing their playground (as the fairly rudimentary design of the building just to the north currently does). The school works hard to maintain as an attractive space with lots of nature (including garden areas, animal habitats and many trees) and many different spaces for play and learning, so having something that is a suitable but also varied backdrop matters. The developers’ solution – which is visible in their artists’ impression below – has been to put access balconies for the flats at the school side, and a small open area at the ground floor, with the main windows facing out over St Rule Street.
There is also a slope along the length of the site, which the developers have handled by planning for the commercial unit at ground level to be slightly underground at the Wandsworth Road end, as shown below. The aim is to avoid the messy situation where ground floor flats face right on to the street so lack any privacy and tend to keep the blinds down all day – and also to ensure that there is not a net loss of commercial and employment space, though the sort of business that occupies this new space is very unlikely to be a garage
Developing the site also needs to not be done in a way that has a negative effect on neighbouring bits of land – including the adjacent petrol station and small freestanding Co-op supermarket – which may be redeveloped in the future. The developers have had to align the flats in a way that allows that site to maybe also accommodate flats in the future – without affecting the ability of either block to have decent light levels, which means there’s a large windowless wall next to the Co-op building that a future neighbouring building can go right next to.
There have clearly been some real headaches surrounding the tiny plot of land at the corner of St Rule Street and Wandsworth Road that accommodates a freestanding advertising hoarding, with a small garden in front looked after by the Heathbrook school pupils (shown in the above photo). In an ideal world the developer would just buy that plot and incorporate it, but that seems to not have been feasible. The Council doesn’t want to be stuck with the eyesore of the advertising hoarding forever, so has made it clear they want to ensure that the development doesn’t prevent that being built on in the future – and also that flats in the new building must not have their windows looking straight at the back of an advertising board! The developer says they are confident that that corner plot is unlikely to be redeveloped any time soon (“The Design Team have it on good authority that it is highly unlikely that the billboard site will be developed any time in the future. It should be noted that the area of the advertising billboard site is below 50 square metres, making the site itself difficult to develop.“), and has done what they can to adjust the flats to look around the hoarding – as shown in their diagram below where the awkward corner plot is in yellow – but this does seem a rather messy part of the plans overall.
All in all – this is a site that’s clearly ripe for redevelopment, and the principle of converting this site as flats isn’t controversial. We suspect there will be some neighbours who will be glad to see the back of the nightclub too, give the issues that have been seen while it was in operation. Keeping some form of local employment on site is also important, and the plans do this by reinstating a decent amount of ground floor commercial floor space. That said, this is a large block on a small site, which will cause various challenges including parking availability – and there’s little doubt that a six storey building (with extra bits above that height to accommodate lift towers and the like) will shade flats to the north which currently have good levels of sunlight, as well as reducing light in the school playground next door.
At the time of writing there have been some concerns expressed by neighbours, with five objections making arguments including that the development is too high, that it tries to fit too much on the site, that a smaller building should allow for some greenery along the street frontage, and that it’s not realistic to make no provision for parking – and one support comment noting that this would go some way to addressing a critical lack of housing, and that the site as it stands would be improved by some form of development. The Council aims to make a decision in mid-December on the plans. The details (and ways to contact the Council with concerns or support comments) are on Lambeth’s planning database, as application number 23/02944/FUL.
This is not the only big project coming to St Rule Street. The building sits right opposite part of the Westbury Estate, which is very gradually seeing a fairly comprehensive redevelopment of its own to demolish all the low-lying blue buildings and build a series of much higher and denser series of blocks, to replace the 89 flats in the existing estate with 89 new flats built to a more modern and spacious standard, and also create 181 new flats. There will be a net increase of 41 ‘affordable’ flats overall, with the rest of the increase being new flats for private sale (which will fund some of the cost of the redevelopment). That project will eventually see both sides of St Rule Street become quite densely built, as the old estate (designed by the same architects as the Cedars Road Estate, which we have written quite a detailed history of and which has aged rather better than the Westbury Estate) fades away.
This is part of our series of posts on planning issues in the area in and around Lavender Hill. You may also want to see our article about the ongoing redevelopment of the buildings at the corner of Wandsworth Road and Silverthorne Road, and our brief further update as the old Tearoom des Artistes has met the wrecking ball.
A few weeks ago we found out about some rather vague plans for a new hostel for rough sleepers opposite Battersea Arts centre, which we noticed on a chance dig deep in the Wandsworth planning database. These were a bit of a surprise to us, so we wrote a short article about the plans, which quickly got a lot of attention – with a few thousand readers within a day (which for a very local site like this one, is rare). And it turns out this new hostel plan was a big surprise to everyone else too! It shouldn’t fall to us to break the news – a major 24/7 hostel operation is not a trivial matter like changing a launderette to a dog daycare and pet supplies shop (and yes, we’ve also reported on that). To our considerable surprise, we later found that even the immediate neighbours at the day nursery and at TaxAssist accountants had not been told about the plans! The proposal did look rather like a ‘stealth’ plan, whether accidentally or deliberately – with a distinct echo of this Douglas Adams quote on a local authority’s planning department’s engagement…
“But the plans were on display…” “On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.” “That’s the display department… But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?” “Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
Our friends at Clapham Junction Insider also covered these plans, as well as wider news outlets. It seems that Wandsworth Council has rather belatedly now realised that a ‘stealth’ planning application is not the best way to create an important but potentially very disruptive new facility in the heart of Lavender Hill. As we noted before, there are strong arguments for taking a better and more joined up approach to tacking a significant rough sleeping challenge – and the activation of the ‘severe weather emergency protocol‘ for supporting those sleeping rough in cold weather this week is a timely reminder that supporting people to get off the streets can be a life and death issue. But this has to be done with the support of local residents, who will inevitably live with the impacts of this development, and who need to be confident that any new hostel is well managed, that proper steps are being taken to mitigate the impact on local traders and businesses, and that the Council is working to keep the neighbours safe.
Aydin Dirkedem, the Council’s lead on housing, is hosting a public meeting at the Lower Hall at Battersea Arts centre, from 4-7pm on Wednesday 6th December. It’s running on a just-drop-in basis, there’s no need to register in advance. Aydin grew up here, is a generally all round good guy, and is one of the Councillors in Queenstown ward – please do go and ask questions and discuss your concerns – and feel free to feed in thoughts on how this troubled Council venture could be improved and made more suitable for the neighbourhood it will need to coexist with. We’ve summarised the support comments, the objection comments, and most importantly, many of the ways this could be made to work better at the end of this article.
Looking at the proposal itself – it’s fair to say that the Council’s plans for the hostel did not go down well with its unsuspecting future neighbours. No one had commented when we first reported on the plans, but the application has now had 13 supportive comments, and a staggering 507 objections! That said, we know our readers and neighbours are a thoughtful bunch, and lots of helpful ideas have also been suggested in these comments on how – if it does go ahead – it can be made to work better; we’ll summarise these further down this post.
On a rather darker note, our article clearly didn’t go down well with some of the people behind the hostel project. We received several very unpleasant direct messages, that do seem to be from people involved in it, full of threats and expletives (and we won’t be quoting any of them here; some of you read this at work and it’d be pretty sure to set off numerous ‘inappropriate content’ flags). And that’s despite our article being, in our view at least, pretty balanced on the potential benefits of an innovative approach to rough sleeping that seems to have delivered results elsewhere, and the need to carefully address the genuine challenges involved for neighbouring residents and businesses – have a look for yourselves. Interestingly, these offensive messages also had a distinct party political undertone to them, assuming that we somehow represent the Conservative party (to be clear: none of us are political). This set some real alarm bells ringing: if a community website gets that sort of threatening and aggressive knee-jerk reaction just for reporting that there are plans to develop the building, we dread to think what would happen if we were a neighbour wanting to work with the hostel’s management if there’s a problem with future residents, or the way the place is run. This sort of abuse is seriously out of line, and suggests more trouble may be ahead.
Let’s take a look at the comments that came in. As a reminder of what this is all about, the Council wants to convert a small office building they own, at 201-203 Lavender Hill – pictured above – to a new ‘rough sleeper assessment hub’. Part of the proposal is a traditional ‘homeless hostel’, which aims to provide a bed for the night for people sleeping on the streets, and gradually move occupants on to sustainable long-term accommodation. But the plans provide quite a lot more than just a hostel, with a relatively large number of on-site staff to provide advice to the residents and a variety of specialist services – supporting them to access specialist services and move away from the dangers of rough sleeping. Some staff would also be on site overnight, to maintain safety given that the residents at hubs can often experience a variety of challenges including substance and alcohol addiction, poor mental health, offending behaviour and histories of abuse. Our previous article runs through the plans in some detail.
The 507 objections set out a wide range of concerns. First, we’ve had a go at picking out some of the most common themes in the objection comments –
Unsuitability for a primarily residential areas: Many objections focussed on housing people with mental health challenges and substance abuse issues – as well as potentially unpredictable or aggressive behaviour – in a non-central location, where a relatively small number of nearby residents and small retailers would face the full impact. These were a mixture of fear of increased crime and violence, and of wider antisocial behaviour. One commented that she worked next to a very similar facility, and had seen the unsanitary effect that it had on the area, with individuals from the facility gathering in the streets, often intoxicated and under the influence of illegal substances, urinating in the area and at times being abusive. That vicinity had been declared an ‘anti-social behaviour focus area’; she felt the impact would be even worse in a more residential area with families and nurseries. One commenter noted that most research shows that around a third of people who are homeless have problems with alcohol and/or drugs and around two thirds of those people have lifetime histories of drug or alcohol use disorders, with over half having mental health problems, and that people with offending history are over represented amongst single people who are homeless and that housing authorities are obliged to provide services for released prisoners by law. In planning terms, the building is outside the recognised Clapham Junction ‘town centre’ set out in the ‘Wandsworth Local Plan 2023-28’.
Crime, violence and antisocial behaviour: In one of the few concessions to neighbours to date, the Council says the hostel ‘will have CCTV’, but it’s unlikely that this will be much more than what we see in the average corner shop. Many commenters suspected this would only lead to residents congregating further down nearby side streets for drink and drugs. Many noted that as the site has no contained outside area of its own, residents were bound to congregate on the pavement or side streets to smoke. Some noted the fear that women on their own will not feel safe walking in this area, particularly in the dark, as it is quiet and there is a lack of other businesses to ensure safety, and that the proposal was very unspecific when it referred to the security that would be in place. Some commenters were worried that young teenagers using the bus stops by the hostel, and using this as a route to local schools, may be at some risk, given that the hostel may struggle to identify if short term residents had a history of sexual offences.
Safeguarding and child protection concerns: The location, right next to the garden of a day nursery which is heavily used all day for outdoor play (children 0-5 years old), was frequently mentioned as a significant concern from a safeguarding perspective, and the owners of that business (who were not initially informed by the Council about the proposals) were clearly concerned with a detailed series of comments. This is a recurring concern in the comments from parents and neighbours too – with bedroom windows directly overlooking the back playground. There was a view that some parents would remove their children from this nursery – endangering the future of a respected and established local business providing a service to the local community. The plans gave no detail on how impacts would be managed, and it seems from the comments that the building is already creating issues for the nursery, with several reports that: “A month or so ago squatters [at the planned hostel site] got out of the first-floor window onto the flat roof [behind the proposed hostel] and was shouting abuse at around 8am, [young child at the nursery] burst into tears as he was clearly scared and didn’t understand what was happening. It is not acceptable for very small children to be subject to any antisocial behaviour from people staying at or using the services of the proposed hostel next door – and instances like this example would likely increase substantially.” The Asda precinct nursery also commented that while they didn’t oppose the idea – they felt this was the wrong location. The operators of the after school tutorial centre two doors down, hosting pupils from 7 to 16, was also concerned – feeling that the plans present an unacceptable risk for the children, and may also adversely impact the business.
The impact of overflow when the facility is fully occupied: Many people felt that the security and operational aspects were very vague in the original proposal. One commenter noted that even if there were security guards in the building itself, this would not alleviate the effects on the wider community. If the facility became overcrowded then those who are turned away would very probably resort to begging and sleeping rough in the surrounding streets, and that the lack of any public toilets nearby would also create headaches. Many noted that there is no mention of opening hours in the planning application, or indeed any information on how the hostel would be managed. If the hostel facilities are only open at night then there may be an influx of rough sleepers awaiting a bed, with those turned away moving into local business doorways or garden areas.
Harming local retailers and businesses: Many respondents – including several of the small independent businesses – noted that an influx of residents who may rely on theft to fund addictions would add to the amount of petty crime and abuse and violence against local shop owners (a serious issue, which we’ll also be writing about soon), and that it would make women and young children feel unsafe, especially during winter when the days are shorter – and noted that the Council had not addressed these issues at all in the proposal. One respondent commented that the proposal would result in the area feeling unsafe, dirty, and would deter locals and businesses in the area which had already lost a lot of trade, and further drive businesses away. Another noted that amid efforts to regenerate the area after Covid 19, the potential rise in anti-social behaviour could be devastating for the other businesses and certainly put potential businesses off from moving in; with local coffee shops and restaurants likely to be harassed by people begging and intimidated by antisocial behaviour. A local company noted that in planning terms, the planned use is not in keeping with the ‘National Planning Policy Framework’ (Section 6 /para 81), as the viability of the neighbouring business will be significantly affected.
A generally poorly explained planning application lacking any details: Many noted that the scheme was being “somewhat rushed through for the council, by the council”, noting a worrying lack of detail in this planning application that was full of ‘indicative’ rather than actual plans – with only two drawings of the proposals, and a short generic rough sleepers hub background information sheet. It dosn’t even indicate whether people are expected to stay for days, weeks or months. There was not enough for a planning committee to base a decision – one respondent noted that the Wandsworth Planning Committee rightly expect planning application to be detailed and complete prior to being submitted. This application is poorly explained and lacking in any details. This contained no design and access statement, no proper plans, no HMO / hostel management plan, no indication of how the waste from residents (which will include food and maybe also some hazardous clinical waste) will be stored and managed. A neighbouring business commented that when they applied to use their site, they were required to follow strict conditions of use (limiting activity to between 8am and 6.30pm), to ‘safeguard the amenities of the neighbourhood, in accordance with Council policy TCS13’; nothing in the ‘Wandsworth Local Plan 2023-28’ has happened to change that approach – but thsi proposal clearly expects to be open 24/7 without even stating its planned hours in the application. The application includes a very basic fire statement, which was (to put it mildly) torn to shreds by one well-informed commenter, who noted that it was woefully inadequate on many fronts, and in its current form could put residents at risk. Indeed all in all, this is one of the roughest planning applications we have seen to date (and we’ve seen a lot of them). Dare we say, it’s the sort of shoddy back-of-an-envelope proposal you’d only dare put in in you knew that your own Council would be making the decision….
For planning geeks, some noted problems with the proposed ‘Sui generis‘ property use class – which converts a general office / retail use to something much more specific and inflexible – and felt this approach wasn’t appropriate in this location amongst otherwise all ‘Class E’ use properties, and that allowing it would set an inappropriate planning precedence. It is also against the spirit of the 2020 amendments to the Town and Country Planning (Uses Order) 1887 which sought to relax planning laws such that office and shops could be more easily changed to other uses in order to protect the existence of vibrant high street. This proposal would act against that, resulting in the demise of local business/s rather than the support of them.
Some interesting other comments came in. A very nearby neighbour commented that the Council – as the owner of the properties – has already left the building unoccupied and unguarded for several months – leading to it being squatted and disturbances for neighbours. They said – if the Council had shown themselves unable to control the security of their buildings, how could they be trusted to organise a hostel there? Overall, while many people supported the principle, there were many concerns about the actual proposal. This comment maybe sums up the gist of many of the objection concerns –
The people using a facility such as the one proposed have high levels of complex needs and deserve help, but creating conflict and collateral damage to an existing community and local area does not ultimately help them or the other residents. The proposal would make the situation worse not better. A more suitable location can be found – for example, the new developments around Nine Elms and opposite the station could include a purpose-built facility. This is not a case of being NIMBY, there are genuine substantial and material concerns about this application and detrimental impact upon an area and community, particularly the safeguarding or children. – one commenter on the proposal
Not quite everyone is unhappy about these plans – and there were also a handful of support comments. Not many, to be fair – and some were from people miles away from the site, and can be pretty much ignored in planning terms (but special mention to the resident of 71 Bathgate Road, a detached house next to the tennis courts in Wimbledon, whose full response was “Fantastic Idea!”).
But they do also include several near neighbours. A resident of Kambala, off Falcon Road, noted that there is a drug problem in every area it is not just Wandsworth, and that this could be a good idea for the community as it may help more people to get off the streets. A resident of Theatre Street noted that he supports any scheme to help people off the street and into some sort of safety, noting that homeless people are people too, and everyone would do well to remember that. They deserve our respect and care given they are in an intensely vulnerable situation, a situation that anyone of us could end up in if luck and circumstance didn’t go our way. We should welcome any site that may help them get their lives back on track. A neighbour on Lavender Sweep felt this might be a good place to locate a hostel, using a building that is currently out of use, on a main road, easy to find and with access to transport hubs and resources like Battersea Arts Centre.
A gentleman a bit further away, between the Commons, said that in his experience homeless people are often stigmatised and abandoned by society and government – and felt many people would be amazed at just how “normal” most homeless people are, and how much they desperately need help. In terms of the effect on the community, he felt the proposal seemed to be an attempt to deal with the negative consequences of rough sleeping which already exist in the area (anti-social behaviour, begging etc) by dealing with the underlying causes. He noted that there is evidence that helping get homeless off the streets and into shelters – where they can receive medical and mental help, a warm meal and a bed, and support in finding permanent accommodation – is beneficial not just to the homeless concerned but to society in general.
One of our readers, who had worked to provide cancer care to many people affected by homelessness, was concerned that a night-time ‘shelter’ providing chairs in open cubicles – as seems to be the plan for at least some of this new hostel (as shown in the floorplan below) – was not the answer – being hardly conducive to security or comfort. She noted that most people who are homeless do not want to use these types of places because they have their already few possessions stolen and do not feel safe there. People often needed access to medical care, and after going through difficult medical procedures, there was often nowhere to discharge them to without painstaking effort. Her team would detox them, provide drug and alcohol support, give good nutrition, access to mental health support, benefits and grants for clothing, furniture and items for their new accommodation that the team helped to access. Most did not return to their previous life because of ongoing support and follow-up. These poor people needed proper support, not an occasional chair for the night!
Richard Taylor, the vicar of St Barnabas Church (a short walk from the proposed site), wrote a particularly thoughtful letter in support of the plans. He noted that his church has been hosting a winter night shelter for six ears, and has not had any theft, vandalism or violence, or any complaints from the church’s neighbours. He felt it was wrong to associate homeless people and threatening or criminal behaviour, arguing that the work of the night shelter had enhanced and enriched the church. That said, he also felt the consultation on the plans had not been as transparent as it might have been: the perception was that the Council had been trying to do it on the quiet and sneak it through, which had only served to make residents – who were already worried about these plans – angry about the way they were being introduced.
The ever-sensible Battersea Society noted that they strongly support the Council’s Homelessness Strategy, which includes creating a rough sleeper assessment hub to bring together Council services and support from other agencies. However they expressed significant concern that the planning application for change of use of the former Council offices on Lavender Hill included only scant information about the nature of the hub and the services it will provide – indeed much less than is set out in the draft Strategy. In narrow planning terms, they also noted also that the floor plans provided in the application were marked as only ‘indicative’. They argued that before the application proceeds further, much more information needed to be shared about the proposed hub, the services it will offer, how they will be advertised, how referrals to the hub will work, how it will be managed and operate (including access hours), and the extent of outreach work beyond the hub itself, and that this information should be widely publicised, not least to all those who have commented on the application.
So – what’s the answer to all this? Realistically the Council is going to push this through come hail or high water – they have grant funding to spend on it, and a genuine commitment to try to do something about a real homelessness issue in the Borough. But their plan needs to be much, much better than what’s being proposed here – both for the future residents, and its neighbours. We’ve done our best to pick out the (many) helpful suggestions that have come in in the comments from neighbours, almost all of which reflect good practice in some of the better-run Hostels & Hubs elsewhere, and distill them to a plan of action to make this facility work. We think a new application – with proper details, proper management plans, and explanation of how the following commitments will be included as planning conditions, is what’s needed. With thanks to the many people who explored what might be done – these are 12 recommendations we think are needed to make this work:
The Hub must publish and implement a Good Neighbour Plan: Wandsworth must establish, and publish, a proactive plan that addresses the potential challenges and mitigates them, ensuring smooth operation and peaceful coexistence in the neighborhood. This must set out the options for residents if they encounter abusive or antisocial behaviour, and have a clear complaints and escalation procedure including the ability to have issues appealed to someone independent of the local hostel management if complaints cannot be resolved locally.
The Hub needs to commit to community engagement and awareness: The Hub should engage with the local community and businesses to understand their concerns and incorporate their feedback into the Good Neighbour Plan. They should also organise regular meetings or forums with neighborhood representatives to discuss ongoing issues and solutions.
The Hub needs to operate controlled entry, and run by appointments only: An important one is the need for residents to exclusively be brought to the site, and those seeking services to only arrive on appointment, rather than being allowed to turn up unannounced – to avoid the sites becoming a late night magnet for anyone looking for a room, and people then going away disappointed and causing havoc. This is quite standard in some Hubs (but not all) and significantly helps them be calm and effective places. The Hub must, as a planning condition, be required to implement an appointment-only system for those seeking services to prevent unexpected arrivals and potential disturbances.
The Hub needs to commit to an all-hours complaints hotline: A formal planning and licensing requirement must be that the Hub will operate a 24-hour complaints hotline within the service (which is not likely to be difficult if it is, as suggested, staffed 24/.7). They must ensure advertisement of this telephone & email contact service is prominent for local residents and businesses to see and use.
There must be a requirement for strict enforcement of House Rules: We recognise that the Hub can’t fully control who arrives, and that residents can be complicated people with their own challenges. However the culture of a hostel matter – not least for its own residents who will make better progress if they themselves feel safe there. Good behaviour is also essential for this venture not to cause severe harm to its neighbours. The facility should formulate clear and strict house rules pertaining to noise control, prohibition of begging/shoplifting, abusive or antisocial behaviour inside the facility but also in the neighbourhood, and illicit substance use/dealing. The facility must commit to investigating any neighbourhood complaints / concerns in a timely manner and reporting back to those who raised them, and to implement a swift eviction policy for repeat breaches.
Security within the site – and in its neighbourhood: The Hub must more formally be required to commit to the 24/7 security staffing alluded to in the rather vague proposals, and these staff need to be assigned to regularly patrol areas around the hostel, as well as the site itself, to prevent offsite congregation and ensure the safety and cleanliness of the surrounding area. The hostel should introduce a plan to increase surveillance technology especially in darker alleys / car parking areas opening off Mysore Road and Sisters Avenue immediately behind the hostel where crime and loitering are especially likely.
Provision of Supermarket Vouchers to all residents: As is done on some similar facilities, there must be a commitment to provide all residents who need them with supermarket vouchers to enable them to buy food and general supplies without resorting to shoplifting, in order to reduce harm to nearby traders and businesses through shoplifting and threats to staff.
Support and Rehabilitation Programs: Develop and offer support and rehabilitation programs for residents to address underlying issues and assist with their reintegration into society. Potentially, the Hub could partner with local businesses to explore potential employment opportunities for residents, contributing to their stability and reducing potential strain on the community.
Safeguarding neighbouring businesses: The rear facing windows should be non-openable (to avoid smoking and the throwing / dropping of objects), and the three bedroom windows that face the nursery playground must be permanently fitted with frosted glass as a planning condition. The Hub should also commit to screening any new longer term residents and avoid housing anyone on the sex offenders register next to the nursery school.
Daytime activity: The Hub should ensure that its residents assigned to rooms can, while they are residents, be accommodated ‘full time’, rather than on a minimal overnight-only basis, to ensure that they get some stability, that they feel safe (and that they are confident their possessions are safe), and have somewhere warm and safe to socialise other than neighbouring streets. The design also needs to be amended to provide some onsite ‘living space’ other than just the small bedrooms. An important detail is that the Hub needs to make clear, as part of the application, whether it will allow the consumption of drugs & alcohol onsite to avoid consumption in the surrounding streets.
Monitoring and Evaluation: The Hub needs to regularly (and at least annually) evaluate the effectiveness of the implemented measures and adjust strategies as needed based on continuous monitoring and feedback.
Transparent Communication: The Hub should commit to and ensure transparent communication with residents and businesses about any upcoming changes or developments related to the rough sleeping hub, as well as with police – and agree to report any incidents to the police to enable their work to be linked with wider community crime prevention efforts, as well as to inform police if violent offenders from Category A & B prisons are housed.
Reading this list, you may well be a tad concerned. But do please remember – many of the people at this Hub will be people like you or me for whom things have just all gone wrong at once. We’re not about to see an avalanche of violent addicted sex offenders attacking people on the street and terrorising local businesses. The site isn’t going to be a chaotic 24 hour party venue awash with drugs and mayhem. The key to making this work, and making this one of the quiet, capable facilities that gets on with the difficult but important business of helping people put their lives back together when they’re at their most vulnerable, rather than one of the badly managed hostels that hardly help anyone but cause endless headaches (and London already has plenty of both), is that there is a well thought through plan to prepare for trouble before it happens, to have excellent communication with neighbours and authorities, and to be open and honest in handling any situations where things do go wrong or changes are needed. The Wandsworth Hub clearly got off to an unfortunate start with its badly thought-through, stealthy and content-free planning application. The letter sent to residents about the public meeting doesn’t suggest any of the concerns have been taken on board yet either. But now the Council has seen the concerns their plans have caused, fingers crossed they will revisit and improve the plans, re-consult with proper details, and get this back on the right track.
Aydin Dirkedem, the Council’s lead on housing, is hosting a public meeting at the Lower Hall at Battersea Arts Centre, Lavender Hill SW11 5TN, from 4-7pm on Wednesday 6th December. It’s running on a just-drop-in basis, there’s no need to register in advance.
Our previous article, which is all about the planned assessment hub, what it will do and how it will bring services together, as well as indicative floorplans, and thoughts on how the potential challenges can be managed, is here. Please do get in touch with ideas or suggestions (but please don’t bother if you’re project staff determined to insult or threaten us).
If you want to support, oppose or comment on planning aspects of the proposed change of use for the building, search for application reference 2023/3434 at wandsworth.gov.uk/planning – it was originally open for comments until 19th October but was slightly extended when the Council belatedly realised they hadn’t told the neighbours! We’re past even the extended the deadline now, but late comments are usually also taken in to account where possible.
It’s been more than two years in the making, but the first part of the redeveloped Arding & Hobbs building has opened to the public. Botanica Hall, part of the small Albion & East group of pub / restaurants, has raced to the finish line to catch the all-important month before Christmas. It’s their sixth location – building on venues up and running in Hackney, Old Street, Brixton, Crouch End and Ealing, and the prime location in a flagship building on the busiest crossroads in the Borough means it’s quickly become a popular spot. What was last open to the public as the perfumery section of Debenhams – whose closure we broke the news on all the way back in 2019 – has seen a major tidy-up, with the removal of the 1960s canopy over the pavement to recreate full height windows, restoring the original stonework, and opening up the internal space to create an impressive venue.
At its heart is a solid food and drink venue, complete with full size pizza oven and lots of internal space – as well as some pavement seating that’s mostly for show for now but which may come in to its own in the summer. Breakfast is on offer daily from 9, as well as a weekend brunch, with an option to have a two-hour ‘bottomless’ one if you are really hungry (or thirsty!). There’s a quiz night – ‘Fizz & Quiz’ – every Wednesday, with bottles of fizz £15 from 5pm till close, and the quiz starting at 7.30.
Albion & East started in 2016, when ways of working were already evolving in some businesses – and have run a hot desking option every week right from the start – which runs every weekday from 8 to 5 (and later if there’s space – if the table you;re on is booked the staff will see if there are other spaces available). It’s free, it’s backed by powerful WiFi, and it runs on a just turn up basis, but with an option of daily, weekly or monthly ‘Hotdesk Passes’ which provide an infinite supply of the full range of coffee options as well as teas & hot chocolates, seven days a week, to have in or take out (which can be used across all the Albion & East venues).
Albion & East have run their own small distillery for seven years in Hackney, and added a small new one at every successive venue they opened – working together with Tiny Tower Liquor to make a range of products for sale – while still producing, bottling and wax sealing all of their gins and vodkas by hand. Our new local venue Botanica Hall includes their biggest distillery yet, with a 180 litre copper still, where they plan to distil their own vodka. They plan to host Vodka & Gin Tastings and Gin Blending Masterclasses, where you can blend, bottle and wax seal your own gin to take home.
This is just the start of a new life for Arding & Hobbs, which we have written many articles on! The office space is a whisker away from completion (with future occupiers yet to be confirmed). The next part of the building to open may well be Third Space, a large and very luxurious gym over three levels (see our article on that, including many artists’ impressions of what’s in store, here). There’s one large retail unit remaining – which had been lined up to be an Amazon Fresh supermarket until Amazon slowed down their UK plans, and which we understand is currently on the market. It’s been a pretty impressive transformation overall, and we suspect W.RE, the developers behind the recent works, will be pleased to have got to this big milestone on the four year transformation of Clapham Junction’s flagship building.
There’s been building work underway for the last few weeks at 103a Lavender Hill – and late last week the doors were thrown open to Lavender Hill’s latest arrival, pHresh Juice. It’s an independent family business, whose flagship product is fresh juices – properly fresh ones, made in house and to order. The menu includes cold pressed juices, smoothie bowls, ginger & turmeric fruit shots – as well as a range of healthy foods and even seamoss. There’s a big focus on it being properly fresh – which means availability will depend on on what decent fruit is in stock.
But that’s not all – there’s everything needed to make a decent coffee here, with a proper coffee machine. As well as a decent mix of interesting loose leaf teas on offer, and those with small children in tow will be pleased to hear that Babyccinos are on the house! The menu includes porridges, fruit cakes, cinnamon buns, and granola biscuits.
It’s clearly been a big project to fit the unit out, which was previously the Eve & Grace yoga studio (followed by a short stint as office space while the Battersea Business Centre – which these shop units are part of – underwent wider renovations). Externally the premises now have new windows and doors that let more light in and can be fully opened up in summer, and a frontage that is very much in keeping with the new style of the Business Centre, following the big tidy-up we reported on back in February that saw the previously rather tired building facing Lavender Hill get new windows and a deep blue colour scheme, along with consistent style of signs on the businesses.
And internally, the transformation is quite dramatic – you can’t miss the big elephant on the wall overseeing proceedings! The main space has been completely refreshed with new walls, floors, and a general declutter.
There’s a comfortable overall feel, but with a distinct industrial nod to the past of the Business Centre premises, which has seen many uses over the years including being part of a tram and bus depot, a clothing factory, and a wallpaper and envelope factory over the years. New lighting and a black ceiling given it a spacious but comfortable feel, and there’s plenty of seating, with a big comfortable sofa hidden away at the back.
Keep an eye out for the bottle capping machine at the back of the store – as there’s a preference for more recyclable glass bottles, and while pHresh is not making long life juices for long distance shipping (the additives you have to put in do rather detract from the taste, and make them more like the juices you can get anywhere else), they are planning to offer drinks via the usual delivery services.
Owners Donna and Steph are really keen to see as many of us as possible here – whether you’re after a healthy morning drink, the ginger and turmeric shots that first gave them the idea of setting up shop, or somewhere comfortable for a coffee and cake moment – this is a very welcome arrival to our street and does offer something quite different to this part of Lavender Hill.
This is the latest of a series of interesting new businesses to come to this stretch of shops in the middle bit of Lavender Hill. These premises are part of the business centre, but face out to the main road with a helpfully wide pavement, and they are all very much moving towards food and drink – to serve the neighbourhood as well as the many dozens of small businesses within the business centre itself; as part of a long-term effort by he landlord of the business centre to reorganise and modernise how they use some of the site. Baguette Deli cafe have traded here for a few years, baking their own bread and pastries and making a fine line of Croque Monsieurs and Madames, while Pizza da Vinci – who have for many years sold wood fired pizzas, have had a big refit to hugely smarten up the premises and for the first time also have both indoor and outdoor seating. There’s probably another food operator on the way at the site of the unfortunately very short-lived China Garden.
pHresh Juice, 103e Lavender hill, Battersea SW11 5QL (web / Instagram / facebook). At the time of writing they are open from 8-4 Monday-Saturday, and from 8-2 on Sundays – but as with any new business hours can evolve adapt in the first few weeks as they see what works! The latest details are on their Google profile.
We’re blessed with a very popular and successful local school – which is also quite an unusual one, almost unique in London. There are three classes in each year group, one of which – the Belleville Wix Academy – is English and fully state funded, one of which – the École de Wix – is a fee-paying private school that teaches the French national curriculum in French (and which is a feeder school to the French Lycee in South Kensington), and one of which is joint venture between the two streams to create a bilingual English / French class (where half the students pay fees – and half are state-funded) – with an innovative approach of alternate weeks in different languages, and a curriculum that blends the English and French approaches.
While the idea of several different schools on the site may sound confusing, it very much works as a unified single school with the canteen, playgrounds, facilities, after school provision and the like all shared. It’s also an interesting mix of private- and state-schooling – we have yet to see any other example of its kind. Above all, it works – and it has proved very popular and successful over the years – many of our correspondents can attest to this being a really excellent school with very skilled and hugely committed teachers and leadership, across all three language streams. The French and bilingual provision is also one of the reasons Lavender Hill (and especially the eastern end of the street) has such a large French speaking community.
The Belleville Wix Academy has quite an interesting history: it used to be the Wix School, and it’s fair to say the old school had some pretty turbulent years back in the early 2010s where the catchment area briefly grew to over three kilometres! Everything changed, however, when the school had a complete relaunch and joined the ‘Quality First Educational Trust’ back in 2017, which essentially made it part of the same group as Belleville primary school off Northcote Road – a school that was closely linked to the surge in popularity of the Northcote Road area with young families in 1990s, and which had long been so popular that people who actually lived on Belleville Road famously couldn’t find places at the school one year! Although we should reassure readers that local residents do now have a decent prospect of admission to the various Belleville schools – partly thanks to a big crackdown on a once-common practice of of parents who lived miles away renting houses right by the school gates for a year ‘while their other house was having building works’ to get a place – which saw some landlords do ridiculously well but which was not helpful to create a ‘community’ school. The merger was very successful, with the new school benefitting from the strong leadership, enthuisiastic staff and robust academic focus of the wider Trust, and quickly racing up the rankings.
And for interested parents, there are a couple of open days coming soon. These are a great way to find out more about the school – the school is hosting Open Mornings on Thursday 16th and Tuesday 21st November 2023. The one on Thursday 16th will focus on the English stream and the one on Tuesday 21st will focus on the bilingual (French/English) stream, but parents are welcome to attend whichever date is more convenient. The tours will start at 9.15am, followed by a talk by the Headteacher, and the event will be finished by around 11am. The flyer & further information for the open days is below – and for more details or to book a slot on the tours, click here. For those who are unable to make the Open Mornings and would like to come on a tour, there’s also an option to book a small group tour of the school.
Belleville Wix Academy is a successful and vibrant school. We are part of the Quality First Education Trust. In October 2019, we had our first Ofsted inspection as a new school and were delighted at the outcome of ‘Good’ with an ‘Outstanding’ Early Years provision. We believe in doing ‘whatever it takes’ to help every child succeed.
We offer two streams of education, a class in English from Nursery through to Year 6 and a bilingual class in French and English from Reception to Year 6. Children are happy and successful at BWA and achieve well beyond the national average. Our Year 6 leavers go on to a wide range of state and independent secondary schools, including those with selective streams and scholarships.
To support working families, we offer wrap-around care from 7.30am to 6pm. We also offer a wide range of extra-curricular clubs and a great programme of visiting speakers, day and residential trips, and sporting competitions and festivals with other schools. Every child is offered the opportunity to learn to play a music instrument and play in a musical ensemble.
We welcome children from throughout the local community into our Nursery, Reception, or into Years 1 to 6 where there are occasionally places available.
In addition to our November Open Mornings, we have a virtual tour on our website, and we also offer small group tours throughout the year. For more information about these, please visit: www.bellevillewix.org.uk/admissions/open-days-and-tours/
We very much look forward to welcoming you and your child to Belleville Wix Academy.
We’ve written many articles about the ambitions refurbishment underway at Clapham Junction’s landmark Arding & Hobbs building, as it goes from a historic department store (which was Debenhams for its final years) to a fully refurbished and much-extended mixture of smaller shops and office space. Things are really starting to come together now, with the internal fitting-out well underway at Botanica Hall (the new bar / restaurant facing the Falcon), and we’ve now got a sneak preview of the gym that will be opening up on the corner facing up Lavender Hill.
You may be thinking – with nearly a dozen gyms already running in the area around the station, including Milo and the Bull and a recently opened branch of F45 on St John’s Hill, the giant Shapesmiths crossfit complex spread over five arches on Grant Road, Energie Fitness up Falcon Road, and not one but two branches of Fitness First either side of Clapham Junction, as well as several smaller personal trainer gyms dotted along Lavender Hill including newly launched Fitstudioz, and some more specialist sites like IronBodyFit – is there really a market for more?
However looking at the plans, it’s immediately clear that Third Space will be no ordinary gym, and is aiming to be quite a different place to many of its potential competitors. It’s enormous, for starters – it will occupy most of the basement but also a large chunk of the first floor – including an area that had originally been pencilled in by developers W.RE to be office space. Everything about the planned fit out says luxury, with considerable thought having gone in to creating a stylish and well-designed space. The Lavender Hill entrance will lead in to a curvaceous reception on the mezzanine area (pictured at the top of this article), including a lounge and cafe. The image below, which is an indicative one from the Third Space planning application, shows the entrance area, with the doors to Lavender Hill visible at the right.
In a nice touch, the development takes a very modern approach in some areas, but also works with the existing design – and is keeping many of the existing ornate ceilings from the old department store visible. This can be seen in the design for the entrance area, above, where several of the ceiling areas shown in the current view (below) have been left visible as a feature. The newer parts of the reception design will include warm timber and a touch of marble tile, together with a few metal accents to give a modern feel.
The upper floor will have a large gym and fitness area, making the most of the generous windows looking out over St John’s Road and Lavender Hill. It includes a treadmill area with views over the Falcon junction, a large multigym space, a stretch & recovery area, a separate Mind & Body studio with capacity for 30, a large HIIT studio, and several general gym spaces. The proposed floorplan below shows the indicative internal layout of this floor, with the escalators at the right being the access from the (separate) office reception on St John’s Road to the upper levels of the building.
The ceiling and the heritage windows on the first floor level are being fully restored, and will be significant part of the planned design on this floor, keeping the original features as a focus.
There’s a fair bit of careful behind-the-scenes work also underway to install acoustic flooring and provision to ensure that the rest of the building isn’t disturbed by gym noise!
Heading down to the basement leads to generous locker and changing space (well equipped with showers), a hot yoga room with a capacity of 33 people including the instructor, as well as a 25-bike cycle training room, and male and female saunas. The lickers and changing areas have again been developed in some style, echoing the rich mix of material used in the upper floor offices W.RE are fitting out – and are a cut above the usual fare!
This looks set to be a very impressive gym, and to raise the bar with a level of luxury that’s rarely seen in the sector. We know there has been some understandable concern that the premises is becoming a members-only affair rather than a just-drop in retail or food & drink offer, and that as we lose retail ‘critical mass’ this does gradually reduce the overall attractiveness of Clapham Junction as a town centre. that said, it’s hard not to be impressed by the quality of the works on Arding & Hobbs to date, and the huge investment being made here – both by developers W.RE in the building as a whole and by Third Space on the basement and first floor. This does look set to restore a lot of the rather faded glory of the building under its final years as a department store. The impact on the less-noticed back side of the building on Ilminster Gardens is already very noticeable, where a series of messy service entrances and a distinctly tatty facade that had been dominated by pipes, cables and boarded up windows has been completely restored and tidied up – and now even includes a small garden area that’s illuminated at night, significantly improving the street as a whole and the view from the houses opposite. It even includes what we reckon are a few bird boxes (above the door at the right hand side of our photo) –
There’s a very minor planning application currently in for the signage Third Space plan to install above the entrance (necessary given Arding and Hobbs is a listed building), which includes a design and access statement for the fit-out as a whole. We don’t expect this to be controversial at all, but if you do wish to see or comment on the plans, visit wandsworth.gov.uk/planning and search for application 2023/3804.
Third Space are a business that is growing quickly, with nine mostly central-London sites already up and running. Arding & Hobbs is not the only local gym Third Space are opening in Battersea: they also have a very large unit currently under development in Battersea Power Station, over two floors in the flagship building designed by star architect Frank Gehry:
It’s a similarly enormous space, that includes a sizeable part of the basement. That gym is also huge, at 28,000 square feet, but it has a slightly different focus to the one at Clapham Junction, and will include features such as a dedicated combat area and a small swimming pool. The Battersea Power Station gym is set to open in summer 2024 – slightly before the Clapham Junction site.
As a flagship development we often write about Arding & Hobbs – all the previous posts are here. You may also find our wider posts about retail in the Lavender Hill area, or about planning and developments of interest.
The former El Patio restaurant at 171 Lavender Hill is being refitted, to open as a new cafe & restaurant called Pique – if all goes well should be up and running in early December. The Pique Café will be serving breakfast & lunch throughout the week, with brunch on the weekends. The plan is to open as an aperitif restaurant in the evenings later in the week, with sharing plates, house spritzes and wines.
Pique’s not new – it was launched back in 2017 by Sophie Richardson, and has operated from a backstreet location in Earlsfield (just around the corner from Earlsfield’s new branch of Marks & Spencer – which is set to echo the flagship one in Clapham Junction). Pique has, for the last six years, specialised in making high quality picnics, hand made to order and delivered directly to customers – with a huge range of finger foods, meat and fish options, sandwiches, salads, and desserts, as well as a sideline in hampers that are tailored to specific kinds of event (one of which is, of course, called the Pique Nique). They have run both a direct-to-customers trade, including an extensive range of event catering, and a corporate offer that has supplied everything from office gatherings looking for more than a tray of soggy sandwiches, to ever-hungry film crews keen for crack-of-dawn breakfasts and quality lunches.
Pique have long aimed to open a proper cafe, so the site at 171 Lavender Hill must have seemed the perfect opportunity It’s a large, elegant space (1200 square feet, with nearly 400 more downstairs for the facilities and back of house), with lots of natural light, that includes a generous front terrace and space for a proper kitchen. Maybe not surprisingly the premises has a long foodie history – having spent many many years as The Lavender, and also (in an unusual twist) having been the El Patio restaurant not once but twice – with the second incarnation having the singularly bad luck of opening the week before the lockdown in 2020. Works are now well underway to reorganise and refurbish the premises – and the blueprint below is a preview of what we can expect. The whole space is being reorganised to put the counter and an open kitchen area at the back, while removing the old bar to free up the whole of the front section as a generous and flexible area for the cafe, making the most of the generously sized windows of this big Victorian corner unit.
There will, of course, also be a complete refurbishment and upgrading of the old premises – and we have got a sneak preview of the mood board from early in the development of the new venture, shown below – expect the exterior to go from black to a shade of pale pink, and the general theme inside to be white with touches of red and candy stripes (matching well with Pique’s brand).
Pique, who are already sort of local, are keen to become a part of the community and a neighbourhood hub with plenty of sociable events & clubs – and are keen for ideas on what would be welcome – for example life drawing; new mum coffee mornings; supper clubs & singles nights, or fortnightly Sunday roast clubs. Dogs will also be very welcome. The team aim for the new cafe to be a place to come and work from home; a cosy spot to meet with friends in the winter, and a sociable after work spot in the summer that can make the most of the generous outdoor seating.
Pique feels like an ideal addition to the street – it sounds like a business set for success, and should be in good company – with a cluster of good cafes on this stretch of the street includingSocial Pantry (who also started out as a catering-focussed business, before branching out to an ever-busy actual cafe), Il Molino (specialising in coffee, salads and a range of quality cakes), and our long standing and ever popular Cafe Parisienne (for a good quality classic breakfast and lunch range). They’re one of a cluster of planned openings, which will also see Phresh Juice bar opening at 103a LavenderHill (close to the Battersea Business Centre – and next door to the Baguette Deli) in just a couple of days’ time.
Update (January) – Pique is open! Here’s the final result – it;s looking much better. There’s now plenty of pavement seating too, not that it is seeing much use in January.
Pique, 171 Lavender Hill, Battersea SW11 5TE. Thanks to our readers who tipped us off on the new opening, and to the team at Pique for sharing details of the plans. You may also want to see our recent roundup of comings and goings on the street, or our wider articles on retail in Lavender Hill.
Lavender Hill for Me is a community website working to support Lavender Hill, a neighbourhood in Battersea, London and a home to about 250 shops, restaurants and small businesses. We take an active interest in developments that could improve Lavender Hill for residents, traders and visitors.
Lavender-Hill.uk : Supporting Lavender Hill 