Showing posts with label Minavil House. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Minavil House. Show all posts

Monday 16 August 2021

The new Minavil House in Alperton rises and rises but a taller development is to come on the Alperton Bus Garage site

 

A 26 storey giant rises on the site previously occupied by Minavil House (below)


I would not deny that Minavil House (opposite Alperton Bus station) was ripe for development - but from 2 storeys to 26 is a mighty leap and a trip to Alperton today revealed its impact on the local rail and street scene. The original Minavil House became derelict and was damaged by a fire in 2018. The developer R55 was one of several  invited to a three course dinner with the Leader of Brent Council and some council officers by property PR agency Terrapin Communications back in 2017. Questions were asked about the hospitality event and Cllr Butt answered. LINK 

 

R55 is also responsible for the 255 Ealing Road development and The Workshop (Willesden) development near Dollis Hill - a development that is much bigger than the name would suggest. LINK


Questions were raised at the planning stage about the height of the building at the time and how it fitted in with the local landscape. In fact its height was later cited as a justiification for a 28 storey building almost opposite on the site of Alperton bus garage.

 

Minavil House from Alperton Station

From Bridgewater Road

The illustration below gives the height of the various towers in progress or planned:

Alperton High School bottom right and Alperton Station

 

On the way to Alperton on the 297 bus I took a photograph (below)  of the building locally known as the 'Twin Towers', named 'Uncle' by its  owner and on the site of the former Chesterfield House at the junction of Park Lane and Wembley High Road. It shows the visual impact of such a building from  suburban Wembley Park Drive. The tallest tower is 26 storeys.

 





Sunday 12 November 2017

No records kept of Cllr Butt's closed-door meetings with Alperton tower developers

Plans for Minavil House site in Alperton
-->
Guest Post by Andrew Linnie

It has emerged that, contrary to Local Government Association advice, no minutes or notes were kept of three meetings between Brent Council Leader Muhammed Butt (Labour) and the developers of a controversial £150m tower in Alperton. Not only were there no notes kept, but the meetings took place in a short period before the project was due to be deliberated on by the planning committee, including one meeting the day before the decision was due to be made.

The LGA advises that such meetings, which can be beneficial in allowing councillors and developers to discuss pertinent matters, should take place in the formative stages of a plan. However, meeting with developers and their representatives the day before the council is due to rule on a scheme, especially one of such scale, is unprecedented and brings the entire planning process into disrepute. Councillors are expected to ensure that there is no possibility of predetermination. The final meeting took place on May 23rd of this year, the day before the committee met to decide. The two previous meetings were in the preceding weeks, on April 5th and May 10th respectively. At the latter, Butt and the council’s lead for regeneration Cllr Shama Tatler also accepted lunch as hospitality from the developer’s representatives.

The 26-storey tower is well above the 17-storey limit Cllr Butt and his colleagues promised for the area when they adopted the Alperton Masterplan in 2011. It was opposed by dozens of neighbours, and a petition I arranged, previously discussed on Wembley Matters LINK, gained over 200 signatures. The development was also criticised for failing light tests and being twice the maximum density for the area. Cllr Butt’s colleagues representing Alperton admitted in a letter that many concerns were ignored, but claimed that there was nothing they could do. A freedom of information brought the lack of record keeping to light:

Thursday 10 August 2017

Uproar over Brent's Alperton high rise approval, despite application “failing to meet requirements in 13 different matters”

Guest post by Alperton resident Andrew Linnie


Once again questions are being raised regarding the scrutiny under which Brent Council Planning Committee examines applications in the Alperton growth area, after the approval on August 9th of a development at 245-253 Ealing Road. 

The site is formed of two small plots separated by a private laneway, one section a disused HSBC bank and the other formerly a pub called the Plough. As was the case with Minavil House in May, I was speaking on behalf of locals in opposition to the proposal. Neighbouring residents objected for a wide variety of reasons, and the planners at Brent Council conceded that the plans for the development, which will feature 92 flats in two towers over 9 and 10 stories, failed to meet a large number of planning regulations and considerations.
 
144 neighbouring windows failed light assessments, yet were deemed acceptable anyway. Some homes, between this scheme and the impact of 255 Ealing Road, are losing almost all of their direct sunlight. It was asked at the meeting of August 9th what the point of such assessments is, if even the worst affected windows are to be deemed “acceptable given the context”. The effect of the buildings’ imposing height is exacerbated by the fact that their positioning fails to meet standards – none of the nearby existing buildings is 20m away as recommended by the London Plan, and one building, the currently-under-construction 255 Ealing Road, is less than 10m away from the proposed towers, failing to even meet the less stringent 10m separation guideline required elsewhere.
 
Residents also raised concerns over the legality of access through private land to the new development. According to the submitted plans, the emergency exit at the rear of Block A of the building opens directly into garden beds owned and maintained by residents of the 243 Ealing Road development, though the plans incorrectly show this as being paved. The residential and commercial refuse stores on the side of the same block open facing a privately owned laneway connecting Hatton and Ealing Roads. The access to these stores along the side of the building is less than 100cm wide at its narrowest point, narrower than Brent Council’s 1100 litre bins. 

Planners recommended in a supplementary report that access should be added into the refuse stores from the private laneway bisecting the site, ignoring the fact that it is privately owned and maintained by residents of the development next door. This was just one of many design flaws in the plan, including a wheelchair accessible unit included on the ninth floor of a building with just one lift, and the fact that, although obscured windows are planned for the rear of block A to avoid encroaching on privacy in neighbouring Braunston House, there are still balconies looking directly into nearby homes.

The mix of housing was another concern which failed tests. Just 16% of units are family sized, well short of the 25% requirement, and the affordable housing provision fails to meet expectations by some distance, at 26%. The density of surrounding schemes is 260 housing units/hectare, the maximum recommended in the London Plan. The scheme approved this week is 800 units/hectare. Planners said this is mitigated by the community space provided, a community space which less than a quarter of respondents in the public consultation said they wanted, and which is only 166sqm.

The current non-residential space provided on the site is 832sqm, so this “mitigation” actually represents a loss of over 80% plus added demand, while Alperton still has under half the open space of an average London ward. Saying that the density is similar to nearby developments ignores the fact that those developments included a significant provision of open space and retail units, which are still unused due to a lack of access.




This, like other developments nearby, is described as ‘car-free’ and provides 10 disabled spaces for accessible units, but no parking for the other 82 homes. The impact of this is estimated to be 66 additional cars parking in neighbouring streets, leading to an extension of the Controlled Parking Zone. There is a large provision for cycle parking, however the roads nearby are all marked red in the lowest category for cycle safety by TFL, and the only segregated cycle lane in the ward of Alperton, along the canal, is unlit and dangerous at night. 

While the buildings are close to Alperton Station, TFL say Alperton ward has one of the lowest average PTAL (Public Transport Access) scores in all of Brent. Hundreds of new homes have been approved in the area without any plan for improved services, notably the 251 units in the controversial 26 storey Minavil House tower, approved in May despite widespread opposition and a limit of 17 storeys in the area’s Masterplan. According to an independent transport assessor the figures presented at the council for the transport impact of Minavil House nearby were out by a factor of 8. Once again, there was much debate at planning committee level regarding the quality of transport services in the area, particularly with regard to the accessibility of Alperton Station and the lack of night services. The state of medical services in the area, already severely stretched, was also raised.
 
The Plough Pub, which has been closed for over a year, was open until developers purchased the site. Cllr Mary Daly pursued the planning officers on the issue of the pub’s upkeep, and the fact that it was not advertised for lease for the statutory 24 months after closure. The building has been allowed to decay since its closure, according to residents. 

Cllr Michael Maurice at one point of the meeting counted off 13 matters in which the proposal failed to meet guidelines and requirements.

The developers of the scheme failed to take into consideration the views put forward in the initial consultation. The design is seen by many as inappropriate for the site and lacks context, to the point that the area will become a patchwork of clashing styles. There are five unrelated styles of high rise architecture already approved or constructed, this adding yet another. The developer made no effort to gather views from residents until the week in the run up to the planning meeting, at which point it was much too late to make a difference. 42 addresses objected to the scheme, none responded in favour. Many also raised concerns as to the safety of residents during the construction phase, as the buildings occupy the entire site and will necessitate external building space, impacting on the ability of emergency services to access neighbouring homes.

 "Are our councillors and planners here to enforce the laws and guidelines for local people, 
or to make excuses and exceptions for private developers?”

When speaking at the meeting on behalf of objecting residents, I concluded by asking our representatives what their duty in the process is, in the their opinion: “This scheme fails light, massing, density, air, noise, access and other tests, yet is recommended for approval. Are our councillors and planners here to enforce the laws and guidelines for local people, or to make excuses and exceptions for private developers?”

The Planning Committee was split three votes to three, with Cllr Daly abstaining despite raising many concerns. At that point the chair, Cllr Agha, cast a deciding vote in favour of the development proceeding, and in doing so gave me an answer to my question. One wonders at this point just how many guidelines and regulations a developer would have to ignore for Brent Council Planning Committee to refuse them permission.