Southwark Council approves height-boost that will add 60 homes to early-stage plots
Architects HTA Design and Hawkins Brown have secured planning consent to rejig proposals for early -stage elements of the Aylesbury Estate regeneration programme in south-east London.
Southwark Council’s planning committee this week backed an application from the practices seeking consent for further amendments to two subplots on the regeneration programme’s so-called “first development site”, which is being delivered for housing association Notting Hill Genesis.
Outline plans for the estate regeneration were approved in 2015. Under the latest proposals a 20-storey Hawkins Brown-designed tower would increase in height by three storeys and undergo changes to its footprint to accommodate an extra flat on each floor. The block will deliver an extra 39 homes as a result of the changes.
HTA-designed lower rise elements on a neighbouring subplot would increase from three storeys to four storeys and six storeys to seven storeys, delivering an additional 21 new homes.
Southwark planning officers said that other than the increased height of the tower, Hawkins Brown’s main changes had been to consolidate the body of the block at the centre of the plan, pushing the balconies to its edges.
“The consented scheme included a heavy structure at its corners which gave the tower a strong verticality,” they said.
“The effect of pulling the structure in from the edges is to give the amended design a slender vertical appearance with edges that are animated by the projecting corner balconies.”
Officers said the amendments to the HTA blocks were considered “modest”.
Recommending the proposals for approval at Monday night’s planning committee meeting, officers said the revised scheme would add 60 homes to the first-development site, taking the total number of homes delivered in the phase to 902 – over six subplots.
“The amended scheme builds on the successful qualities of the consented scheme and develops them further, with high-quality materials, elegant proportions and a successful top and base,” officers said.
“The increase in scale and massing is not considered to be significant and the impact on local and wider views is considered to be acceptable.”
The original 2015 outline approval for the Aylesbury Estate regeneration envisaged that more than 3,500 homes would be built, spread over four phases.
The estate, which was constructed between 1966 and 1977 had a total of 2,700 homes.
Tony Blair chose the Aylesbury Estate as the location for his first public speech as prime minister, hours after New Labour’s landslide general election victory in May 1997.
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