Council gives green light to large Peninsula hotel

Greenwich Council gave planning consent to a huge new hotel next to the O2 on the Greenwich Peninsula last night.

The 452 bedroom hotel will be accompanied by a tower of 100 serviced apartments and a 3000 sq ft ballroom.

Hundreds of new jobs are expected to be created at the new hotel which will have more bedrooms than Greenwich’s Holiday Inn, Novotel and Devonport House hotels combined.

The large ballroom will be used as an events space and designers claim it will compete with Park Lane hotels to attract “thousands of events to Greenwich”.

The apartments are residential properties with additional services provided such as laundry and hotel-style room service. The apartments will be sold on the open market and the owners will be able to choose whether or not to add them to the hotel’s pool of properties which it will manage and rent out to guests.

The site of the development is a 3 hectare plot of land directly to the west of the O2, previously known for planning purposes as N0301. It consists of three separate buildings in a stepped profile – the serviced apartments tower being the tallest of the three at 24 storeys.

Local MP, Nick Raynsford, offered a withering assessment of the designs when they were first unveiled earlier this year, describing them as “a complex of not very well related buildings which leave the impression of being a cross between a grain silo and a Soviet-era Palace of Culture”.

Modifications have been made to the design since then but the Greenwich Society and Greenwich Conservation spoke against the plans at last night’s meeting.

Philip Binns from the Greenwich Conservation Group told the meeting last night that the proposal was not the “impressive signature building” originally envisaged in the Greenwich Peninsula Masterplan.

John Franklin from the Greenwich Society said that they wanted to see “the best building with the very best impact” and that the hotel was supposed to have been “the dominant development”.

The Greenwich Peninsula Masterplan of 2004 envisaged a hotel building being the tallest building on the Peninsula and granted outline planning permission for it to be built up to a maximum height of almost 104 metres. The new proposed development will only reach 93 metres and won’t be the iconic tower some had hoped for.

Philip Sandilands, director of Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands, defended his plans, saying that a taller building “wasn’t feasible”, citing concerns over flight paths and the nearby pumping station. He said that the previous design had been “overbearing”.

Cllr Dermot Poston responded by saying that the hotel was “supposed to be the iconic plan of the Peninsula”. He commented that “the very nature of a tower is that it’s overbearing”.  He told Mr Sandilands, “I don’t follow what you’re saying. It doesn’t make sense to me at all”, labelling the project as “an absolute disaster”.

Council Leader Chris Roberts said he was “comfortable” with the designs. He commented that development in the area had already deviated from the Masterplan with the tapered profile of the Ravensbourne  College and Mitre Passage buildings to the east of the O2.

The proposal was voted through by the Planning Board on a majority of 5 – 2.

Councillors Chris Roberts, Denise Hyland, Steve Offord, Ray Walker and Jaghir Sekhon voted in favour of the application.

Councillors Dermot Poston and Geoff Brighty voted against.

Additional resources:

Report for Planning Board
Planning application documents

Greenwich Council Meeting: 27th October 2010

Councillors met at Woolwich Town Hall last night for the first full council meeting since the summer recess.

Royal Hill school building

The Victorian school building in Royal Hill which has latterly been used as an annexe for Charlton Special School could be returned to use as a primary school, it was revealed.

In a written response to a question from Cllr Spencer Drury (Conservative, Eltham North), the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, Cllr Jackie Smith (Labour, Thamesmead Moorings), stated that the council “is considering plans for the reopening of the school to meet the growing demand for primary school places in west Greenwich”.

The John Roan School

Councillor Alex Wilson (Conservative, Blackheath Westcombe) asked for an update on the re-building of The John Roan School. A written reply from Councillor Jackie Smith revealed that a design team was in place, the process to appoint a building contractor was “well advanced” and work was expected to start in approximately 12 months.

Sleeping Arrangements

Former Liberal Democrat Paul Webbewood used the opportunity of Public Questions to ask council leader, Councillor Chris Roberts, if he had ever slept at Woolwich Town Hall. “No”, replied Cllr Roberts.

Blackheath Fireworks

Cllr Alex Wilson (Conservative, Blackheath Westcombe) said that the decision not to contribute to this year’s Blackheath Fireworks felt like being “a dinner guest who has walked away at the last minute without helping to pay his share of the bill”, and asked for the cut to be justified by the Council.

Deputy Leader of the Council, Cllr Peter Brooks (Labour, Thamesmead Moorings) said there were “65 million reasons” to justify the decision, alluding to the £65 million the council expects to have to cut. Cllr Brooks said that the share of the costs for Greenwich Council was £37,000 which equated to “a job a bit”.  He said he was “given about two days in the middle of the recess to come up with this decision” and it wasn’t a decision taken “lightheartedly”.

Read more on the issue of Blackheath Fireworks at 853

Disposal of land in Commerell Street

The council resolved to try and sell two houses it owns in Commerell Street. The council has estimated that selling the land will raise £550,000 which it intends to spend on its new Housing Delivery Vehicle, financing decant costs in Kidbrooke and Woolwich and other urgent capital works on council-owned homes. The council will need to gain permission from the Secretary of State for Local Government before proceeding with the disposal.

Nouvelles Racines Free School

A Conservative motion welcoming the attempt to set up a new free school teaching the International Baccalaureate was debated by councillors.

Cllr Dermot Poston (Conservative, Eltham North) praised the “vision” of parents and teachers behind the school who he said had a “passion” for educating children “in depth”.

Cllr Adam Thomas (Conservative, Eltham South) said that the parents and teachers  proposing the free school wanted to “make a difference to the education of children in this borough”.

Cabinet member in charge of schools, Cllr Jackie Smith said it was “wholly unfair to debate in this chamber one particular proposal that is still being assessed by the Department of Education”.

She said that the council was “corncerned about free schools” which she said had “too many unknowns”. She pointed that the borough already a diverse range of schools which within the local authority “family”.

She said she didn’t wish to debate the merits of the IB but didn’t think funding should be taken away from other children in the borough to “set up a bit of elitism”.

Cllr David Grant (Labour, Greenwich West) accused Greenwich Conservatives of “jumping on Mr Gove’s decidedly rickety bandwagon” and said their motion was “trivial and foolish”.

Cllr Alex Grant (Labour, Blackheath Westcombe) – himself a former student of the International Baccalaurate – said it was a good course but not a “magic bullet”.  He also commented that there was “nothing to prevent any state school in Greenwich from starting to do the International Baccalaurate”. He said that as a “through school” catering for all ages, he thought it would be “overwhelming” for young children to be sharing a playground and school building with 17 and 18 year olds.

Cllr Nigel Fletcher (Conservative, Eltham North)  said that there was a “mindset” within the Labour group that they could  allow experimentation and parent involvement with schools “but only up to a point” because “at the end of the day, the council knows best”.

Nick Raynsford: The effect of the CSR on housing

Housing is an issue with which I have been closely involved for almost all my working life, in the course of which I have seen a number of ups and downs. But at no time in the past 4 decades can I recall a bleaker outlook for people looking for a new home or a solution to their housing problem.

We have just come through the most serious recession in my lifetime.  Housing inevitably was badly affected.  Private housebuilding in England fell from just over 150,000 new starts in 2007 to just 60,000 in 2009.  This clearly had a serious impact, but things would have been far worse had the then Labour Government not taken a series of bold measures to counter the downturn.  As a result of the fiscal stimulus and more specific policies targeted at the housing market, repossessions which had been forecast to rise to similar levels to those seen in the recession of the early 1990s peaked at half that level; and because of investment through the Homes and Communities Agency in schemes such as Kickstart, the National Affordable Housing programme and Homebuy Direct, social and affordable housing programmes were maintained and confidence began to return to the market.  In the early months of this year, housebuilders were reporting month on month improvements in house sales and in the output of new homes.  It appeared that we had turned the corner.

Then came the General Election and the formation of the coalition government.  Since then a series of ill-considered, uncoordinated, untested and frankly irresponsible policy announcements and cuts have destroyed the prospects of recovery, brought the housing market to the verge of a double-dip recession and spread alarm and concern around almost every sector of the community in need of better housing.

Confidence in the private housebuilding industry has been severely damaged over the past 5 months by ill-thought out changes to the planning regime, a continuing mortgage famine, fears about rising levels of unemployment, and severe cuts to the Homes and Communities Agency budget that had been supporting many new housing and regeneration schemes.

The Times reported last week (20^th October) that Bellway, Britain’s sixth largest housebuilder had “delivered what one analyst described as an ‘unremittingly bleak’ assessment of the housing market”.

“The Newcastle-based company said that while it had enjoyed a strong spring selling season consumer confidence had ‘slowly ebbed away’ after the general election and subsequent media discussion of how the government planned to tackle Britain’s budget deficit.”

The Daily Telegraph also reported last week (22 October) the Bank of England warning that home prices are likely to remain static or decline in 2011 as home loans become harder to secure after the spending cuts.

“The warning (it commented) will add to growing fears about the fragility of the housing market after values dropped last month by the biggest monthly amount ever recorded”.

The Guardian also reported last week that:

“Britain’s struggling housebuilding industry is ‘bewildered’ by the Government plan to radically change the finances of council houses, as experts warn the measures could have ‘a devastating impact’ on the future supply of social housing’”.

Now one might expect that Ministers, confronted with such dire evidence of the negative impact their policies have had over the past 6 months would now be reconsidering some of their impetuous early decisions and their harsh cuts package.  One certainly might expect Liberal Democrat Ministers to be wondering why they have lashed themselves to the mast of a Tory ship which is heading directly onto the rocks, steered by a demented helmsman, while the captain appears blithely unaware of the immediate perils they face, fixing his gaze instead on some distant coastline and imaginary sunlit uplands.

However instead of changing course, Ministers continue to press ahead on their doomed journey, ignoring all the evidence of impending disaster, and pinning their hopes on the so called ‘Housing bonus’ incentive which is as about as unconvincing as the imagined sunlit uplands.

The scheme has been promised as the panacea for the housing market for the last 6 months or more.  In the summer, the Housing Minister promised anxious housebuilders that it would be launched before the summer recess.  Then we were told all would be revealed in the autumn.  Now we are promised a consultation in November.  Yet all the while, confidence is draining away from the housing market.

And there remain huge question marks over the scheme and how the supposed panacea will work.  Will it as originally claimed, apply to all new homes granted planning consent, or only to net additions to the housing stock?  If the latter how will that incentivise regeneration and brownfield developments where because of the need to demolish existing substandard dwellings, no net increase in the stock is likely for many years.

How many homes will the scheme generate – and how will this compare with the 160,000 homes for which plans have already been ditched since the general election, and the further 120,000 – 140,000 which could be lost in the coming year, according to the report from Tetlow King planning for the National Housing Federation?

And what will be the impact, in terms of cuts to local authorities, of funding the scheme?  Which authorities will gain and which lose?

Given all the questions and doubts that have been raised from all quarters about this scheme, why has it not been trialled or piloted, to test whether there is any realistic prospect of it delivering the benefits which the Minister for Housing constantly assures us it will bring?  How can the Government claim to believe in evidence-based policy-making, while having not a shred of empirical evidence to support the case for the Housing Bonus Incentive Scheme?

As if the damage caused by their harsh Housing Benefit Cuts and their maladroit destabilising of the housing market was not enough, this Government has also embarked, in clear breach of Conservative election pledges, on dismantling the whole basis of social housing in England.

Being able to enjoy security in one’s own home is an asset which almost all of us in this House take for granted.  So do the great majority of the population.  The old adage ‘An Englishman’s home is his castle’ reflects a deep-seated belief that a secure home is a bedrock of a decent society.  So why is it that Coalition politicians who take it for granted that they should enjoy the benefit of security, should so lightly – with no manifesto commitment or mention in the Coalition agreement – move to take away that precious security from a whole group of our fellow citizens, who arguably need security more than anyone?

The only credible argument advanced by those who advocate the policy is that it will ‘free up’ social housing, so making more homes available to those in need.  But any serious analysis of the Government’s proposals shows very clearly, first that it will not have this effect, quite the contrary it will discourage mobility, and second that if it did have the intended effect, this would have disastrous social consequences.  Let’s take them in turn.

If existing tenants are not to lose their security, but new lettings will be on a new basis, without traditional security of tenure and at 80% of market rents, what will be the consequence?  Obviously existing tenants who might have considered moving to a small home, so releasing larger accommodation to those in need, will have second thoughts if the result is a loss of security and a rent increase.  So the policy would have the opposite effect of that intended.

Worse still would be the consequence of using the new insecure tenancies to require tenants to move on if their income increased or if they were judged to have enjoyed sufficient time in social housing.  What chance is there of creating mixed and balanced communities rather than ghettos of deprivation, if anyone who gets on, is told they have to leave.  If only the poor and the unemployed can occupy social housing, this is a recipe for residualisation and a total disincentive to aspiration.

So the whole concept is flawed in principle, and it would have catastrophic effects in practice.  How would people on low incomes be able to cope with a near market rent for supposedly social housing.  In the SE10 postal district at the heart of my constituency, average market rents are estimated at £380 a week. 80% of that would involve a rent level of over £300 a week for a supposedly social letting. No one in low-paid work could consider such a tenancy, unless they were to have most of the costs met by Housing Benefit.  And if they did, I can already see the double whammy of some sanctimonious Minister calling for further Housing Benefit cuts or caps on the grounds that people on benefit should not be able to live in such expensive areas.

So who will occupy any homes that are built on this basis.  Some may go, perfectly properly, to people in what is often described as the ‘intermediate’ market.  One of the more encouraging trends in recent years has been the development of mixed tenure communities with opportunities for people to occupy housing on a range of different terms – social renting, intermediate renting, market renting, low cost home ownership and outright ownership.  The whole point of such diversity is to provide for a range of needs and people in different economic circumstances.  So it makes a lot of sense to provide intermediate renting solutions as part of mixed developments.  But it makes no sense to substitute intermediate rent for social renting options, available to those on low incomes.  If in Greenwich, where social rents for council and housing association tenancies are currently in the £80-£110 a week range, all new lettings involved their substitution by lettings at 80% of market rents, the poor would lose out, and even so the scheme would probably fail, because low cost home ownership would provide a more attractive proposition to those able to pay a rent in excess of £300 a week.

In its 5 months in office the Coalition Government has already has a disastrous impact on housing in this country. The recovery from recession has been stalled, housebuilding is in crisis, social housing is facing a death warrant, private renting is being undermined by Housing Benefit cuts, hundreds of thousands of tenants are fearful as to how they can continue to afford their rent, many many more are under the threat of having to move or facing the bleak prospect of homelessness.  It is difficult to think of a more inept and deplorable record in such a short period of time.  One can only hope that Ministers will come to their senses and recognize that this is no way to run housing policy.  Our country and our people deserve better.

Planning Inspectorate overturns council’s hotel decision

A new 47 bedroom hotel has been given the green light by the independent Planning Inspectorate after being rejected by Greenwich Council.

Developer, Cameo Properties, can now begin building the six storey budget hotel in Tunnel Avenue, close to the A102.

In turning down the application, the council had stated that the hotel would “constitute an overdevelopment of the site that would be out of keeping with the scale, character and appearance of the immediate surrounding area” and that it failed “to make provision for adequate car parking spaces”.

But the Planning Inspector, Mr Leslie Coop, disagreed with the council’s conclusions. The development “would improve the existing street scene and the character of the area”, he wrote in his Appeal Decision.

Despite the hotel having 47 rooms, the proposals include plans for only 13 car parking spaces. Mr Coop commented that the hotel would have sufficient off street parking would be “within walking distance of North Greenwich” bus and tube stations.

A hand car wash is currently in operation on the land and the adjacent house, number 228 Tunnel Avenue, will be demolished as part of the development. The hotel is expected to create 10 full time jobs and 20 part time jobs.

The developer originally applied to build flats on the land in 2005 but this was rejected by the council. A subsequent application in 2007 to build a 27 room hotel was also refused but a revised 17 bedroom hotel was approved. The developer didn’t go ahead with that proposal and instead submitted plans for a 47 room hotel late last year.

UPDATED: Developer speaks to Greenwich.co.uk

The man behind the hotel scheme is local developer, Jigs Chana from Cameo Properties. Mr Chana studied at the University of Greenwich and tells me that he has been heavily involved with the local Chamber of Commerce and sat on Greenwich Council’s Local Strategic Partnership Board and Local Neighbourhood Renewal Board.

He agreed to talk to Greenwich.co.uk and I began by asking for his reaction to the Planning Inspector’s decision:

We are delighted with the Inspectors Decision and we are particularly pleased with the Inspector taking all of our comments on board as submitted in our planning application including our proposal to provide limited on-site parking. This site is very well connected to excellent local public transport connections and the design we have proposed for the affordable 6 storey 47 bedrooms hotel is of high quality and this development will further help local community and businesses to attract new inward investment. Our objective always has been to work with local people and when built we aim to recruit staff locally.

Do you have a timescale for beginning and completing construction?

We are planning to start construction early into new the year with a target to complete the development in time for the start of the London 2012 Olympics – it is a disappointment that we have lost 5 months due to us having to make an Appeal even though Planning Officers had this development ‘Recommended for Approval’ back in March 2010.

Do you think people will be happy to stay at a hotel so close to the busy A102?

Greenwich is very fortunate to have high quality tourism attractions including world class O2 Arena, Historic Greenwich Town Centre, London 2012 Olympics, etc. and Greenwich Council desires to increase its tourism-based economy but in some cases, lacked hotel beds to meet such a demand. The location of this hotel will be very visible from the A102, is very well placed and convenient for our guests and visitors to be able to get in and out with ease without the needing to further clogg up Greenwich Town Centre with traffic. All guest bedrooms are located away from the dual carriageway and by introducing good quality double glazing windows throughout, our guests will be able to enjoy the convenience, clean and comfortable bedrooms whilst paying affordable prices.

Thanks to Dazza for venturing out in the rain this afternoon to get this photo which shows where the hotel will be built.

Daily Photo: 25/10/2010 – Greenwich Park

Autumnal photo of Greenwich Park.

Safety mesh across listed Victorian railings proposed

The Greenwich Foundation is proposing to place a safety mesh across a stretch of Victorian iron railings on the Thames Path.

The Foundation, a charity established to maintain the Old Royal Naval College, has identified a section of the Grade II listed railings in the “knuckle” of the river wall opposite the statue of Lord Nelson  as a potential hazard to children.

A planning application for “improvements” would see panels of stainless steel mesh placed across the decorative railings on the river side “to prevent children falling through”.

When asked if the application was in response to any specific incident, a spokesperson for the Foundation told Greenwich.co.uk that the proposal was a “precautionary measure”.

Photo from the planning application showing the railings with a temporary mesh in place.

Thanks to Jim for the use of the photo at the beginning of the article.

Tim Barnes awarded honorary degree

A former chair of the Greenwich Society has been honoured by the University of Greenwich for his work with law graduates.

Tim Barnes QC was awarded an honorary degree, Doctor of Laws (HonLLD), at a ceremony at the chapel of the Old Royal Naval College on Monday.

The award  is for Tim’s work as chair and founder member of the university’s Law Advisory Forum which was set up three years ago to improve the employability prospects of Greenwich Law graduates

Mr Barnes commented, “This is one of the most beautiful and historic campuses in the world. We owe a debt of gratitude to the University of Greenwich for coming here. Greenwich Law students are the best turned out, best presented and most articulate that attend events at our chambers. They display the commitment and enthusiasm that are crucial qualities for a legal career.”

Kim Everett, from the University of Greenwich, says: “We owe a great debt to Tim for all he has contributed to the university through the Law Advisory Forum. He firmly believes that our Law students can achieve great things and should have the opportunity to do just that.”

Daily Photo: 21/10/2010 – Boating Lake in Greenwich Park

The boating lake in Greenwich Park, as seen from One Tree Hill.

Nathan Thompson and the wooden nutmeg

In the 1860s the Thames ‘constituted the greatest shipbuilding area in the world’.  There were shipyards all up and down the river. However the Greenwich peninsula stands out being shipyard free until one manufacturer came there with a big idea.

As well as big ships there was always a need for the small craft that kept the whole system running with as many designs as purposes.  But this was someone who wanted to build boats, thousands of them, all the same. Boats had been made up and down the river for millennia – but never ones like this!

The National Company for Boat Building by Machinery had been set up by Nathan Thompson. He came from New York where Nathan had been a marine engineer. He said his system had taken him nineteen years to perfect and had been examined in New York by the United States Navy Department, He showed that it would take one man, working ten hours a day, eleven days and three hours to do it.  Within four years Thompson had come to England.

Thompson was the subject of an article by P. Barry in ‘Dockyard Economy and Naval Power’ who had visited Thompson’s works. He praised Thompson’s machinery as ‘practical  ….expeditious and economical’ but also drew to the manufacture of wooden nutmegs in New England. His English readers may not have known that in America Connecticut is known the ‘Nutmeg State’ and that a wooden nutmeg refers to a native of that state whose intentions are dishonest.

Thompson had a number of backers – chief of them Colonel Sykes, MP, Chairman of the East India Company. He produced a booklet consisting of letters of recommendation for his process which had been obtained following their visits to a demonstration works near Victoria Park in Old Ford, Hackney.  So the Company prospectus included references from an astonishing number of people including the Dukes of Cambridge and Sutherland and to an assortment of shipbuilders and industrialists. Whether any of them ordered any boats from him isn’t known.  The letters are however, like the boats, mainly identical to each other.

The idea was to produce a large number of identical small boats, made by a series of machines.  Thompson claimed that 25,000 new small boats were needed every year in Britain and he thought that he could supply a quarter of these.

Boats made to a system would be useful for all sorts of things.  Space was taken up by boats on the decks of ships – they could carry more if they could be quickly assembled and disassembled. Duplicate parts could be supplied and repairs thus done without any difficulty. Thompson’s boats, it was said, ‘go together like a bedstead’.  Landing craft could be stowed into a single transporter and then put together when time for the invasion arrived. Boats could also be packed up for overland journeys.

His system depended on a series of machines – fourteen in all and all steam driven.  The boats, which had to be all the same, moved through the system from one to another and were built up round a central ‘assembling form’ which, held everything together and in the right place.  It was however calculated that labour costs for each boat made would be less than a quarter than those made by conventional means. The cheapness of boats produced by this method would mean that new boats could be bought by fisherman and others without access to large amounts of capital.  Boats could be made very quickly – within hours of the order.

Once the company had been floated it was decided to set up the permanent factory in Greenwich and the site at Horseshoe Breach was leased from Morden College, Thompson set about making the Breach fit for shipbuilding by building a causeway and putting a boom across the bay itself.  They then faced the river wall with stone.  New buildings on site were to be proper brick built structures by agreement with Morden College.

Unfortunately they went out of business in their first year.

Philip Banbury, writing in the 1970s, pointed out that Thompson did not mention that all the boats had to be the same and that there was little hope of persuading customers to buy so many of a standard type .  Banbury estimated that boats needed on the Thames was ‘perhaps 300 of over a dozen types and sizes’. small boats were usually very specialist and had evolved for a wide range of tasks and conditions. Small local boatbuilders had marginal capital costs whereas Thompson’s machinery required a large investment.

I don’t know what happened to Thompson.  In his report to the US Navy Department he said that he had taken out patents in: the United States, England, France, Russia Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Sardinia, Turkey and Spain.   Perhaps he went off and tried to make his system of boats pay somewhere else.  perhaps somewhere in the world he was successful and perhaps somewhere there is a memorial to him.  Perhaps, if he really was a ‘wooden nutmeg’ some of the capital he raised went with him and who knows what he did and where he went.

Some of the information used in this article came from Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut.  They wrote and said they were hurt at my description of the ‘wooden nutmeg’  – he was in fact they said ‘a snake oil merchant’.

Plans for Cutty Sark Gardens revamp submitted

A planning application has been lodged for the revamp of Cutty Sark Gardens.

The proposals will make Cutty Sark Gardens an “attractive place to stay and a place to linger”, say Dutch designers, OKRA.

The designs include  6,540  sq m of new stone covering, less steps to a make it more pedestrian friendly, an interactive “wet floor” feature, clear cyclist route and green planters.

The interactive water element will be designed to mirror the tidal movements of the Thames – water flowing over the element when the tide is high and draining off when it is low.

A pre-application consultation on the plans was undertaken at the town centre pedestrianisation exhibition back in June of this year.

OKRA, who are partners on Croydon’s Wellesley Road and Parklane redevelopment project, describe as Cutty Sark Gardens as a “pioneering place with international allure” but go on to say, perhaps contradictorily, that “awareness that one of London’s most highest profile public squares is lacking in allure is becoming widespread”.

The “gardens” are part of the Mayor of London’s Great Spaces Initiative, and the council secured funding for the scheme as one of the key legacy projects for Greenwich resulting from being a Host Borough for London 2012.

Restoration work on the Cutty Sark itself – the centre piece of Cutty Sark Gardens – is due to complete sometime in 2011.

Next Page »