Greenwich Market: More News

WE THINK of Greenwich Council as secretive and unhelpful, but compared to the Planning Inspectorate it’s a beacon of openness.

The deadline is already approaching for comments on Greenwich Hospital’s brazen planning appeal to be allowed to knock down the Market after all. According to an advert in this week’s Greenwich Time, it is March 22nd, less than three weeks away.

But go to the website of the inspectorate, which is handling the appeal, and you find the message: “We regret we are not currently publishing documents for this appeal.” So I can’t tell you if anything has changed about the plans or if any new dodgy claims have been put forward by the developers. A perfect example of what happens when democracy gives way to the quango state.

What I have found, however, is an encouraging decision on another Greenwich Town Centre and Greenwich Hospital planning appeal – and another minor PR own goal by the Hospital.

To start with the latter: they have engaged a new consultancy firm, the accurately-named Sensitive Projects, to get the appeal through. Sensitive Projects (“we advise on projects which are often controversial and unpopular”) consists of David McFarlane, who was the Hospital’s previous PR at another firm, and a woman called Harriet Kerr, who was a director of PPS, another outfit which specialises in getting unpopular developments through. PPS is a very interesting company.

In 2007, in an investigation for my then newspaper, the Standard, and Channel 4’s Dispatches, 17 minutes in, PPS was accused of using forgery, impersonation and even bugging to manipulate the planning process.

I found that fake letters of support for a highly-controversial planning application had been dispatched to councillors – the people whose names appeared on the letters had never written them; and that people posing as PhD students had visited councillors, pumping them for inside information about their views. I was leaked an internal PPS document boasting of how they managed to “create” favourable letters for projects, including that one. I was also leaked, from within PPS, a verbatim, 20-page transcript of a private meeting of councillors

I found mysterious new people who had joined a residents’ association which had opposed the development – then turned the association neutral, and then as soon as the development was approved, had vanished from the scene without trace. It’s a funny old game, the property business.

Harriet Kerr was not involved in the projects I investigated at PPS and there is no suggestion that she acted in any way improperly while at the company, or since. But these lobbyists will still be worth keeping an eye on, I feel.

My second piece of news about the market appeal is that if precedent means anything at all, we might be all right. This is not, it turns out, the first time in recent months that the Hospital have been refused planning permission by Greenwich Council, then taken it to appeal. Last year, the council turned down their bid to put new shop fronts on 2, 3 and 4 College Approach (currently laid out as house fronts) and a remodelled shop front on 5 College Approach.

Last summer Greenwich Hospital appealed – but the appeal was largely refused (they did get permission for the remodelled shop front at No 5.) The inspector, Christine Thorby, said the plan would be “to the detriment of the character and appearance of the… wider historic area,” conflicting with the same council planning policies as the market proposal.

Now it’s true that the College Approach properties are listed buildings, described by the inspector as of “very high quality,” and the market buildings proposed for demolition aren’t. But the decision is one more little thing weighing in the balance against the Hospital getting its ghastly Bluewater scheme past the goalie in injury time.

Andrew Gilligan: Council Worried About Park Olympics

Lewisham Council has expressed serious concerns about the controversial plan to stage the Olympic equestrian events in Greenwich Park, we can reveal.

In an email obtained by greenwich.co.uk, Stuart Sharp, Lewisham’s highways development manager, raises a series of pertinent “areas of concern” about the ability of the local road and rail networks to cope with the spectator and competitor influx for the Games, particularly on the day of the cross-country event.

In the email to Greenwich Council, dated 18 February, Mr Sharp writes: “When does the major cross-country attraction occur – hopefully on a weekend? If it doesn’t, then given the predicted 75,000-plus crowd, plus two to three thousand workforce plus competitors all arriving 90 mins or earlier before the events start at 11am means that most will be attempting to travel… during the morning peak. Similarly, the reverse pattern could occur during the evening travel peak.”

The day of the cross-country event, 31 July 2012, is a Tuesday.

Mr Sharp says that even the Park’s “smaller” events – involving between 22,700 and 55,000 people – will place enormous demands on the local transport network. He protests that the Games organisers have done “no analysis of public transport capacity to absorb the predicted [number of] people requiring to travel to and from the site.”

He asks: “Is there sufficient timetable, line and platform capacity to cope with the predicted numbers, particularly on weekdays? How will bus operations be affected if the bus lanes in Romney Road are used for pedestrian movement? I can’t find any detail [in the plans] of park-and-ride strategy and direct coach arrival and departure arrangements.

“Where are the drop-off, pick-up and coach queuing points? Where will the 200-250 coaches park after drop-off and before pick-up? The [transport plan] suggests the site off Creek Road hitherto earmarked for the Greenwich Waterfront Transit depot – surely that won’t be big enough and will it still be available?”

A failure to set out important plans in sufficient detail is becoming a bit of a theme with the Greenwich Olympics. We still don’t know which trees will be affected by the promised “pruning” operations. We don’t know the full closure schedule. We don’t know where all the temporary buildings will go. We don’t even know exactly what the main arena will look like!

But the transport position is serious. Unlike north of the river, Greenwich is to see no transport capacity improvements (apart from a third car on the DLR.) The existing network will, in fact, be reduced in capacity by the likely creation of a competitors-only lane through the Blackwall Tunnel. As well as the visual, amenity and ecological damage to the park, and the damage to the tourist industry of seeing it closed for weeks, there now appears to be a risk of wider economic damage that the area’s roads and railways will seize up.

Locog’s coyness on transport detail is understandable: their fear must be that Mr Sharp’s questions are impossible to answer. But planning applications require detail. It was a lack of detail, as much as anything else, which doomed Greenwich Hospital’s application for the market redevelopment – and that application was rather fuller than the Olympic one.

As anyone who has used the area’s transport network during the rush hour will know, it is essentially at capacity, sometimes beyond. Although the Games will take place during the summer holiday season – and some of the travel will be against the peak flow – it is a further example of the way in which the Olympic organisers decided this venue on the basis of pretty pictures rather than serious examination.

Lewisham’s borough boundary comes within a few hundred yards of the park, and Mr Sharp’s email raises the fascinating possibility that the council could formally object to the application.

That possibility still seems remote – but it is a real indictment of Greenwich Council’s uncritical cheerleading for the Olympics that important objections are only raised by a neighbouring borough.

Greenwich Market: Developers to Appeal

THE HATED demolition and redevelopment of Greenwich Market could still go ahead with its owner, Greenwich Hospital, likely to appeal against the council’s decision to refuse planning permission.

Traders in the market have been told by Edward Dolby, the Hospital’s resources director, that an appeal against the refusal is to be lodged. “He has been telling people that if they get the appeal, nothing will be demolished until January 2013,” said one person familiar with the situation. The appeal has to be lodged by February 26, six months after the council’s decision.

Greenwich Hospital’s director, Martin Sands, refused to confirm or deny last night whether the Hospital will appeal. However, official confirmation of the position is expected to be given to a meeting of market traders tomorrow.

The plan would see the existing market and the shops around it demolished and replaced by a modern market, contemporary shopping precinct and 104-bedroom hotel. The hotel would rise to five storeys and would loom over the existing buildings. Its entrance would be directly on the busy one-way system.

In August the plan was unanimously rejected by Greenwich’s planning board, which described it as “unbalanced and detrimental,” “visually intrustive,” an “overdevelopment,” “out of keeping with its historic surroundings,” and a “low quality design” which would deliver a “poor environment” and “impact on the free flow of traffic.”

Any appeal would probably be heard by the Planning Inspectorate in Bristol, though there is a faint possibility the Government or the Mayor could intervene. The inspectorate decides whether to do it entirely in writing, to have a public hearing or to have a full-scale inquiry, with lawyers for each side.
Since this scheme has been so controversial, it is unlikely to be dealt with in writing.

As before, opponents of the scheme will be able to submit written objections and appear in person at the hearing or inquiry if they wish. The criteria on which the appeal is decided are not terribly clear, but they appear to be whether the council has acted in accordance with its own Unitary Development Plan (UDP), the definitive statement of its planning policy.

According to the council, the Greenwich Market application breached no fewer than ten policies of the UDP, not to mention two items of national government planning policy guidance. It is, on the face of it, hard to see how any planning inspector could disagree with this. Take, for instance, UDP policy TC7, which states: “The Council will protect and enhance the site and setting of the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site…. Development within it should preserve and enhance its essential and unique character and appearance.” Indisputably, the new scheme, which looks like a bus station, does not do this.

Policy TC8 states that any new development anywhere in the town centre must “demonstrate the highest standards in design, landscaping, detailing, and finishing.” Again, the market scheme seems quite clearly not of the highest standards.

The Hospital may argue that the council’s planning officers recommended acceptance of the scheme, though how those officers managed to reconcile it with their own policy is still unclear.
Even if the Hospital wins its case, however, economics may have turned against the scheme. The redevelopment relies on the new hotel for its viability. But since last year, another major hotel scheme has been approved in the area – a new 150-roomer on Greenwich High Road. Frank Dowling’s Inc Group is also sitting on planning permission to turn the upper floors of the Trafalgar Tavern into a 16-bedroom hotel.

There is also a planning application, which seems likely to be granted, for a 450-room hotel at the 02. All this new hotel development is, of course, in addition to the existing Ibis, Novotel and Holiday Inn behemoths which have been constructed locally over the last fifteen years. The real risk for the Hospital is that even if they do get their planning permission, the hotel market in SE10 will already be too saturated for anyone to invest.

The chances of saving the market seem higher, therefore, than at this time last year. Nonetheless, if an appeal is launched, there will need to be another campaign. And how depressing it will be to see this further evidence of Greenwich Hospital’s arrogance, pigheadedness and refusal to engage with the community it claims to serve.

UPDATE: At the meeting with traders tonight, Greenwich Hospital confirmed that it would launch an appeal. The plan will be the same as the one that was rejected by councillors last year. A press release is expected to be issued on Friday.

Cutty Sark Disaster: The £11 Million Nail In the Coffin

LAST weekend, in my paper, the Telegraph, I was finally able to tell the full story of the terrible disaster that is the restoration of the Cutty Sark. As you can read:

- the chief engineer, Professor Peter Mason, has resigned, saying the project will damage the ship and should be stopped.

- the project has run massively late and overbudget, with its main funder cutting off payments for most of last year amid deep concerns about its management and financial controls.

- the Cutty Sark Trust has issued a series of misleading statements about progress on the project.

I only regret that I did not nail the story down sooner. I heard in the autumn that there was something badly wrong – and indeed could guess that to be the case from just looking at the ship (which has shown absolutely no signs of visible change for at least the last year) or the hoardings which surround it (where a succession of promised reopening dates has come and gone.)

But guesswork and off-the-record hints aren’t enough, nobody would talk on the record, Mason was still in place at the time, other stories intervened. The result is that on Thursday of last week, before I could publish, a deal had been stitched together to throw another £11 million of public money at the fiasco and proclaim it “rescued.”

So hastily was this deal done – maybe they knew the press was sniffing round – that it was actually announced by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport before the biggest of the funders, Greenwich Council, had even agreed to pay its share. The press release was issued on Thursday morning. The relevant council meeting did not even begin until 2pm the same day. The meeting was only even put on the council calendar the night before, giving no-one the time to consider the proposals or to object.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the Cutty Sark, I badly want to see it restored and I would be happy to spend even the colossal sum of £46 million if it achieves that end. But as its hurried and secretive birth suggests, the latest injection of funding is not going to “rescue” the Cutty Sark. It is going to prop up a fundamentally flawed scheme, run by a fundamentally flawed group of people, which could end up destroying the ship altogether.

The scheme’s key flaw is its desire to raise the ship eleven feet off the ground, in order to fit a lucrative, glassed-over function space underneath. Steel legs, punched through the hull, would hold it in place. The supposed justification is to better show off the ship’s lines, but the Cutty Sark Trust gave a hint of its true motive when, in 2008, it told the Telegraph magazine that “the ultimate aim is to transform [the ship] into a corporate hospitality venue to rival Tate Modern.”

The raising, known as the “iconic scheme,” means that the lower half of the ship’s sides will appear to be swathed in glass. The objection is not just that this will look awful, though it will. Steffan Meyric Hughes, of Classic Boat magazine, says it is “undignified” and makes the Cutty Sark look like a “fairground attraction.”

It’s not just that it will compromise the integrity of the ship, though it will do that too – a new entrance will be cut into the hull, and a new lift will be installed to comply with disability access regulations (the previous entrance was level.)

No, the main objection is, in Mason’s words, that “the lifting support system will do damage to the fabric of the ship. It will have quite an impact on it. They should not lift up the ship. I’ve turned against that after what I’ve seen and I’m not happy.” Computer simulations were what turned Mason against the plan – simulations that showed the ship would be put at risk.

Researching the issue more, speaking to some experts and reading the words of others, I could not find a single person in the world of classic ship restoration who believes the plan presently being followed by the Cutty Sark Trust is anything other than a ghastly mistake.

Julian Harrap, the architect behind the restoration of Brunel’s SS Great Britain, said: “They are actually putting the artifact itself at risk, and that’s a fundamental issue.” The director of National Historic Ships, Martyn Heighton, said: “This is an extremely delicate object and you don’t try out something new on the Cutty Sark.”

The Trust itself defends its scheme – but it is no longer trust-worthy. As my Telegraph piece catalogues, the Cutty Sark Trust has over the past two years repeatedly misled the press, saying for instance that the scheme was proceeding smoothly when funding had in fact been cut off and most work stopped, or claiming that the shortfall was only £5 million at a time when they knew it was at least 50% more. We can no longer take their assurances seriously.

Nor can we put much faith in their project-management skills. Even excluding delays caused by the fire in May 2007, the claimed reopening date has also been put back, by my count, at least five times. The original post-fire opening date, announced in June 2008, was March 2010. Then it slipped to summer 2010, then the end of 2010, then spring 2011.

In last week’s press release a new reopening date of “in time for the Olympics” (July 2012) was given, itself a further postponement of up to18 months. But in the space of just six days, even that deadline has shifted once more to the right. This week’s issue of Greenwich Council’s propaganda organ, Greenwich Time, states merely that the Cutty Sark “could be restored in time for the 2012 Games.”

You won’t read any of the other facts outlined above in Greenwich Time, of course. There’s a concerted outbreak of emperor’s new clothes at work here, with even the Tory opposition on the council nodding the £7 million through. But for a council which is proposing cuts of £26 million next year, £7m is a huge amount of money – made up of £3 million from general funds, £2 million of section 106 “planning gain” cash which could have been used on something else, and £2 million purloined from the Cutty Sark Gardens landscaping works.

If they actually want to see the Cutty Sark restored before the Olympics, the council, and the other funders, should make their bailout conditional on a complete clear-out of the Cutty Sark Trust, and on the scrapping of the crappy “iconic” scheme, with its absurd attempt to make an historic artifact into a contemporary icon. Doing a straightforward, boring restoration would be cheaper, simpler and less risky.

But yes, you guessed it – Greenwich has actually made its £7 million conditional on exactly the opposite, saying it will not pay unless the “iconic” scheme goes ahead. The serious risk, therefore, is that they are throwing good money after bad. This really could end up another iconic Greenwich embarrassment and a British heritage tragedy.

“Supermodern Aesthetic” For All-New Foot Tunnels – And No More Staff in the Lifts

It’s tunnel week in Greenwich. Many people are just finding out about Transport for London’s plans to close the Blackwall Tunnel to all southbound traffic between 9pm and 5am, five days a week, for the next three years.

We are already half-way through the last uninterrupted week there’ll be until 2013. The closures start this coming Monday and the tunnel will henceforward be closed southbound after 9pm every night except Friday and Saturday.

Anger is whipping round the web. A meeting has been called on February 12 (see this Facebook site) to discuss some form of protest. As someone on the site says, “the bloke in Shawshank Redemption didn’t take that long to sort his tunnel.”

Does it really take 6,240 hours to fit “new safety, lighting and communications systems”? Surely not. Couldn’t they keep both directions open by having a contraflow in the remaining bore, without HGVs if they’re worried about a collision? Of course they could, but they won’t.

Boris Johnson told me a couple of weeks ago that his TfL officers simply refused point-blank to implement his election manifesto commitment to restore the old tidal flow arrangement in the tunnel during rush hours. They claimed that it was not safe. The contraflow during closure has no doubt been scuppered on the same pretext, even though that too was the preferred solution during tunnel works for many years.

Safety seems unlikely to be TfL’s main motivation, since it was perfectly happy to allow contraflows for many years and since, as far as I know, no serious accident ever occurred. Nor was the ending of the arrangement the result of any considered or empirically studied process – it was just stopped one day, and that was that. The main reason is that it is another part of “Transport for Livingstone’s” historic and continuing jihad against the motorist.

You should be going by Tube instead, scum! No, hold on – the Jubilee Line’s closed quite a lot of the time too, isn’t it? Oh well, you’d better cycle then, through the foot tunnel. Not a chance, buster. That, too, will be closed at night (and possibly during the day) for months this year and next as Greenwich Council carries out yet another tiresome, unnecessary and frankly offensive piece of Olympic-related window-dressing.

We still don’t have a clear timetable for the closures, although we’ve been demanding one for months. But, in the second tunnel-related story of the week, the plans for the refurb have been published – so we do have an idea of what the all-singing, all-dancing, refurbished tunnels are going to look like.

“Our approach to the new installations has been bold,” say the designers, “meeting our clients’ challenge to bring the tunnels into the 21st century.” The design, they say, “aims at a ’supermodern’ aesthetic… a contemporary aesthetic that acts as a counterpart to the old” and will make “use of the tunnels an event in itself.” Oh, God.

One of the nicest things, I think, about the foot tunnels is that they are not supermodern or contemporary – but a little breath of Edwardian Britain, from the unflashy white tiling to the wood-panelled lifts.

The lift panelling will be kept, it turns out, but will be placed behind glass screens on stainless steel fixings, with a stainless steel railing round the car at waist height and “LED feature lighting to highlight the panelling.” All the hallmarks, in other words, of the 538 other clueless, over-buffed heritage sterilifications there have been in London over the last ten years.

The glass panels in the domes on at either end will be stripped out and replaced with… almost identical glass panels, only these ones (wait for it), these ones will be aligned “in clearer association with the meridian, with each segment representing 30 minutes of the time dial.”

The claimed objectives of the refurb include “improved safety” and a “more welcoming environment.” This will no doubt be why those dreary heritage features so totally irrelevant to safety and welcoming, the lift attendants, are to be scrapped. As the document admits, “the lift cars will no longer be manned.”

At tunnel level, the tiling stays, but there is a “central services spine… designed to emanate a serene glow.” The lighting will “allow colour and animation to be subtly manipulated to create different moods at different times of the day,” will “wash a feature colour on the walls,” and will provide “the infrastructure for contemporary art installations so that the tunnels can contribute to cultural life in the locality.” The brochure is full of lower-case, marketing-man’s promises about “invitation, exploration and exhilaration.”

Let us pause briefly here, to collect our thoughts and grind our teeth. Since this scheme was announced, life in Britain has changed. The country faces a public spending deficit of £175 billion; a deficit that will require painful cuts to things we actually value. Does anyone really think that, in this new Britain, spending £11.5 million to damage the aesthetic of the tunnels, get rid of the staff and install “mood lighting” should be a priority?

The tunnel is not a “cultural installation,” but a transport one, a job (subject to simple mechanical repairs of the lifts) that it does pretty well at the moment. As for my “mood,” it would be much improved if basic infrastructure was just allowed to carry on doing its job. I do not want my use of the tunnels to be an “an event in itself,” particularly since the most regular event over the next two years will be closure. You want to see “exhilaration?” Scrap this idiotic scheme, and all the other woeful 2012 nonsense. Stop meddling, and just leave us alone.

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