With Lambeth set to make a decision on the hugely unpopular planning application by US-backed developers Hondo to build a 20 storey tower in the centre of Brixton, there’s growing concern about how the development will impact on any proposed Brixton Overground connection.
RH has been in touch with Brixton Buzz to explain how this development could endanger this much needed transport hub:
[Above: the Hondo development will use the entire triangle of land to the left. the former East Brixton station was to the right]
Lambeth council’s own Local Plan in 2015 and their 2018 draft revised plan state a firm commitment to improving public transport connections in the borough, with its Policy T4 including
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- improved interchanges and east-west orbital links;
- an increase in the quality and frequency of train services to Lambeth stations through investment in station capacity, track layouts and signalling improvements as part of the ‘metro-isation’ of rail services in the borough;
- new station stops on the Overground at Brixton and/or Loughborough Junction as part of improved rail interchanges;
- refurbishment and provision of step free access at the nearby Brixton rail station; [Chatham to Victoria line]
- The council will apply the Mayor’s London Plan policy T3 to support and SAFEGUARD improvements to public transport.
London Overground is a growing network of 112 stations on nine connecting lines linking much of London.
Its East-West orbital overground line from Clapham Junction to Highbury & Islington started in 2012 and connects to stations in Southwark, Tower Hamlets and Hackney. Those who know Brixton might know these Overground trains pass through Brixton without stopping.
A recommended potential option to connect Brixton to this route, which is not possible at the present Brixton station, would be for trains to stop along a section of the line at the North of Pope’s road, which would require the building of platforms and access infrastructure next to the rail viaduct north of the site where Sports Direct currently sits.
This option was analysed in a Steer Davies report carried out for Lambeth Council in 2014, which advised Lambeth that they would need to focus on and choose just one additional link.
Another consultants’ reports in 2016 and 2017 by Mott MacDonald confirmed this in “the major schemes still outstanding are: Overground stop at new Brixton Station – under consideration”
The construction of the Hondo Tower on this Brixton site between the viaducts would therefore block a key option for a set of transport policies that Lambeth claims to be committed to.
It’s not sufficient for Lambeth Council just to state that:
“A new station in Brixton for the Overground could open up commercial development opportunities. The council is keen to pursue this long-held aspiration through partnership working with Transport for London.”
Lambeth must recognise what a commitment to SAFEGUARD means!
Further Information and Links
Lambeth’s Local Plan is central to how they inform developers how they permit or refuse development applications.
Their complete 2015 Local Plan is here also found via lambeth.gov.uk and their 2018 revised version which is not yet complete and recognised is here.
The Steer Davies Greave report is here: lambeth.gov.uk and here: yumpu.com
The options for upgrades at Brixton station shown between pages 49-56:
The Mott MacDonald reports are here: moderngov.lambeth.gov.uk/ and lambeth.gov.uk
In early 2018 Transport for London told Lambeth that they couldn’t consider doing this before 2023-24 because of the Cross Rail delays and its related overspend tfl.gov.uk
The present Hondo plan is 20/01347/FUL: planning.lambeth.gov.uk/
The Hondo project also departs from Lambeth Local Plans:
- Policies PN3 Brixton; T4 Public Transport Infrastructure; T6 Assessing impacts of development on transport capacity and infrastructure [(b) & para 8.20]
- Because Lambeth planners and its leader want to allow the Hondo project to go forward occupying all the land at 18-24 Pope’s Road SW9- which would remove the primary site for the construction of a central Brixton station on the London overground rail system.
- There is obviously no mention of the Lambeth transport policies nor anything accurate about peak-time overload of capacity of the Victoria line in any of the three Hondo Planning Statements by DP9.
Join the discussion
Join in with the forum discussions on the Brixton forum:
- Hondo’s huge plans for Pope’s Road, Brixton (over 350 posts)
- The Brixton Project (formerly Brixton Design Trail) and Hondo
- Brixton Village, Market Row, Pope’s Road, Lost In Brixton and Hondo Enterprises’ Brixton empire (over 380 posts)
Have your say about the development
- Make an objection on Lambeth’s planning site
- Fill in an online objection postcard
- Petition: Stop Hondo Enterprises building a 20-storey tower in the central Brixton heritage area
- How to object to a planning application – an essential guide to getting your voice heard
- Follow @NoHondoTower on Twitter
Background
- Brixton Project: the ‘community’ group PAID by Hondo to support their unpopular 20-storey development
- Brixton Recreation Centre User Group voices their opposition to the Hondo Tower
- Fight The Tower: over 1,000 planning objections and 5,000 signatures registered against Hondo’s proposed 20-storey tower in central Brixton
- Brixton Project ‘community’ group team up with developers to facilitate construction of unpopular 20-storey Hondo tower block
- Grade 2 listed Brixton Recreation Centre ignored in planning assessment for proposed 20-storey tower in central Brixton
- Brixton’s Hondo Enormo-Tower: where a structural column becomes ‘an interactive fireplace’ and an ‘art piece’
- Hondo tweak the design of their Brixton 20-storey Enormo-Tower with groovy happenings and foliage galore
- Hondo start soliciting signatures in the street to support their unpopular Brixton Enormo-Tower
- Lambeth Planning Committee votes 5-2 in favour of deferring Hondo Enormo-Tower application for Pope’s Road in Brixton
- Brixton MP Helen Hayes urges Lambeth Planning to reject the proposed Hondo Enormo-Tower
- Historic England slam Hondo Enormo-Tower’s ‘significant harmful visual impact’ on Brixton ahead of Lambeth Planning meeting
- Lambeth Officers recommend approval for controversial Hondo Enormo-Tower along Pope’s Road ahead of Planning Applications Committee
Who’s behind the development?
The planning application says that the scheme “is a joint venture by AG Hondo Pope’s Road BV who have an agreement to purchase the site, currently occupied by Sports Direct and Flannels.”
It goes on to claim that Hondo is part of a property development company who have a “longstanding presence in the borough having purchased Market Row and Brixton Village” in, err, “March 2018.”
Housekeeping DJ and socialite Taylor McWilliams – the sole director of Hondo Enterprises who own Brixton Village and Market Row – is also a director of AG Hondo Pope’s Road BV, along with Robert Tieskens, a director of the Netherlands arm of the monster New York based investment company, Angelo Gordon.
More recently, Brixton Buzz exclusively revealed that the Brixton Project, the self-styled ‘community representatives’ who had put themselves forward to run the tiny amount of community space in the tower, were actually being paid by Hondo.
Read more
- Brixton for sale: who are Hondo Enterprises, owners of Brixton Village, Market Row, Club 414 and more?
- Privilege, wealth and power: Brixton landlord Taylor McWilliams and his Housekeeping DJ Collective
- Brixton anti-gentrification crowdfunder raises over £10,000 in one day, as locals decry landlords Taylor McWilliams and Hondo
Lambeth Council should be seeking a significant Section 106 contribution from the developer for this station but doesn’t appear to – TfL is broke so they aren’t going to provide anything so it isn’t going to happen! The same issue appears at the Loughborough Junction developments – no desire to extract valuable funding for essential transport and just making the existing facilities more under strain.
The s106 and Community Investment Levy commitments are referred to in the Planning Statements, and include £300K for Network Rail/Southern Railway for a new entrance for the existing Brixton Station [Chatham-Victoria line]. Lambeth are now saying that the planning committee can approve in principle & leave the head of planning to re-negotiate the s106 & CIL conditions. A project for office space at such height and massing nevertheless doesn’t need to provide a viability statement as National Planning Policy Framework requires for residential projects.
The only lever Lambeth has to require Hondo to build and keep as office space [with its much trumpeted 10% of office space for creatives at 50% market rent] is what is called an article 4 declaration that they can’t change the building’s use [from office to residential], but Jenrick as Housing Communities & Local Government minister can simply lift this article 4 on request.
£300k is pathetic really. The London bound stairs are an accident waiting to happen. No lifts for accessibility etc. Significant funding is needed to make access to such a key site appropriate.
A development brief should have been set for the site that required anything of that kind of scale to provide London Overground station access within it at a suitable podium level as part of a holistic sustainable development – if you don’t ask you don’t get.
Anyone living locally wanting to go to Bromley or beyond such as the Kent Coast, know its easier to get the tube to Victoria and a fast train direct from there. Trains calling at Brixton (mainline) only run as far as Bromley or Orpington.
A connection with ARL services would be useful, but a proper connection between ARL and the tube network needs to happen at Clapham Juction, with a Northern Line extension from its new branch.
But it’s already been made quite clear that an overground station is unfeasible.
Here’s the relevant Mayor’s Transport Strategy Policy T3 Transport capacity connectivity and safeguarding https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/new_london_plan_december_2017.pdf Lambeth have to push for a new station if they want to fulfil what they consulted on. Southwark got a new overground station https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/assembly/florence-eshalomi/80m-improvements-to-canada-water-surrey-quays If Lambeth Council want it they have to safeguard the site. Feasible? Read the Steer report -the expensive option & therefore not feasible is within the area of the existing station & where the high-level line gets in the way. Further east is where it is feasible and the between-the-viaducts site is where strategically it would link best with other public transport routes. Lambeth are still consulting on their 2018 Local Plan delayed because they have not given specific commitments on housing and on affordable housing, because all they want to say is that they will fulfil requirements based on small sites.
Explain your assertion. Who has decided & when not to push forward on this? What I said was that Lambeth planners have had sufficient technical and political information that should require them to safeguard the site. It doesnt help for you just to pipe in with No they havent /no it isnt.
There’s never been a hope in hell for a new station at Brixton. Even the documents referred to above suggest it would cost £80-£120m and be highly disruptive to transport services. At least building the tower would stop Lambeth wasting more money on “feasibility studies”.
If they are going to quote the Local Plan then this is more pertinent: “Proposals for offices greater than 1,000m2
will be supported in the Central Activities Zone, Vauxhall and Waterloo London Plan Opportunity Areas and Brixton and Streatham major town centres.”
Lambeth could do better to try for an extension of the Victoria line to Streatham. Or the Bakerloo towards Brixton and Streatham, rather than duplicating the existing mainline between Waterloo East and Lewisham