RCS/CoLPAI Site Update October

[Charles Humphries]

GLERA met with the Islington Planners last week in a helpful meeting which clarified some points. Here are the highlights of the discussion:

GLERA have pointed out a number of deficiencies with the application documents and as a result the documents will be revised and re-submitted. In addition the Islington Design Review Panel (DRP) will meet at the end of October as they have further comments to make, so it is likely there will be some cosmetic changes to the design.

The whole scheme will be open for comments for a further 21 days from the date it is re-submitted. We should receive notices by post when it is re-submitted. The "Comments" button will re-appear on the Islington website during that period.

As a result it looks likely that the scheme will not be put before the planning committee until December at the earliest and possibly next year.

We tabled alternative schemes that have been prepared for the site showing that it would be possible to accommodate the school and 66 flats in way that would not cause as much damage, and also a design that is entirely low/medium rise in scale with the Estate. We will be posting more info on these soon.

The City sent their acoustic consultants down to site last week to take background noise measurements. On that day they chose to move all their heavy plant and operate an angle grinder for 90 minutes. Islington planners have said they will require them to re-survey. Here is some background.

The daylighting studies are tabulated in a way that makes it very hard to identify which flats will be affected. The planners agreed that the applicants will be asked to identify the flats by number, so that you can tell how much light will be lost. Bear in mind 122 windows will lose more than 20% of their daylight (The standard by which developments are judged). Some of us will lose more than 50% of the light to our windows. Everyone that we have discussed this with thinks this is wholly unacceptable.

Attached is a plan summarising the issues with the current proposals and where they break planning policy.

[Iain Meek]

Excellent diagram showing the planning deficiencies.

Surely more than 2 garages are going to be lost!!!!    "1.30 Accessible Parking: No wheelchair accessible parking being provided. 9 Spaces required Two essential accessible parking garages being lost from Golden Lane Estate."

[Charles Humphries]

I think there are six garages Iain, and all will be lost. I only know of two being used by residents who rely on them for accessible parking, and in the application it was stated that the others are used for storage, but I would be interested if anyone has better information.