Chiswick Flat Residents Angry About Roof Extension Plans
Claim developer is using pandemic as chance to 'slip through unnoticed'
Churchdale Court, Chiswick
Residents of a block of flats in Chiswick have launched a petition against a plan to convert their roofspace into more housing. They claim that the developers are being opportunistic in putting in the application during the coronavirus outbreak.
Stoll Construction are proposing to add four residential units on top of the existing building at Churchdale Court on Havard Road.
The site which is located within the Wellesley Road Conservation Area contains two, three storey rectangular shaped blocks. One block fronts onto Grosvenor Road and the other onto Harvard Road. The two blocks are brick built with red clay tile hung front bays.
There have been a series of attempts to add more flats to Churchdale Court dating back to 2013. These were either refused or withdrawn.
Pre-application meetings with the council about the latest plan had been held back in 2018 with the last response from borough planners in June 2019. They said that in principle there was no objection to additional housing on the roofspace subject to a number of conditions such as preserving the front gables of the building and the style and number of dormer windows used. It was also stipulated that a uniform solution would be needed which respects the strong horizontal emphasis of the buildings. The latest application claims that all these requirements have been met.
The petition against the plan states, “Stoll Construction have, yet again, applied for planning permission to put another floor on our homes at Churchdale Court, Harvard Road W4 4EE They are using the cover of a Global pandemic to try and slip through unnoticed. This building is Locally Listed building by Hounslow Council and in a Conservation Area. The work proposed directly contravenes both of these local aspects, Previous Planning appeals have eventually been refused for many reasons, Conservation and aesthetics amongst them but also the considerable disruption to the current residents.”
27 people had signed the petition at the time of writing.
It is understood that housing minister Robert Jenrick has placed pressure on local authorities to keep processing planning applications during the current crisis. This presents some difficulty as it may be challenging to satisfy some of the statutory requirements relating to consulting residents about plans that affect them. For instance Hounslow Council place the statutory notices relating to planning applications in printed newspapers but these are not circulating in the area around the development as the law requires. We have asked Hounslow Council what their policy will be on this matter during the current circumstances but have not received a reply.
We were unable to contact Stoll Construction for comment.
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April 19, 2020