This week, Nimby Watch is in central London…
Okay then, where are we this time? We’re in Belgravia, one of London’s swankiest neighbourhoods. Don’t say I never take you anywhere nice.
Okay, fine. But neither one of us can afford anything here, as well you know, and I’m including coffee when I say that. Well… yes. But I haven’t brought you here to look at homes, for once. Instead, we’re taking a look at Belgravia Police Station.
Wait, I know how this goes. You’re about to tell me that locals should just accept a police station – a vital local public service – being closed down, and probably replaced with luxury flats. I’m not about to help you demonise people campaigning to keep their local police station open! Hang on a sec, I’ve got good news and bad news for you on that front.
Really? Well, it’s mostly bad news if I’m honest. The ‘good news’ is that I’m not attacking anyone for trying to keep a police station open – I can actually completely see why people would want that.
Good. There’s obviously a ‘but’ coming… Yes, there is. No one is campaigning for the police station to stay open because it closed down four years ago. It’s been a disused building ever since – as ever, the planning system means that even in the most desirable locations in the UK, getting any projects underway takes forever.
Sometimes, it’s not just selfish people who don’t want their views ruining. It’s people taking out legitimate frustrations on the wrong target
Okay, so you’re about to endorse bulldozing what I’m sure is one of London’s architectural treasures, then? The developers do indeed intend to bulldoze the existing building, but I think you’d have to have incredibly particular tastes to class this particular structure as an architectural treasure.
Belgravia Police Station was built in 1993 – meaning it managed less than 30 years in service – and is extremely of its time. Unless you truly love that 1990s small town shopping centre brick aesthetic, this is not a building anyone will miss. If you can’t picture that, I strongly encourage you to Google it.
Yeah, even I’m not going to try to make a case for that one. So… what’s supposed to replace it then. Are you softening me up for some kind of 24-storey all-glass skyscraper? There’s nothing wrong with a good skyscraper, in the right spot! But no, the plan for the site is a new luxury hotel. The plans are for a contemporary neo-classical building, very much in keeping with the area. It looks quite nice, if that’s your sort of thing.
I suppose the objections are centred around building a luxury hotel when the site could be used for housing? They almost certainly were at some stage, but the general plans for the project were agreed quite some time ago – the hotel already had planning approval. What’s happened more recently is that the developer wanted to modify the plans to add an extra 49 rooms to the 206 already granted approval.
So, they wanted to add more storeys to the plans after they got planning approval? Sneaky. There are actually no changes to the external dimensions of the structure – which might make you wonder why the planning committee needs to weigh in at all. The hotel seems to have found a way to squeeze in dozens of extra rooms without changing the footprint. That might worry me as a prospective guest, but there’s no obvious reason for it to affect the neighbours.
You wouldn’t be telling me about this hotel unless someone was objecting to it, so…what’s the objection? You still can’t guess? I’ll end the suspense. Local residents objected to the extra rooms because of… water pressure.
Water pressure? Yep. This particular area of Belgravia has been plagued with issues caused by low water pressure, and the residents of nearby Fountain Court are worried that the extra 49 rooms might just be enough to push things over the edge and make an already bad situation worse.
Do they have a point? Not really, but I can see why they’re worried. If Thames Water can’t get water to your flat at a workable pressure now, it seems entirely legitimate to worry that adding dozens of hotel rooms right next door isn’t going to make anything better.
In practice, though, it probably would. The new development has a covenant putting responsibility for water pressure on the developer, meaning they are going to have to sort out some of the local piping and issues as a condition of the build. The hotel will need the issue sorted if it’s not going to have constant complaints from guests. Oddly, the development is probably the residents’ best hopes of sorting this out.
You seem unusually sympathetic to the Nimbys this time. Only to a point. I think we’re hitting a point where issues that have almost nothing to do with planning keep spilling over into opposition to new building. People struggle to find doctors or dentists, and end up opposing new housing because they fear it’ll increase the competition.
Thames Water can’t keep on top of the 670 million litres of water it loses to leaks every day, and people push back on development. Sometimes, it’s not just selfish people who don’t want their views ruining. It’s people taking out legitimate frustrations on the wrong target.
Like you do with me? No, you deserve everything you get.
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