1. There will be 2 buildings. A 2 storey building adjacent to Foundery Mews to house the Hub and a thinner 11 storey tower block for 67 flats. This is to meet the complaints from residents of Foundery Mews who objected to being so close to the tower block as the roof terrace on the 1st floor would have overlooked their flats.
2. The garden will now be on the ground floor.
3. As the tower will be narrower there will be less flats per floor.
4. When questioned about overlooking the school we were told the windows would be narrower on the school side and only the flats on the 1st floor would be able to see into the windows of the school! The higher flats will see over the school. It will be interesting to see the evidence for this conclusion!
5. Demolition has started and is expected to finish in March 2021. A resident's group is being set up to monitor the noise and pollution.
6. There will be a layby in Wood Street to enable deliveries once the building is completed. This will narrow the pavement adjacent to the school which is creating a risk for the children using this part of the pavement.
7. They tried to convince people it would be a beautiful building as the ground floor would be stone clad re-using the stone from the existing building, brick on the middle floors and fluted detail on the upper floors.
8. For reasons they did not explain the plans have to be approved by the GLA - why? So if you don't want to see this terrible plan implemented object to Mayor Khan.
9. There had ben rumours on Social Media that the Youth Offending service would be using the building. They made it clear a new facility for the Youth Offending service was planned for the "south of the Borough" but no detail was given. It then became apparent Youth Offenders might have to attend the Hub on occasion and those attending the meeting expressed their very real concerns of having Youth Offenders coming to an area with 2 adjacent schools.
It looks like a back lash from the community is beginning to build!
Response from the council about the construction traffic access:
Logistics Plan
Dear Mr Stannard,
I respond to your email of 9th December to Stewart Murray, below.
I can advise that the Council’s project team and the demolition contractor have had discussions with the school to enshrine safe working and negotiate operating hours on the site. We have in place arrangements to ensure that no works are allowed to proceed until 9am every day and there are no demolition vehicle movements allowed after 2.30pm to allow for safe access and egress to the school. We are happy to report that the arrangements are working well. In addition to this no works are allowed during weekends or Public Holidays. We have also negotiated two periods of quiet working each day to alleviate any potential noise impact on all neighbours and between the hours of 10.30am to 11.30am and 2pm to 3pm, no noisy works take place.
The area where the skip is located is regularly swept and kept free of debris and it is coned off at 8.30am every working day, with the cones being cleared at the end of the day.
The location of the skip, is not on the footpath of Wood Street but within the land of the old Wood Street Library. The skip is being loaded as you identified, with non-hazardous contents being cleared from within the building. Once demolition works begin, the movement, management and loading of materials arising will all take place behind hoarding and the skip will be removed on or before 23rd November.
In order for the demolition to proceed it is a requirement that a detailed construction logistics plan (CLP) be in place. Amongst other things, this sets out arrangements to ensure safe working, including vehicle movements and accessing of the site. The key objectives of the document are to ensure that the safest working practices are undertaken and to manage the safe movement of construction vehicles around the Wood Street and Forest Road junction. The CLP must be approved (it has been) and it is a live document with mitigation measures and methods updated and changed as required.
The current CLP identifies that a hoarding will be erected around the area where the skip is currently located and plans for this to be installed are being concluded now. We have allowed additional time for the erection of this hoarding in order to minimise the impact on the footpath at Wood Street, next to the school. I can advise you that preparations are underway, for the hoarding to be erected during the Christmas school holidays and we can assure you that there will be no demolition vehicle movements on site, until the hoarding has been erected.
To summarise, the works are being undertaken in a carefully considered, safe and supervised manner. There are no agreements in place with highways to close any part of the road on Wood Street or Forest Road. The detailed construction logistics plan is a public document, developed in conjunction with Highways and approved by the local planning authority, it can be accessed on the Waltham Forest Planning portal here: https://planning.
This document details the solution to access, egress and vehicle movements, to allow for the demolition to proceed safely and with the minimal impact possible to neighbours and the public.
Kind regards,
Laura Glasgow
Senior Project Manager
Thank you for this update. Can I just add that during consultation with foundry mews the original 9 story design was 10 meters from our back doors. We asked if that could be looked at, when they came back with the new design we said it was worse and less sensitive to all the surrounding area. Only the houses in foundry mews were consulted, the residents in flats and our vulnerable adults with mental health were not. We provided alternative architectural designs to reduce the mass and height of the building that were shot back. We know a development will happen here, all we ask is that it is sensitive to everyone.
ReplyDeleteHello,
ReplyDeleteAs another resident in Foundry Mews can I ask the author to update this blog so it doesn't say this new design was because of changes we asked.
We actually proposed 4 designs to the council, but they were all rejected as the council went for this new design for commercial reasons. Essentially now they split into two buildings it means if council wants they can sell all the apartments off to a housing association to develop. The new design is worse for us in foundry mews as we have more apartments overlooking us and more light taken away from us and more shade. So the council actually went against our wishes.
Regarding the point on GLA it has to go to gla as it is now higher than 30 meters, this is due to going up to 11 floors. But the gla process does not allow public comment and is only a tick box exercise.