17&CENTRAL (formerly the Mall)

Wednesday 10 November 2021

17&CENTRAL (formerly the Mall)

The Town Centre 10 year old development plan rumbles on and we are still waiting for the final version of the Section 106 Agreement. This is likely to be held up because TfL has run out of money and can't afford to build the new station entrance. So what compromise will be agreed?

The plan is to build two tower blocks of 32 and 27 storeys on the backyard of the Mall, expand the shopping at the front so that 32% of the open space is built on. Keep the avenue of trees which means the usable open space for just sitting in is reduced by 50%. In addition, a new entrance adjacent to the existing Mall entrance, will be constructed by TfL down to the tube lines to create a second entrance to the Victoria line. All this will take over 5 years meaning the Mall will be a building site for many years.

We are still waiting for Capital and Regional (C&R) to finish the redevelopment after the fire in July 2019.

Fire

Now the marketing department have used a spare bit of wall near the "Guest Amenities" on the 1st floor to outline the history of the Mall. Bringing it up to date they say the redevelopment, which will go on for at least 5 years, will start in 2022. Hopefully the Finance Director will decide it is too risky with shortages of labour, materials and retail moving on-line, that he won't sign it off. We can but live in hope!!

At a Save Our Square meeting Professor Steadman, from UCL, explained that from his research he believes high rise buildings are less heat efficient than low rise. He also expounded his theory that it is possible, by good design, to get as many flats into the same land area using low rise buildings instead of high rise ones.

C&R's scheme is well out of date and the Council should stop it and go back to the Town Centre redevelopment that the Prince's Trust put forward some years ago, which was for a low rise development more suited to the Victorian setting of the High Street.