Leytonstone - Church Lane Car Park

 

The council want to build on the Church Lane car park with an enormous development of 4 blocks of flats up to 14 storeys high. The planners allowed the Travelodge in Walthamstow to be built with 12 storeys and shortly after that tall buildings were deemed to be the standard for the Town Centre development and now a 34 storey plus a 27 storey block is under construction. The Church Lane development will be the starting point until over 30 storeys get proposed for the Tesco and Matalan  sites! It has to be stopped!

WALTHAMSTOW

This is the latest damage being done to Walthamstow Town Centre

WALTHAM FOREST ECHO

SIXTY BRICKS CONSULTATION

LEYTONSTONE TOWN CENTRE

LEYTONSTONE FRAMEWORK

Below is the response from Waltham Forest Civic Society.

From: Jane Sterland

21 July 2023                                                              

For the attention of the Church Lane Car Park project team

I am responding to the initial proposals for the Church Lane car park site in the centre of Leytonstone.

I attended one of the drop-in sessions held last week and have an interest both as a local Leytonstone resident and as chair of the Waltham Forest Civic Society. It was good have a chance to meet members of the team and discuss the early-stage proposals, however while some of the ideas are welcome others appear very concerning.

The Civic Society agrees that the site is under-used and could be put to better purpose in providing homes, particularly genuinely affordable / social rent homes suitable for families rather than one or two bed units. The site’s proximity to services and transport links means it could be suitable for relatively dense housing.

However we believe this should not be built to extremely high density, to the detriment of future occupants and nearby residents. The proposal for a wall of flats in four blocks, ranging from 6-14 storeys in height, would have a severe impact on the skyline and block out sunlight from the west for 100 or more houses for much of the day, especially in winter. The flats and their proposed outdoor space on the top of the blocks would also cause significant overlooking and loss of privacy for nearby existing residents in low-rise homes.

Currently there are no significantly high buildings in the centre of Leytonstone other than the local landmark of St John’s church tower, which the highest block of flats would exceed in height. The proposals would destroy the present character of Leytonstone, and provide very little additional amenity space for the 100 or so new homes which would be squeezed onto the site.  

We believe a good (and dense by normal standards) development could be created on the site with at most 3-4 storeys topped by a mansard roof, as has been successfully done elsewhere close to the centre of Leytonstone, and hope a scheme of this nature can be developed.

Regarding other aspects of the initial proposals, we would like to see as many of the existing mature trees as possible retained on the site to preserve their huge biodiversity value, alternative play and games spaces provided for children and young people while any construction work takes place, and safe pedestrian access to the M11 Link Road overpass from Harold Road maintained throughout future building work.

We hope these points can be taken into account as plans for the site are developed over the coming months, and that a high quality scheme can be created which provides housing for families while complementing, rather than fundamentally changing, Leytonstone’s unique character.

Yours sincerely,

Jane Sterland

Chair, Waltham Forest Civic Society