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!
This is the latest damage being done to Walthamstow Town Centre
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
Have they realised they will build on site of former church lane underpass. It ran from Church Lane to Grove Green Road and was filled in when Link road was built.
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