Greenwich town centre housing block nears completion

A walk around Greenwich town centre right now shows a number of small to medium blocks at – or nearing – completion, and one such site sits on the junction of Norman Road and Greenwich High Road.

This was formerly home to a low rise office block named Norman House.

The tallest element of the development tops out at 12-storeys with a lower-rise section facing Greenwich High Road. In total 63 flats are contained within.

Purelake are behind the project. The most striking feature is the large arch located along Norman Road.

For some reason, giant concrete blocks have been put down on the pavement obstructing pedestrians.

The photo above doesn’t show the entirely of the pavement and road, but there is absolutely no space for a wheelchair to get by.

If the intention was to block vehicles given Thames Tideway work, it could be achieved without haphazardly dropping blocks on the public footway.

The road itself is also blocked, so it’s a struggle to understand why the entirely of the pavement space is rendered off limits to those pushing buggies or people with disabilities.

There were also bollards already in place on paving – which can just about be seen – to stop vehicles trying to avoid the road closure.

Income for services

In terms of how Section 106 payment from the developer towards the local authority was allocated, the council’s GLLaB scheme saw £63,000.

£12,000 was allocated to cycle improvements at nearby junctions.

Community Infrastructure Levy income would also be low for a site located in inner London near excellent transport links (less than 10 minutes by train to central London and near the DLR to Canary Wharf) as Greenwich Council failed to raise already-low levy rates in 2018, despite making a commitment in 2015:

Thus this development – approved in 2019 – saw the developer having to stump up less cash for local services as would almost certainly have been the case if that review was undertaken.