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.
Running a site alone takes time and a fair bit of money. Adverts are far from enough to cover it and my living costs as a private renter.
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The site used to be the old Greenwich Social Security Office back in the day before it closed and taken over by private offices. Good to see new housing block nearing completion bringing more new homes to Greenwich.
maybe the concrete blocks were a cheap way to deter m/scooters etc? In doing so obstructs everybody! The CIL income was one of the issues which the new council leader has vowed to rectify. Lets hope so and fast. Only remains to ask the big question, whose fault was it that its been left so late? Blame needs to be found a home here, and the obvious initially has to be the now removed leader. Will we get answers from him as to why this happened?