Greenwich to decide on 590-room student development

Greenwich Council’s Planning Board will next week decide on plans for 590 student rooms beside Deptford Creek.

Located in Deptford just across from Greenwich the site has recently been revised after complaints and concerns about tall buildings.

All quite odd as that ship has long sailed in the area with an existing tall building over the road and another student tower already approved metres away. A council tower block has resided nearby for decades.

So what we have is a stumpy earlier plan now even stumpier and bloated. Well done, I guess?

Complaints

Many complaints about tall buildings viewed from Greenwich seem rather silly these days. You can’t turn and not see tall buildings in Greenwich either at Canary Wharf to the north or Greenwich peninsula to the east. Look west and the City cluster is obvious.

I’d rather an elegant, well designed tall structure with some grace to it than a lumpen mid-rise sucking life from the area. It’s not like this is slap bang over the market or museums.

The two blocks now submitted reach 17 and 13 storeys in height.

A report before councillors next week states that thirty five per cent of student rooms would be provided as “affordable”.

New public realm outside is promised and hopefully its a bit better than the sad space built as part of New Capital Quay over the creek. That screamed tokenistic measure.

Another area of creekside walk nearby has never opened to the public after nearly a decade.

Transport

The site is a short walk to Cutty Sark DLR which will have reopened (we hope!) by the time it’s built as well as Greenwich station to the south along Norman Road.

Southeastern and Thameslink will get people to London Bridge in eight minutes which is handy for Kings College, plus many other universities are served by rail.

Cycleway 4 also runs outside all the way to London Bridge and numerous bus routes pass by.

To show how hapless modelling can sometimes be, the TfL WebCat model used to determine PTAL score (access to public transport) indicates the site to have a PTAL of 2 which is very low. Clearly a nonsense and Greenwich have revised it to 4.

In terms of parking the area is currently permit only and it’s generally a car-free development, though TfL notes “the current CPZ operating hours (12-2 pm) may not be sufficient to prevent residential parking, though this is for RBG to determine.”

Developer revenue

True to form Greenwich have all but ignored cycling improvements in the proposed Section 106 agreement with just £40,000 allocated towards cycling facilities in the local area.

Presumably the council will be pleading poverty again when it comes to poor public realm in many parts of the borough and a lack of cycle hire schemes in Greenwich when they choose not to fund via developer contributions.

See also dismal links between east Greenwich and Greenwich peninsula for a fine example.

That’ll be shortly followed by yet more studies and reports which aren’t backed up with money. Blame everyone else but rarely act is the motto.

Community Infrastructure Levy income will be limited as Greenwich chose to keep rates very low on student development in the entirely of the borough claiming few examples of student new builds locally – despite other London councils implementing far higher rates without direct prior examples in their boroughs.

Funny what others can achieve but is too difficult for Greenwich Council. Developers will again be laughing as they pay minimal sums to build in Zone 2 London near a World Heritage Zone.

Back to Section 106 and the NHS sought £236,430 in Section 106 contributions. Greenwich have allocated £221,260. GLLaB sees more than health services and transport again with £238,290.

Many new developments

There’s always certainties with Greenwich Council and new development: limited income via CIL and their GLLaB organisation hoovering up most of what Section 106 cash is on offer to the detriment of public spaces, parks, healthcare and transport to name just a few.

There’s certainly been more than enough development all across Greenwich in the past few years to pool revenue and improve some of the worst examples of antiquated, anti-pedestrian and anti-cycling streets in Greenwich.

Remember recently when a new development was up for approval on the peninsula with 340 student rooms and 352 flats? Greenwich planners conducted an “active travel assessment” in 2024 looking at various local walking routes which somehow managed to avoid looking at almost all the worst routes from the new build to east Greenwich.

They then claimed the “local area provides a good pedestrian environment” so little S106 allocated.

Then there was the time in 2022 when 431 homes up for approval on the peninsula and they stated the area had “good” walking and cycling links.

A conclusion that can only be made by ignoring links to east Greenwich and Charlton and being highly selective. Conveniently means no need to allocate developer revenue though.

Whether it’s west Greenwich and Deptford, east Greenwich or the peninsular its always the same story.

It’s a choice not to do allocate sufficient money from new developments that we’ve seen time and again. They’ve chosen the same route again.

A decision on the plan is due next week.