Greenwich borough development plan: A look at what sites are missed

With consultation now underway on a key document laying out future development across Greenwich borough for the next decade and beyond there’s one key issue arising.

Why are so many suitable development sites absent?

The authority are drawing up a Local Plan which will determine building up until 2040. It includes a wide range of potential sites for development. Yet there’s some curious omissions given the need for housing in the borough and capital, with quite a few low-density brownfield sites not listed.

One such site that immediately springs to mind scanning the map within consultation documents is a retail park near Deptford Bridge DLR station. Featuring wasteful large sheds and extensive surface parking with a Costa drive-thru it’s hardly ideal for a growing city on a site near a Zone 2/3 DLR station seeing 12 trains per hour.

However it’s not one of the proposed sites marked for potential development.

By all means keep commercial space, shops and employment but do so below new housing as part of redevelopment.

The site is a legacy from decades past when London’s population was two million lower than today and housing costs far cheaper.

There’s other low-rise shops and retail across the borough not listed too in the draft plan. These include areas with excellent transport links nearby such as Lidl in Abbey Wood and Woolwich. Both are easily walkable to Elizabeth line stations.

It’s a perfect site to see redevelopment. A Lidl can be retained below new housing. I mean, if we can’t build new homes (or even plan for them) within mixed-use development near a recently opened £18 bn Elizabeth line station with 12 trains per hour which also has eight Thameslink and Southeastern services every hour something is very wrong.

Lidl in Woolwich has even better links with the DLR nearby. It sits in the town centre with National Rail, Elizabeth line and numerous bus routes.

New builds have just been approved next door at Macbean Street though this spot isn’t included as a potential site.

Car parks

Another site in Woolwich town centre is a large car park on Powis Street. It appears to be partly owned by Greenwich Council themselves with some owned or leased to Travelodge.

New housing on all/part of the car park could also assist with footfall for nearby shops and help improve this end of town’s retail viability.

If parking must be retained, new housing could be built above stipulating no resident owns a car save for blue badge spaces. Given the excellent transport links they’ll still be many willing to live on such a site.

I would for one. Shops, amenities, restaurants, excellent transport all right there.

Warehouses

Moving east and the plan doesn’t proposed intensifying land usage including residential metres from Woolwich Elizabeth line station where warehouses and car parks reign supreme.

This makes little sense given the need for housing and proximity to transport. Much of the “industrial use” here is anything but with uses such as car storage and gyms. Very little that couldn’t be relocated or included within mixed-use development.

In parts of London we’ve already seen mixed-use residential and light industrial plans emerge. Heavy industry which isn’t suitable for mixed-use residential can be relocated to acres of vacant land that remains in Thamesmead 25 years after the White Hart Triangle site was designated as suitable for such uses.

Doing so presents a win-win. New homes near excellent transport links, opening up areas such as along Plumstead Road while finally making use of Thamesmead’s industrial land that remains vacant. Many millions were spent improving access to the Thamesmead site.

Yet there’s no attempt to do this within the draft Local Plan. Wasteful uses of land will remain with organisations such as Greenwich Leisure Limited occupying a building sat amongst extensive tarmac a short distance from the Elizabeth line. By all means keep the building, but the rest?

Smarter use is required. It’s wasting brownfield land.

What we’ll see as things stand is towers above the eastern end of Woolwich Elizabeth line station then a sudden change to an “industrial” area with low-rise warehouses for acres to the east.

New housing here could crucially also support a second entrance to Woolwich station.

Greenwich

In a major city where land is at a premium and housing need severe its maddening to see wastes of land, and we see further underutilisation further into the centre of town at Greenwich.

A large warehouse and nearby hotel are hardly using land in an efficient manner.

By all means let’s not lose industrial and hotel uses, but do so in a smarter way.

Again this is not included a site of potential change with the Local Plan. It’s a short bus ride to the Jubilee line.

This isn’t to say Greenwich have missed out on other areas suitable for redevelopment which makes the omissions all the more odd. For example retail sheds in Kidbrooke near the station are included.

They’ve listed the site as “Mixed residential and retail uses” with a potential 260 homes. Great. So why are so many other sites absent from Blackheath near the DLR to Woolwich and Abbey Wood near extensive transport links?

Anyway, enough complaining and time to respond to the consultation. Maybe you’d like to as well. If we want new housing, new life in town centres via more residents and footfall plus less building on greenery it’s time to better make use of brownfield land. There’s plenty of sites in the borough where it isn’t used particularly well, and so far the Local Plan isn’t attempting to rectify that.

 

 

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