| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Another one bites the dust | |
| Posted by: | Guy Lambert | |
| Date/Time: | 18/08/19 17:34:00 |
| Here's my two penn'orth - necessarily circumscribed as I'm on the planning committee and if I make my mind up before the meeting I will lose my right to vote. First, Sarah Trimmer: the council notified Historic England that the building was in peril and had it pencilled in to the 'Heritage at Risk' register. Planning refused umpteen planning applications to turn it into three, then two flats. Stop orders were served or threatened at various points, and I personally visited site and remonstrated with builders whom I had been told (wrongly) by posts on this site were acting outside planning permission. It has been rebuilt using almost entirely original bricks and in its original format as an undivided space. The roof is mainly composed of recovered tiles from the previous roof (however the roof had already been replaced in the 1990s). Having been in danger of collapsing it is now robustly rebuilt and should last for another couple of hundred years, and visually it is substantially as it was before it was rescued. I accept absolutely no criticism for this. Large parts of Brentford are in conservation areas with development severely restricted and often unpopular planning restrictions. At least two pubs (the Bricklayers Arms and the Pottery Arms) have been converted to residential: when I first moved here I was frustrated at not being able to get into what was obviously the Pottery Arms for a pint, so authentic does it look. The Beehive, Magpie and Brewery Tap (and others, I think, without checking) are protected by local listing. As to W&K, I would question whether Raymond has ever been to Liverpool, near to where I grew up and where my father had his business. Of course, a couple of wharves near the Pier Head have been preserved alongside the 'Three Graces' and some other listed buildings but the rest of the centre in and around the World Heritage site has been redeveloped and there's not much there that predates the 1980s. The excrescence known as 'Liverpool One' has completely changed the character of the city centre, for the worse in my opinion! Large chunks of the rest of Liverpool, including parts of the city centre, are semi-derelict like much of Brentford south of the High Street has been for decades. Much else has been flattened and replaced with modern blocks of varying distinction. Finally O' Riordans. I actually agree there is something to be said for the building - not that it is any great shakes in itself, but it has a certain charm - and I like that it breaks up the modernity of that stretch. However, the landowner is the landowner and as a planning authority we have to consider whatever is put forward as a potential development in accordance with planning law, like it or not. And planning law contains a 'presumption in favour of development' unless there is a compelling reason to reject for breach of the London or local plan or some other powerful reason. The planning committee is at liberty to refuse, of course, and we may well do so but we have to consider the law and what is likely to happen on any appeal, so we are reluctant to refuse on purely subjective or aesthetic grounds which generally seem to have little weight with Inspectors. Whether O'Riordans could be viable as a pub I don't know. I went to Rye on The Water twice today, with different people who wanted to see it, for a breakfast coffee and a pre-lunch drink and observed that, despite having what are the same access restrictions as the Brewery Tap, it was packed out both times. BY contrast the BT was closed at breakfast time and as far as I could see had very little trade at lunchtime. The bin store door was hanging open and had spillage that appeared to be months old on show - not all that appealing. O'Riordans also does not look appealing (was even less so when the river view in the side alley was blocked off by the O'Riordan's landlord erecting an unauthorised black hoarding across the road, which took me and LBH lawyers an age to get removed, and it would be legitimate to question whether the owner was working as hard as he might to establish a prosperous pub business. As I said at the top, if this comes to committee we will consider it in accordance with the local plan and planning law. Approval of the existing planning application is far from a done deal. |