FORTHCOMING EVENTS
The Society’s summer tea party on will be held on Sunday 23 June from 3 – 5 pm in the pleasant riverside garden of St Peter’s Church. All members and friends are welcome, as are donations of cake. The event is free to members; non-member price £5 includes family membership for the year. We will be setting up tables, gazebo etc. from 2pm and any offers of help will be much appreciated.
The AGM will be combined with the committee meeting at 7.30 pm on Monday 10 June at 4 The Hythe, over Staines Bridge, and all members are welcome, as they are at any committee meeting.
SURVIVAL OF HIGH STREETS AND TOWN CENTRES
We recently attended a meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Civic Societies held to predict the future of town centres as the number of shops continues to decline. Civic Voice encourages efforts to revitalise towns and attract more retailers, but this may just drain trade away from neighbouring towns, besides increasing travel. One solution is for town centres to house more buildings used by the public, such as civic offices, libraries, health centres, courts, theatres, nurseries, care homes, churches and schools. This would be convenient, making access easier and reducing travel, but may be very difficult to achieve in practice. It might have happened here if the recently-announced closure of Debenhams had been three years ago when Spelthorne BC was actively searching for town centre premises. But SBC has now refurbished the existing Council Offices at Knowle Green and will not be moving. We hope that other retailers will not follow Waitrose and Debenhams in leaving Staines.
The Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) is a tax paid to local authorities by developers of new housing, typically about £40 per square metre of additional residential floor space, and is intended to help provide the extra facilities like schools and health centres required by residents of the new housing. Unfortunately it does not apply to office conversions, but the CIL funding from all the new-build flats could contribute to new community buildings in the High Street.
But in practice most of the space vacated as shops vanish is going to become housing. For many years unused space above shops has remained vacant because of the problems of providing separate access, but the rising profitability of conversion to flats has miraculously solved the access problems, leading to a steady flow of conversions of upper floors. As the number of shops decreases we predict conversion also of ground floors and whole buildings. Town centre living is convenient for many, reduces traffic and urban sprawl, and may save Green Belt sites from development. The problem is the quality of the housing. Office conversions, as Permitted Development, are exempt from the national minimum space standards and from normal planning requirements for amenity space, parking, energy efficiency, adverse impact on townscape, etc, so councils have little power to prevent the proliferation of unpleasant shoebox flats. Civic Voice and the Town and Country Planning Association have called upon the Government to revoke this Permitted Development right and ensure that office conversions have to go through the normal planning process and meet the same standards as new-build housing.
PLANNING NEWS
Berkeley Homes have appealed against Spelthorne BC’s decision to refuse planning permission for their scheme of 474 flats at 17-51 London Road, the old British Gas site. They have also submitted a modified application 19/00290/FUL, reducing the tallest block by two floors, reducing the number of flats to 467, increasing parking and open space, and moving farther away from Ash House. This answers most of the reasons for refusal of the previous scheme, and will probably be approved.
19/00239/FUL is an application to build 14 flats on the derelict riverside site behind the Town Hall, six in a 2 storey block coming about half way up the rear wall of the Town Hall, two flats in the old Fire Engine Shed, and six in a 4-storey block next to Colnebridge Close. It would be good to see the Fire Engine Shed restored, and the site brought back into use, but this scheme is too large and the design too starkly modern for this sensitive site in the Conservation Area.
Prospective office conversions include 18/01672/PDO, Heliting House, 8-16 London Road, next to the former police station, to 53 flats; 19/00102/PDO, 14 Thames Street, opposite Debenhams, to 40 flats; and 19/00526/PDO, Del Monte House, beyond the Crooked Billet, to 87 flats, many of them tiny ‘studios’ of 30 sq.m. The overlarge block of flats in Church Street, on the site of the Phoenix/2 Rivers, was agreed, but the proposal for the ex-servicemen’s club in Thames Street was withdrawn. In Church Street several upper floors are becoming flats, and ground floors are changing to takeaways.
We have objected to Runnymede BC about the felling of mature trees on the riverbank.
AVIATION
We attended the presentation by Heathrow Airport on their expansion plans and possible new flightpaths. A very pertinent question by Spelthorne BC chief executive focussed on the adverse impact of HAL’s plans for an extra 25,000 flights per year even before the third runway is built. The proposed ‘flight envelopes’, regions where flight paths will be located, show many planes will turn sharply and fly north or south directly over Spelthorne, so the noise and pollution impact will be much worse than at present. We have sent a formal objection.
If the third runway is built the impact will be much more severe. The judicial challenges to the Government’s decision to go ahead with the third runway have not succeeded, though there may be an appeal. However Parliament has just voted to reduce UK carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 or earlier, which is not compatible with expanding aviation. The local election results show that awareness of climate change is growing, with a big increase in Green Party votes, nationally and locally, and indeed Staines now has two Green councillors.
MEMBERSHIP
Your 2019 subscription of £3 per person or £5 per household is now due, please pay by sending a cheque made out to Staines Town Society to the treasurer, or ask us for a standing order form, or pay at the summer tea party. Many thanks to those who have already paid.
If you would be happy to be contacted by email in future, please let us know info@stainestownsociety.co.uk
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