FORTHCOMING EVENTS

All members and friends are invited to the Society’s 2013 Annual General Meeting in St Mary’s Church hall, Church Street. As some members prefer not to go out in the evening, we are trying a Sunday afternoon for a change, on 16 June at 2.30 pm. Town Society member Peter Jackson has been writing an article on the history of Staines Town Hall, and the current threats to its future, and he has agreed to give an illustrated talk on this after the formal business.

Come to tea in the garden at Hazelwood House, 38 Richmond Road, on Sunday 14 July from 3 till 5. All members and friends are welcome, particularly if bringing donations of cakes.

SOMETIMES YOU WIN . . .

The scheme for houses and flats at the Memorex site, 96-104 Church Street, was approved by the SBC Planning Committee in April. The blocks of flats are still at the back of the site, but the three top floor flats have been removed, and the boundary wall retained to 5m high, to minimise overlooking of Island Close. While welcoming the change from industry to housing in principle, STS objected to the very poor design of the units in the rear of the site, the lack of detail on materials to be used, and the lack of open space, including a play area for children. All these are contrary to the policies of the Spelthorne Local Plan. The whole site is in the Conservation area, not just the part nearest Church Street, and Conservation Area standards apply.

To our gratified surprise, our objections were answered in a last-minute amendment to the plans. The houses and flats at the rear of the site are now in the same style as the front ones, and details of materials must be approved by the planners. Instead of providing a play area on the site, the developers will contribute £30K to improving the fountain area in the nearby Lammas Park – a reasonable compromise. The railings round the new houses must fit in with the listed railings in front of the existing building.

Development of the site will probably not start immediately as the leases on the industrial buildings have some time to run.

AND SOMETIMES YOU DON’T

After the gutting of the Courage building, the BUPA building by the railway bridge in Thames Street now faces updating. An application has been made to add another storey, change the pale cladding to brick and glass, and expand all those octagonal corners out into squares, so that the building will no longer seem to nestle into its corner site. It will become more obtrusive and more ordinary, losing its distinctive shape. Nothing in this breaches the Local Plan, so planning permission will be granted. There may be a small planning gain, as the neglected area round the listed coal tax obelisk, almost under the railway bridge, will be landscaped.

OTHER NEWS

The Charlton Lane ‘ecopark’ incinerator plans have stalled when the technology was declared unworkable (as various opponents had said all along). Subsidiary applications for e.g. acoustic fencing, soil surveys, HGV routeing strategies, and bird hazard management plans are still being determined by Surrey CC. Presumably they want to have all the pieces of the jigsaw in place ready, in the hope that one day the technical problems can be solved. So do not imagine that the incinerator project is buried: it may rise from the dead.

The trials of mixed-mode operation at Heathrow, suspending the rules of runway alternation, were stopped early, and Heathrow management say they will not be pursuing this further. No significant economic advantage was found to compensate for the large increase in noise disturbance.

Various rumours of third and fourth runways, and of reviving Airtrack, are floating about, but so far these seem to reflect political manoeuvring rather than solid plans. At the anti-third runway protest rally in April the MPs speaking divided into a small group led by Boris Johnson who are still talking about expanding air capacity, being bigger than Schiphol etc, but putting the airport in the Thames estuary instead of expanding Heathrow; and a larger group who oppose any expansion of aviation because of the environmental and economic damage. However they were united in opposing a third runway at Heathrow. Our MP was not among the speakers.

Civic Voice, the national organisation of civic societies, supported the campaign against the extension of Permitted Development Rights to allow people to build 8m long extensions without requiring planning permission, and with no regard to their neighbours. MP Zac Goldsmith proposed an amendment to the Growth and Infrastructure Bill to allow local councils to opt out of this provision, but the amendment was defeated, as most Conservative MPs, including ours, voted against it. However the Government is now considering an amendment giving the immediate neighbours the right to object. If they do, the local authority then decides the application in the normal way.

The other extension to Permitted Development rights is to allow conversion of space over shops into flats. Schemes like this come up regularly, as property values for housing now significantly exceed those for commerce or retail. The latest is a proposal for eight 1-bed flats in the space above 50-54 High Street. This is going through the normal planning process and so the flats will be of reasonable standard. Future schemes may be less satisfactory.