Save the Orchard Centre

H.N.A

H.N.A. News

Holmewood Neighbourhood Association

Planning Application to partly demolish and develop the Orchard Centre creating 15 dwellings.

URGENT! Please help us object by Fri 14 Feb!

Some of you may have received notice of a application for planning permission to demolish some buildings on the Orchard Centre site (on the corner of Cotherstone Road and Christchurch Road). Brief details are posted on the noticeboard in the Gardens.

It was opened in 1926 as an Open Air School for Delicate Children who were taught in the gardens and chalet class rooms, windowless until the 1950s. Latterly it was an Education Support Unit for children excluded from normal schools for which its secluded, tranquil site was ideal. It closed in 1998 not for lack of need but because Lambeth withdrew its funding. For the last 4 years it has lain empty and deteriorating, earning nothing, benefiting no-one and costing the ratepayers in excess of £80,000 per year in security. Now Lambeth wants to sell it to developers again.

The HNA campaigned in 1999 against plans to sell of this wonderful site (another jewel in Lambeth’s crown) and succeeded in getting the 5 chalet classrooms Grade II listed. We have long campaigned that this lovely, unique, historic site should be used for community and/or education use. We proposed it in 1999 as the site for Lambeth’s Healthy Living Centre for which government and lottery funding was available but the plans for this never reached fruition. Lambeth have said their preferred use for the site is for educational or community use.

The developers want to buy this site and create 15 dwellings, 4 bedroom houses and smaller flats, on the site. They will wall in the chalet classrooms, renovate them and make them available for ‘reuse’. They have managed to get Lambeth to agree to a possible change of use from educational to business/office use.

If this development goes ahead I am sure that community access will be impossible. The developers refer to the site as a ‘commercial site’ and talk of ‘ease of marketing’. It will undoubtedly become an upmarket architects office or something similar. Education or community use will never be able to afford the commercial rents that will be charged.

From a Heritage point of view, the buildings were listed because they were a landmark in the development of school architecture. Many of these lessons have been forgotten as can be seen by looking at the more recent buildings on the site itself. But a large part of the significance of these buildings is in their setting. ie the whole site. Hiving off a large part of it and walling in the chalet class-rooms removes their vital context. It also makes them no longer viable as education buildings as they will no longer have the necessary infrastructure such as offices, adequate toilets, a hard play area, a kitchen and dining area..

There are many local people who are interested in developing projects within the site that would keep it open to the community. These include ‘Sure Start’ for 0-4 year olds; the Conscious Living Foundation, created specifically to develop a demonstration site for eco-friendly living, local people wishing to develop a programme of ante-natal support and education such as breast feeding counselling, mother and baby yoga, hypnotherapy… There is room for any amount of mother and toddler groups, support groups, therapy centres, in this wonderful site which is secure, and a therapy in itself.

Implications of the plan are:

1. ruining the historic Orchard Centre site and effectively removing it forever from education or community use

2. increased traffic in the area, especially in Cotherstone Rd which will have yet another housing estate opening onto it, nearly opposite Christchurch School.

We are studying the application for more detailed objections to the development itself.

Please write to Lambeth Planning objecting in the strongest possible terms to the selling off of this site and specifically to the housing development.
It would be sufficient to say that you support the HNA letter of objection which contains all the above points.

Please quote DC/0203354FUL/FDW in all correspondence. ALL RESPONSES TO THIS PLANNING APPLICATION NEED TO BE RECEIVED AT:

Lambeth Town Planning

First Floor

Acre House

10 Acre Lane

SW2 5LL

by Friday 14^th February.

You can deliver them to 44 Holmewood Rd and I will courier them down personally that day
or email gcooper@lambeth.gov.uk (please include your address)

If you would like assistance please phone the acting Planning Case Officer on 020 7926 1257. The proposal and plans are viewable at Lambeth Planning at 10 Acre Lane or at West Norwood Library.

If you have any queries or know other people who would be interested in being part of a partnership to develop the site for community use please get in touch with Duncan Law on 020 8678 6617 or __dl@duncanlaw.co.uk (Remove underscores). Also please pass this on to anyone you know who could write in to object to this planning application.

HNA has written to English Heritage asking them to list the whole garden site. They have replied that they are seriously considering doing so.

OTHER NEWS in brief:

THE HOME ZONE is happening. Final go-ahead should be given in March. There will be a Lambeth Newsletter and a meeting as soon as there is any progress to report. Work hoped to start in June.

THE TRAMSHED on Brixton Hill. After years of planning wrangling Ujima Housing Association finally sold the building to Transport for London for use as storage for some of the 300 extra buses that will come into service to coincide with the Congestion Charge. Extra buses on the 159 and 133 routes. We have long campaigned for something that provided local employment rather than just squeezing in more housing and that retained the tramshed as a tramshed. The Cross River Fixed Rail Link (tram) will end at Brixton Police Station. Then they can link it up with the Croydon tram.

THE PLAY EQUIPMENT has been fenced off as being unsafe. Lambeth plan to replace it in the new financial year, sometime after April. We will keep tabs on this.

PS If you have an email address please send it to me at __dl@duncanlaw.co.uk (Remove underscores) and I will try and keep you up to date with news until the next newsletter.