Objection to Planning application number 2025/4861/P
Introduction
Inkerman Area Residents Association covers a part of Kentish Town which will be most affected by the planned developments on Regis Road. We cover Holmes Road and the area to the south of it. Holmes Road is the southern boundary of the proposed development site.
We are recognised by councillors over the years as genuinely democratic, consulting members via a very active WhatsApp Group, a wider email group and a very well attended AGM.
There are a large number of our members in and near Holmes Road who will be directly affected by these plans, as well as virtually everyone in the Inkerman Area who will be affected and overlooked by the development if it proceeds in its planned form.
The construction phase, particularly when it is looked at alongside the redevelopment of the West Kentish Town Estate, Murphy’s Yard, the Raglan Estate and other major works will affect everyone in the neighbourhood to a greater or lesser extent for a period of several years. On balance it is felt that the benefit of any scheme needs to outweigh these considerable costs to the community.
Looking for the benefits of the scheme, there is widespread agreement that Regis Road represents a major potential opportunity and there is support from many people for some aspects of the proposal as well as major reservations.
In order to gather a fuller picture of local opinion we created a survey outlining the proposal and asking questions on several different aspects.
The responses to that survey inform this response to Camden.
The link to the questionnaire was sent out through IARA’s WhatsApp group, as well as WhatsApp groups for individual streets and blocks, by email and in leaflet form delivered to over 600 households, including to many blocks that have not previously been fully covered, particularly those on Holmes Road. Some of the residents there seemed previously unaware of the plans.
Having checked that all the responses are from members living in the area of about ten streets and within the deadline, we give below the results, based on 147 responses checked to be from legitimate local members
Summary conclusions
It is clear from the responses to the survey that most IARA residents who replied wish to reject the application in its present form, while welcoming some development on Regis Road, and the provision of affordable/social housing.
- The application and consultation process in itself prohibits a proper evaluation, regardless of the detail.
- The scale and height of buildings is unacceptable.
- 80% of members would not support relocating the Recycling Centre to Holmes Road
- An even higher percentage find placing flats above the Recycling Centre unacceptable, on the grounds of health and safety.
- While an overwhelming majority of members welcome new housing, this should be of a scale in line with local plans and policies, and should be geared towards affordable and family housing.
- Only a small minority of members consider that the environmental losses are acceptable.
The chart below summarises the responses.
Please read the labels carefully. For example, in the first bar diagram, green does not mean approval of the application – it means agree with the proposal to reject it because of deficiencies in the process. Relocation of the recycling centre is mainly red for reject.
Please read the details of the data below the chart.
Detailed objections
The Consultation Process
The overwhelming majority of the respondents to our survey feel the process for consultation is invalid. Only 12% disagree with that view.
This is for the following reasons:
- People feel that there was an initial attempt to rush through the application which involved hundreds of lengthy and complex documents during the holiday period shortly before Christmas with the outcome which many people felt was deliberate that it made it impossible to respond properly and seemed designed to minimise negative comments.
- Since then, details have been added as a continuous flow of new information, so that there has been no single comprehensive application that can be reviewed in an appropriate timescale.
- Throughout the presentations about the Regis Road site the promise has been for a masterplan. There is now no masterplan, and indeed the original development partner, Joseph Homes, has raised objections to the CFQ application. [See below reference to the Design Review Panel report]
- The application as it stands contravenes the Kentish Town Neighbourhood Plan and violates several key policies within the London Plan and Camden Local Plan.
The Recycling Centre
Over 80% of residents do not agree that the centre should be moved from its existing site to Holmes Road.
There is also deep concern about building flats above it. There is almost no precedent for this, and it raises some major issues. There is concern that this will be inappropriate for tenants and positively dangerous given the risk of fires in the recycling centre emanating from lithium batteries. A recent fire, for example, in the enclosed Islington recycling centre points to this danger.
The Film Quarter
The Association and members are not opposed in principle to creating the Camden Film Quarter, in fact only 25% of residents would not support the idea. However, in its present iteration fewer than 16% of residents find the plans acceptable.
The present plan, for a vast building equivalent to a 24 storey block of flats, but with a far larger footprint, is quite unprecedented, and completely out of step with anything else in Kentish Town. It would dominate and oppress the whole area, being very visible from pretty much every quarter of the Inkerman Area, including the Inkerman Conservation area.
There are objections principally to the scale of the building in an area where apart from the occasional exception (eg Monmouth House), developments have been limited to six stories. Monmouth House has thirteen storeys.
Of note is that the Kentish Town Policy Framework says that buildings should be no more than eight storeys high. Although there is provision to vary this for residential accommodation, this structure is three times the size of that policy.
Were the scale of the studio building to be considerably reduced, fewer than 8% of residents would still object.
Some of the studios, a car park and a museum are planned to be underground meaning a very extensive basement excavation of 36 metres, the equivalent of 10 stories, deeper than anything in the existing area: for reference, the tube station is about 21 metres below ground level.
Housing
While an overwhelming majority of members welcome new housing, 70% do not want to see housing blocks higher than 13 storeys. Of these, nearly 50% do not want blocks exceeding 8 storeys, and on the Inkerman Gardens site over 20% want housing limited to 3 storeys. Fewer than 10% find 24 storeys acceptable. See chart below.
80% agree that there should be a binding commitment by any developer to provide 50% genuinely affordable housing.
Environment
Residents are not satisfied that the current “green ribbons” or “pocket parks” compensate for the loss of existing biodiversity and the “open sky” feel of the current estate.
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Since the survey discussions continue in the Inkerman Area and more information has become available, including the report of The Design Review Panel [also on this website Camden Design Review Panel Recommendations] which has surprisingly not been fully referred to in the information supplied by Camden or Yoo Capital. .
The Design Review Panel stated:
“More thought is needed to develop a robust planning framework to ensure a cohesive development which achieves the ambition for good placemaking and high-quality design. This will require a formal strategy to be agreed that links the two schemes in planning terms, to ensure their proposals come together successfully to create a vibrant creative quarter.”
“(As) the illustrative views do not show the cumulative impact of development by land in different ownerships, there is a risk these are misleading”
“There is a risk that separate planning applications for each land parcel will not achieve the placemaking vision described. More thought is needed to resolve the planning framework to ensure a cohesive development, which achieves high-quality design.”
Other understanding has grown as we have to some degree examined the voluminous documentation and realised for example the extreme depth of the basement planned, so close to the school and in an area of London clay with a river running through it.