Below are the grounds for objection included in a response to Hackney Planning to the application (Ref: 2013/2118) submitted for the School House, 146a Lea Bridge Road, E5). Since this was submitted, we've heard that the Clapton Arts Trust was unsuccessful in its heritage funding application. Our view remains that time should be allowed to secure a community-based use of the building. You can find further grounds for objecting on the school house Facebook page.
1. Insufficient detail in drawings and plans
The listed building application includes insufficient detail to fully
understand the current building condition or to assess the potential impact of
the proposals.
The drawings and plans are sketchy and do not accurately describe the
building. For example, and perhaps most startling, the front elevation shows a
rounded, not a pointed Gothic/ Tudor arch. There is a clear need for a full
measured survey to be prepared to a proper listed building application
standard.
The application should be refused, withdrawn or found invalid in order
to correct deficiencies in the drawings and plans.
2. Application boundary
The ‘red line’ application boundary excludes the eastern half of the
site and therefore covers only half the listed building curtilage. This also
omits the mature plane trees from the application, which have therefore not
been taken account of.
Granting consent will result in an inappropriate subdivision of the
planning unit into two, which will no longer accord with the listed building’s
curtilage, unnecessarily complicating planning and listed building control.
The application should be refused, withdrawn or found invalid in order
to correct these deficiencies in the application.
3. Balance of loss of fabric vs. conservation or reinstatement
Proposed plans are a broad-brush set of intentions backed up by general
statements of intent. There are no firm details of the extent of sacrifice vs.
restoration and preservation of the renaming fabric, or detailed method
statements on repairs and restoration. This is probably because parts of the
building are now unsafe to access or boarded up (see below).
This creates a ‘suck it and see’ approach; where planning and listed
building consent may be granted, but only afterwards (and only if and when the
scheme proceeds) will the extent of reinstatement of lost or decayed fabric be
determined.
A significant part of the decay is a result of neglect over many years
by the current building owners. It is not reasonable for the current state of
the building to become the baseline for what can be saved or restored and how
much degraded fabric sacrificed. This is contrary to the National Planning Policy
Framework, which states that no owner should be permitted to gain such
advantage.
Judging the appropriate balance should normally be considered in light
of a viability statement. No such statement is submitted; so that it is not at
all clear if even this harmful scheme, and this unwelcome proposed use, will be
implemented.
The application should be refused, withdrawn or found invalid in order
to correct these deficiencies in the application.
4. Change of use
Permission for change of use to residential should be refused for the
following reasons:
- Loss of the proposed social and community use. This change of use is
contrary to policy. Such space is precious and rare, in high demand (where it
is affordable), and unlikely to be re-provided elsewhere in the area. Lea
Bridge is an area deficient in social and community space and many local groups
and schools are actively seeking additional space.
- Failure to re-provide affordable workspace. The Paradise Park
permission was amended to reduce the amount of B1 affordable workspace in order
to permit the museum use. The use of the building should automatically revert
B1 affordable space, should the Trusts’ proposals fall by the wayside. Policy
seeks to protect employment uses and the Paradise Park development re-provided
relatively little space in the first place.
- Harm to the character of the building. The original use is most often
the best use and this is most closely reflected in the Trust’s proposals.
Squeezing two residential units into this small volume results in a diminution
in the character of the property – particularly the horizontal subdivision of
the main schoolroom.
This application for change of use should be judged against policy,
either on the basis of loss of social and community use and/ or loss of affordable
workspace. In either case, policy seeks to resist such loss, and the
application should therefore be refused.
5. Museum proposals and the Trust
The Trust and their proposed museum plan has been allowed insufficient
time to assemble their proposals and pursue Heritage Lottery Funding. Whilst
the 12-month period offered by the developer has expired, in hindsight this was
clearly too short and therefore unreasonable.
A further minimum period of at least 12 months should be offered to the
Trust, in effect re-setting the clock.
The developer clearly believes the current situation is a ‘tabula
rasa’, and an opportunity to bring forward fresh new proposals, unencumbered by
previous permissions and undertakings to the Trust and to the Planning
Authority.
If the developer chooses to follow this assertive route (and they in
turn may be frustrated at lack of progress on the part of others), they should
be asked to revert to the previous permission to provide affordable workspace
as part and parcel of the consented Paradise Park Scheme.
It should be remembered that the consented scheme (in a protected
employment area and a conservation area and the site of a historic dock)
contained many compromises in terms of heritage and land use issues that were
only accepted on balance and in the light of the other attributes of the
scheme, including proposals for either affordable workspace or a museum.
6. Repairs notice
The submitted structural survey is limited by the fact that access to
parts of the building is now unsafe. This is clear evidence that the state of
the building has deteriorated significantly and that this process may be
accelerating. It is clear also that a repairs notice should now be urgently
considered, in order to arrest the decay and allow safe access for an accurate
assessment of the building’s condition to be carried out. This should be a pre-requisite for
consideration of the current listed building consent application; so that the
repairs notice can be considered a positive step towards determining the best
scheme for the site, whichever scheme that proves to be.
7. Local Planning Authority handling of the application
It is deeply puzzling that the Local planning Authority (LPA) has
allowed this building to pass into this critical state of decay, and chosen to
avoid the repairs notice route, until this late stage. This raises questions
either of appropriate prioritization, capacity or competence on the part of the
LPA. The previous listed building consent was allowed to expire on 25thAugust
2012. The date of the principal deed of the legal agreement was signed 15thMarch
2007; and amended on, or about, March 2010; and the terms in that agreement
have been allowed to expire without further action by Hackney.
Correspondence on the Planning Register, dated 23 June 2009, from Giles
Underhill of Landgate to LBH Planning states: ‘We also suggest an amendment to
clause 4.3.2.1 as we have given our assurance to Councillor Rathbone that we
will give him 12 months to secure the necessary funding for the proposed ‘Museum
on the River’.
Is well meant, but misguided political interference staying the
Authority’s hand? English Heritage should take a very careful look at this
case. If the situation does not appear to be in order they should consider
recovering and determining the application themselves.
Whatever the reasons for the current situation, and in order to correct
the position, a repairs notice should be prepared and issued in draft form to
all parties concerned, without waiting for this application to be determined. As
noted above, basic repairs and bracing is needed urgently, if only to allow
safe access for a proper survey to be undertaken and accurate drawings and plan
prepared.
8. Harm to the listed building
The proposed mezzanine will result in harm to the listed building and
should not be permitted.
Introduction of a mezzanine floor across most of the school hall
represents a substantial, unjustified, and permanent loss of a principal
characteristic of the building that points most directly to its former use as a
school house/ mission room.
The mezzanine interferes with and blocks views of the characteristic
roof trusses.
The mezzanine triggers the need for roof lights on prominent roof
slopes visible in street and riverside views. Disruption of the external
appearance is unjustified in the same way conservation area policies often
oppose roof lights on front roof slopes
A more modest mezzanine would still interfere with main window to the
north and the chimney breast to the south and disrupt views of the roof trusses. It should be opposed in principle.
The detailing of the front window/ door is clumsy and even fails to
reflect the characteristic Gothic/ Tudor arched opening mentioned in the
listing details.
9. Heritage Appraisal
The applicant’s heritage appraisal is insufficiently rigorous and fails
to appreciate the architectural and historic significance of the school/mission
hall, which is attributed to the eminent Architect Arthur Ashpitel, Architect
of St Barnabus, Homerton (Listed Grade II), whose father constructed Paradise
Dock (Arthur Ashpital’s obituary is attached and clearly refers to his
involvement with the Schoolhouse at Lea Bridge).
The Schoolhouse itself, detached from a church, is extremely rare. Such
schoolhouses have an important place in Hackney’s social and economic history.
10 Deficiencies in the option appraisal in the Design and Access Statement
The applicant’s Design and Access Statement (DAS) fails to examine
alternatives, including the proposed museum. Given that the scheme proposes
harm to the building, and as a minimum, the DAS should consider alternatives to
decking over the hall and which is the most appropriate use for the hall. It
does not.
If this is the best possible scheme that is practical, viable and
deliverable (and in the end it may prove the best chance of saving the
building), then the applicant should demonstrate this by evaluating the other
options.
The application should be refused, withdrawn or found invalid because
the alternatives have not been properly appraised.
Refusal will allow a proper assessment of the potential futures for the
building to be carried out and give all parties the time to devise alternative
proposals that can be judged on their merits.
At least four alternatives should be examined:
1. The Trusts proposals for a community museum use, possibly with a
riverside extension.
2. A hybrid with a community museum use in the main hall (vested in the
Trust), and a cross funding development of the school masters house to the rear
for one or more residential units.
3. Reversion to affordable workspace fitted out to shell and core standard
for the entire building (arguably the established, lawful use because the
museum use did not properly commence).
4. The proposed two residential unit scheme.
In my view, the order in which the options are set out above is also
the order of priority the LPA should attach to the options.
11. Matters of detail not addressed by the application
There are a number or related, detailed matters that should be borne in
mind:-
Reinstatement of the boundary wall and railings and the Yorkstone
paving to the front should be secured (The Yorkstone was funded by Vision Homes
through S.106 monies but recently stolen, then temporarily replaced with a
macadam surface).
Immediate efforts should be made to secure fallen or perilously loose
stonework (octagonal chimney’s etc.). This should be stored safely inside the
building.
The building has been repeatedly left open and unsecured (both boundary
gates and doors into the building). Flammable materials have been deposited
both outside the doors and inside the building. Proper management and
safeguarding should be insisted upon – a further reason to follow the repairs
notice route.
A hoarding has lined the site for many years, bearing advertising and
flags for the development, to the advantage of the developer, and maintained
long after works on the main scheme have been completed. The hoarding should be
replaced or made good ( or possibly replaced with a fence to make the building
visible, the site secure, and to increase surveillance), including for those
parts of the site mysteriously excluded from the application boundary.
