Cities are not museums, they're supposed to evolve and grow with the times. This attachment to maintaining heritage will cost us massively, ffs

by sabdotzed

36 comments

  2. I wouldn’t be as salty if remote working was more common or London wasn’t as centralised for many high skilled jobs.

  3. Great, let the housing crisis continue!

    And the culture crisis – these are the same councils refusing late night licences to entertainment venues which has cost London’s nightlife dearly.

  6. I live nowhere near this, thankfully but, what a monstrosity that thing is!

  8. It’s ZONE 1 for fucks sake. Like yeah there is legitimate heritage stuff to protect but if there’s any part of London that should be built higher, it’s there.

  9. A curved glass building would look out of place *checks notes* across the road from another curved glass building?

  10. Too tall, too many ugly eye sores but given the necessity of housing, personal feelings be dammed and just let it go through

  12. People trying to pretend this will help solve a housing crisis are nuts. People who can afford a luxury flat have a lot to choose from already;

    They you have to think about the light and environment.

    We need more houses in London. We don’t need this.

  13. Heritage?!?! What heritage? The Battersea council towers?
    Some nasty early 80’s brick residential block?

    As if the Albion isn’t literally next door and all the old and new tower just on the other side of the river.

  14. In what other area of life would we let people pull up the ladder like this so consistently? It’s like having free Uni and then once you’ve received it voting so that the next gen..oh. It’s like having council houses sold off cheaply to yourselves and then voting so that the next gen..oh. It’s like having big DB pensions and then..you know what, never mind.

  15. Manchester is gonna house more people than London in 20 years atp..

  16. Councillors by their design support Nimbyism. We need another system

  17. For once I’m with the Nimbys, would have been out of place and sets a precedent for a tonne of skyscrapers. And no, more high rises in the city are not solving the housing crisis as shown by… the housing crisis, usually half empty as well.

  18. Is it really Nimby to block luxury flats cause they don’t have enough affordable housing in them?

  19. Isn’t the huge tower by Blackfriars still relatively empty? Do we actually need another one *right now?*

  21. Isn’t this (type of objection) what Starmer said he would abolish? What’s the govt doing about it?

  22. This is nothing more than a developer chancing their hand by over planning what would can be built.

    The housing issues in London will not be solved by a few more instances of over sized, bland towers, with little or no architectural merit. 
    The issue lies more in the vast, vast swathes of greater London covered by road after road of Victorian and Edwardian terraces and semis. Most of which are converted into flats which don’t really work that well.

    Until it becomes feasible to knock down acres at a time to build something fit for purpose in it’s place we will continue to see straw man arguements every time a bad plan is rejected.

  23. Build big old tower block but block ownership by foreign nationals. Simples.

  24. As always it has nothing to do with either heritage or the landscape. Local homeowners want their value of their homes to rise and so don’t want any new housing on the market. That’s it.

  25. “The Glassmill development, backed by developer Rockwell, includes 110 homes, of which half will be for social rent, but has been recommended for refusal by planning officers due to its “excessive height and scale”.” [1]

    Well fuck. Okay, it is out of scale, but housing is housing. If we don’t build up, where the fuck will we build?

    [1] [The battle for Battersea: decision looms for controversial riverfront high-rise | The Standard](https://www.standard.co.uk/homesandproperty/property-news/one-battersea-bridge-planning-battle-mick-jagger-b1223800.html)

  26. Honest question and open to discussion – why are people disgruntled when these sorts of structures are blocked? Sure there will be a fair few homes in them, but they’d be stupidly expensive an only a certain kind of person would be able to purchase or rent them. They’re not affordable – are we being honest with ourselves when we think this will help drive down prices? Prices won’t drop if the supply isn’t meant for the people who actually need it.

  27. I see everyone mad about this but my questions to you would be:

    Who is actually going to be buying these flats?

    Will Londoners be able to even afford them?

    Why should this development in it’s current form be allowed?

  28. Yeah, it’s ugly, and probably no affordable flats, just for the rich people to push London becoming a enclave for the wealthy.

  31. We should create a new nimby tax. Every time a project is rejected in your area, x% of your property value is added to the tax you pay when it trades hands.

  33. It is too tall though unfortunately, if you look at the Wandsworth local plan tall buildings policy, it’s significantly taller than the appropriate height recommendation for the area (which doesn’t go above 20 storeys in anywhere in the borough if I’m not misremembering), and there might be some sight lines it disrupts which have to be taken into account, so while there is discretion in planning, the officers are constrained by these local and regional (London Plan) policies and likely didn’t pull this refusal out of their arse.

    Worth mentioning that the London Plan is up for renewal and coming up for consultation very soon (early next year), and local plans are also consulted on, it is worth keeping an eye on these and getting involved when there is a chance, so it’s not only people with too much time on their hands and too provincial tastes get heard.

  34. Nah, as much as nimbys suck, developers also suck and this was rightly rejected.

  35. Can’t we build something beautiful? Rather than identikit expensive glass nightmares

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