Labour Councillors in Hyde Park and Little Venice Wards are very disappointed that the Mayor of London has ‘called in’ the proposal to build a 600+ room student development on the Travis Perkins site at Baltic Wharf after it was refused for the second time by Westminster Council’s Planning Committee in January 2025https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/sadiq-khan-travis-perkins-paddington-canal-westminster-council-student-accommodation-b1219037.html

Hyde Park and Little Venice Labour Cllrs will continue to fight these unacceptable proposals.

Our opposition is based on the following 10 points:

1. The original plans have been revised by creating a gap between two separate blocks. The height and scale of the two blocks, however, are similar to that proposed in the previous scheme and it is clear that the substantial concerns of residents have been ignored.
2. This is a constrained site which is not suited to a tall building, as is clear from the severe impacts on living conditions, highway safety and heritage assets.
3. Westminster City Council’s Building Height Study 2019 identifies the Travis Perkins site as a Key Development Site but does not identify it as an Area for Intensification or as an area with Potential for a Tall Building. Neither does the Westminster City Plan of 2019 identify the site as being appropriate for a tall building.
4. The proposed development will lead to the creation of an overwhelming and overbearing building that is at odds with the local context in terms of scale, height and massing.
5. Even with the introduction of a gap between two separate blocks, the scale, height and mass will be such that the development will lead to devastating impacts on the amenities of residents within 7- 11 and 21-27 Sheldon Square in terms of loss of outlook, oppressive sense of enclosure and loss of daylight and sunlight, contrary to City Plan Policies 7, 38 and 41.
6. There will be severe losses in daylight, particularly as a high proportion of the windows serve single aspect units which rely solely on these windows for light and outlook.
7. In March 2022 the Planning Committee gave a clear indication that the building then proposed was much too high. And yet the taller of the two towers now proposed, which would stand directly opposite 21-27 Sheldon Square, is, as near as makes no difference, the same height as its already rejected predecessor.
8. The proposed servicing and access arrangements for Travis Perkins and the proposed Student accommodation remains unacceptable. Both uses have the potential to generate significant movements and separate servicing areas to accommodate both should be provided.
9. The benefits of Travis Perkins job retention and a Canalside walk can be achieved through a much smaller scheme.
10. The proposals do not present sufficient or meaningful public or local community benefits that would outweigh the extremely harmful impacts of this development and planning permission should therefore be refused. There is cross party agreement between the 4 Labour and 2 Conservative local ward councillors that this application should be refused.

At a time of pressures on the local housing market, what gets built on this site should assist with local housing delivery (including as part of a mixed use scheme), particularly by ensuring that the 35% of the scheme that is required by policy to be delivered as ‘affordable’ is provided as affordable housing that can be accessed by local people on the waiting list or as key workers (rather than reduced rate student accommodation that will not be used by local students who are likely to live at home whilst studying).