• MORE than £4billion has been invested in intensive redevelopment of Nova and other sites in the vicinity of Victoria Station over the past decade.

This intensive development is already spreading along Victoria Street as the 20-storey 8-10 Broadway, which was permitted by Westminster City Council (WCC) in the face of very strong opposition by local residents and organisations, rises east of Christchurch Gardens.

City Plan 2040, which WCC is preparing, incorporates a Victoria Opportunity Area (VOA) that is identified in GLA’s London Plan as “the station, the airspace above its tracks and approaches, and nearby sites having significant potential for mixed-use intensification”.

However WCC proposes an extended VOA well beyond the area adopted in the London Plan, in particular north of Buckingham Palace Road into south Belgravia and eastwards along both sides of Victoria Street as far as Storey’s Gate and the World Heritage Site of Westminster Abbey and the Palace of Westminster.

Since the beginning of the year local amenity societies and resident groups have questioned why WCC wishes to extend the VOA boundary.

In the absence of any explanation a local petition was launched toward the end of July requesting that WCC should “not extend the Victoria Opportunity Area beyond the boundary adopted in the London Plan”.

Support for the petition has been such that the council is obliged to provide a formal response which will be considered in the cabinet meeting on October 21.

The report to the cabinet recommends that the three most recent extensions of the VOA should not be adopted as they “have not been identified as key development sites which could make a major contribution to the objectives of the policy”.

This is welcome. However it is clear that all the other extended areas should also be omitted from the VOA as no key development sites have been identified for any of them.

Accordingly WCC should implement the requirement of the petition in full and not extend the boundary of the VOA beyond that adopted in the London Plan.

The effect of this will be to discourage the spread of applications for yet more unacceptable intensive developments on inappropriate sites.

Instead WCC should give serious attention to restoring and upgrading the pedestrian environment of Victoria Street and other areas which already have been, and continue to be, intensively developed.

SIGNATORIES
PETER ROBERTS Cathedral Area Residents Group, MARY REGNIER-LEIGH Belgravia Society, SUE BALL The Thorney Island Society, GRAEME COTTAM Queen Anne’s Gate Residents Association, KERRY MILLS PARKER Buckingham Gate Association, ALISON YEO Ashley Gardens Residents Association, VISHAKHA PAREKH Morpeth Mansions, LESLIE MACLEOD-MILLER 1-3 Carlisle Place Ltd, MARGO HALCROW Cardinal Mansions, JONATHAN MOSS Ashley Court, JULIA BURTON Carlisle Mansions West, JOHN CORBETT Carlisle Mansions East, SIU FUN HUI 205 Ashley Gardens, CAROLINE GRIFFITH 1-3 Morpeth Terrace, STEPHEN SIMPSON Ashley Gardens Freeholds Ltd