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Southwark Council resolves to refuse planning permission for Gagarin Tower


Southwark Council's planning committee has resolved to refuse planning permission for the proposed 'Gagarin' tower on Southwark Street. Developer, Southwark Square Ltd plans to appeal the Council's refusal of the scheme.

The proposed development is to demolish the existing building and replace it with a seven-storey building and a 30-storey rocket-shaped tower.  The rocket-like design is inspired by the engineering behind Yuri Gagarin’s first space flight in 1961.

The new buildings are proposed to contain a public theatre, rehearsal space, art and museum space, offices, restaurants, bars and residential flats.

A pre-application was submitted in 2010-2011 for a similar scheme and the planning officers advised that "this form of development would not be acceptable." Since this pre-application, the developers have not addressed the concerns raised by the Council.

According to the committee report, the planning committee refused the scheme for a number of reasons. "The application fails to comply with a large number of policies at both local and regional (London Plan) level, in relation to height, design, heritage, servicing, highways, affordable housing and energy."

The rocket-shaped tower is "completely alien to the character and identity of Southwark, and indeed London as a whole... Although strong architectural concepts are encouraged, this requires sensitivity and skilled manipulation to result in the high architectural standards expected. This has not been employed here, where the inappropriate design concept has been allowed to dominate the proposals to a harmful degree." The officers also argued that the development would fail to preserve or enhance the conservation area.

The development also makes no provision for affordable housing. The scheme contains 2,621 square metres of residential space but only nine flats have been proposed.  The Council welcomes the inclusion of new homes within the development but concludes that with only nine homes this is an "inefficient use of land".

Mark Williams, cabinet member for regeneration and new homes, said: "The committee agreed with planning officers that this proposal offered nothing to enhance or support the local area, failed to offer any real benefits for local people and that its design was completely out of keeping for the surrounding streets and buildings. We have a duty to maintain high standards of development in our borough and this application failed to meet many of our policies to do that."

Planning expert Victoria Lindsay of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said: "The mayor of London has already confirmed that he will not be using his call-in powers to overturn Southwark Council's refusal here. This is clearly a contentious scheme at local level with officers and members in agreement regarding refusal".

"The developer is now considering whether to appeal the Council's decision or re-look at the design of the scheme in order to address the Council's reasons for refusal. There will be some way to go before the developer achieves his objective of 'jazzing up' this area of London", Lindsay said.

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