Publication from Siân Berry: Letter to Mayor on Stag Brewery, Mortlake Stage 3 Public Hearing

Dear Sadiq,

Stage 3 Referral Stag Brewery, Mortlake, GLA/4172, 4172a & 4172b/01

We are writing to you following your response to the Emergency Motion passed by the Assembly at the 1 July 2021 Plenary, calling on you to delay the public hearing on the Stag Brewery development scheduled for 27 July.1 We appreciate the reasons you have set out for continuing to hold it on this date, but we believe the scheme that is being considered has serious flaws and ask you to refuse the application for the following reasons.

1. Transparency

The local community in Mortlake and wider Richmond borough residents have not been sufficiently consulted on the new scheme that has been drawn up between GLA planners and the developers. A four-week online consultation on the GLA website of a local planning authority approved scheme for 813 homes that has been enlarged to 1,250 homes is not sufficient or inclusive, nor is it compatible with the London Plan.2 Specifically, this contravenes Policy D4 Delivering Good Design, Part D, which says:

“Development proposals referable to the Mayor must have undergone at least one design review early on in their preparation before a planning application is made, or demonstrate that they have undergone a local borough process of design scrutiny, based on the principles set out in Part E if they:

1) include a residential component that exceeds 350 units per hectare; or

2) propose a building defined as a tall building by the borough (see Policy D9 Tall buildings), or that is more than 30m in height where there is no local definition of a tall building.”

2. Affordable housing

The low level of affordable housing in the original application – between 12-17 per cent – was one of the reasons that your Deputy Mayor for Planning & Regeneration gave for directing the Mayor to act as the local planning authority on this planning applications.3 Yet the revised scheme, offering 28 per cent affordable housing in terms of total unit numbers, falls well short of the London Plan’s strategic target for 50 per cent affordable housing across London and on industrial land.

3. Tall buildings

The London Plan Policy D9 allows boroughs to: “define what is considered a tall building for specific localities”, and the Richmond Local Plan defines them: “as 18 metres in height or higher (approximately six storeys or above).”4 In addition, the Stag Brewery Supplementary Planning Document states: “New buildings should be less than the height of the Former Maltings Building and development should consider views of this building to ensure this is not obscured or subsumed by new surrounding development.” Yet, the plan being considered on 27 July includes six blocks of eight, nine and ten storeys which overshadow this historical building, both obscuring and subsuming it.5

Therefore, based on the non-compliance of this application with your policies in the London Plan, Richmond Local Plan and Stag Brewery Supplementary Planning Document, we strongly urge you to reject this planning application.

Yours sincerely,

Sian Berry

Green Party Member of the London Assembly

Andrew Boff

Conservative Member of the London Assembly

[1] Supplementary Agenda, Urgent Motion 1 July 21 - /about-us/londonassembly/meetings/documents/b22230/Supplementary%20Agenda%20-%20Urgent%20Motion%20Thursday%2001-Jul-2021%2010.00%20London%20Assembly%20Plenary.pdf?T=9

[2] Former Stag Brewery Public Hearing, accessed 8/7/21, /programmes-strategies/planning/planning-applications-and-decisions/public-hearings/former-stag-brewery-public-hearing

[3] Stage 2 Statutory Referral Decision, accessed 8/7/21, /sites/default/files/4172_4172a_4172b_stag_brewery_stage_2_letter.pdf

[4] Richmond Local Plan, July 2018, accessed 8/7/21, https://www.richmond.gov.uk/media/15935/adopted_local_plan_interim.pdf

[5] Supplementary Planning Document Stag Brewery, Mortlake, SW14 Planning Brief, adopted July 2011, accessed 8/7/21, https://www.richmond.gov.uk/media/7667/stag_brewery_2010-2.pdf