Publication from Siân Berry: Letter to Mayor about call-in of Hondo Tower, Brixton

Dear Sadiq,

Re: Call-in of the ‘Hondo Tower’ application - GLA 2020/6774/S2, 20-24 Pope’s Road, London SW9 8JB

A number of very concerned constituents have contacted me and my fellow Assembly Member, Caroline Russell, regarding this application, and I strongly support them in their objections.

Residents in Brixton were rightly concerned to discover that a Stage 2 decision was made on 14 December to allow Lambeth Council to decide the application (local reference 20/01347/FUL). This approval was then set aside by the Head of Development Management at the GLA, as per the published letter of 25 January 2021, and is now being called in for your determination. [1]

I urge you to reject this application, based on the evidence from multiple objections. The site for this proposed tower is adjacent to two conservation areas – Brixton and Loughborough Park.

The first of these includes key streets and amenities for which Brixton is most famous: Electric Avenue, Atlantic Road, Brixton Market, the Covered Arcades and Coldharbour Lane. Many of these are exemplars of architectural and cultural heritage as laid out in the original document proposing this conservation area in 1980.[2] I refer you to this paragraph in this document, describing Atlantic Road:

“Apart from the buildings, the following features are very important in defining the distinctive character of this street.

• The curved alignment of the street as imposed by the railway.
• The busy retail hopping atmosphere.
• The elevated railway and railway bridges, which are the predominant environmental elements of this street.”

The letter from Historic England, dated 18 May 2020 and objecting to this proposal, outlines in great detail why this application should be rejected for heritage reasons, commenting:

“[Brixton] Conservation Area encompasses one of the best preserved and most characterful historic town centres in London.”[3]

If given permission, the 20-storey Hondo tower will cause significant harm to this conservation area and the wider town centre, changing Brixton irrevocably and destroying both its architectural and cultural history.

I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that I have been urging you for some years to ensure that both your planning policies and your planning decisions respect and preserve London’s multicultural and emerging heritage. The value of this is often rooted in the networks and ecosystems of business and community life in an area, rather than just in the kind of architectural value that ordinary heritage and conservation listings record.[4]

I trust you will consider all these issues and make the correct decision on this matter.

In addition, can I press you to provide a response to my written question submitted to you for Mayor’s Question Time on 21 January 2021, to which I have still not received a reply.[5] This asked about wider issues of keeping the GLA planning database up to date, and I note that now on the updated website the earlier Stage 1 and Stage 2 reports on this application are no longer available, which is another issue that I would like to see rectified as soon as possible:

"There was huge disappointment at your planning decision reference 2020/6774 regarding the Hondo tower in Lambeth, and enormous confusion about how it was made, with the GLA not providing timely information about the decision via local planning officers to local campaigners, leading them to be told they still had time to influence your decision when it had already been made. I have experienced this problem before with information about the planning process not being published on the GLA website in a timely fashion. What are you doing to improve the efficiency and transparency of these processes?"

I look forward to hearing back from you soon.

Yours sincerely,

Sian Berry

Green Party Member of the London Assembly