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SKS Around Station Development: A Review and Update on the Inquiry
News |
Fri - April 14, 2023
7:23
Developer's model of planned SKS scheme
In review: the Joint Venture (JV) formed by Native Land/TfL, the Appellant, asked for this inquiry to overturn RBKC’s planning committee refusal. Zoe Hill, an experienced Planning Inspector recalled from recent retirement, set eleven days for this inquiry, between 18 January and 3 February 2023. Inquiries normally take on average two or three days.
In order to take an active role in the inquiry, ONA became a Rule 6 party in its own right. Subsequently, we merged with Pelham Street Resident Association and Pelham Resident Association into one Rule 6 group, “The Associations”, and share the costs. There are three more Rule 6 parties-- Kensington Society, Thurloe Owners and Leaseholders Association and Brompton Association. However, ONA’s Rule 6 group is the only one that is active across all aspects of the inquiry—cross-examining the four witnesses of the appellant, bringing its own external, independent expert witnesses (Robert Ward-Booth for heritage and Paul Valluet for architecture) as well as participating in the drafting discussions of the Section 106 Agreement. (These are legal agreements between Local Authorities and developers linked to planning permissions and are also known as planning obligations.)
Being a Rule 6 party has an extremely, if not prohibitively high cost. The cross examination can only be done by a barrister, normally mandated via a solicitor. I spent my summer interviewing barristers independently or with other RAs. Costs for a KC were well above £100K, with top London KCs easily double such amount, whereas senior barristers come just below £100K. With the help of our solicitor Farrer & Co, we found a solution that the group could afford: a senior solicitor from Farrer & Co, who has represented us in the Section 106 discussions held in parallel to the inquiry’s sitting, and a very promising junior barrister from 39 Essex Chambers undertaking the cross examination. We also appointed two inquiry-experienced witnesses, Robert Ward-Booth for heritage and Paul Velluet for the architectural aspects of the scheme.
You can find their witness statements on this website under News: Public Inquiry on Redevelopment of Area Around SK Station Starts January 18, 2023. The statements unearthed a lot of interesting history.
Private entities, such as the JV formed for the ASD, do not need to disclose their costs for the inquiry. To give a sense of what the JV must be spending, we can compare it to the cost of the similarly high-profile and controversial inquiry about the 305 metre Tulip Tower in the City of London. This inquiry cost the Greater London Authority (GLA) defending the refusal more than £500,000. The cost became public only because of a Freedom of Information request.
Where are we?
After 11 inquiry days, two of the Appellant’s witnesses (heritage and planning) were yet to be cross examined. The inspector initially set two additional days with closing statements by the barristers possibly to occur online thereafter. On 27 February, the cross examination of the Appellant’s witness on heritage Alice Eggeling, Alan Baxter consultancy, started but did not finish. The cross examination of the Appellant’s witness on planning, Chris Goddard, Member of the Board of Directors of DP9, is yet to start. We are currently looking at two more inquiry days on 19 and 20 April, all held in public at RBKC’s Town Hall, so a total of 14 inquiry days. We invite you to attend.
The Appellant is represented by one of London’s top planning barristers, Russel Harris, KC, who has been involved in the Tulip inquiry and the current inquiry of the M&S building on Oxford Street. For anyone interested in reading Mr. Harris’ opening statement, please email onslowna@gmail.com. In summary, Mr Harris is making the following case:
- Native Land/TfL’s held extensive discussions with RBKC, Historic England, London Design Panel as well as RBKC’s Design Panel before making their planning application, which then got the full support from RBKC’s planning officers, only to be turned down at the end by RBKC’s elected members, who constitute the council’s Planning Committee.
- SK Station is the ‘gateway' to the museums and is in need of a ‘landmark’ building and proper point of arrival.
- The Victorians created a 'broken townscape' which needs mending, and the proposed scheme will deliver such a repair.
- The important views, identified in RBKC’s current Conservation Area Assessment, such as the one of the Natural History Museum towers from Onslow Square, were not intended by the Victorians, so this and other views are incidental, and so is the low scale of the Bullnose, which is characterised as an anomaly.
- TfL’s Development Brief 2016 and its development principles are irrelevant, and the starting point of the ASD is the hiring of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP). RSHP’s architect argued further that TfL’s 2016 Development Brief proposed solutions that are technically not feasible-- despite the fact that ten different specialists mandated and paid by TfL, as well as TfL’s internal engineers, were involved in drafting the Brief.
- There will not be any Step Free Access (SFA) to the District and Circle Lines delivered, if this scheme is refused, and the planning inspector should therefore very seriously consider such consequences when taking the decision!
Overall, the appellant’s argument continues to be that the public benefit outweighs the harm to the heritage assets, the listed station, its setting and townscape and the Conservation area.
The Appellant is pulling out all the stops. Not only did the Appellant appoint London’s most prominent KC, Russel Harris, but during the Section 106 roundtable discussion, another big gun in UK planning suddenly appeared, Tim Smith. Mr. Smith led the Inspector through the appellant’s Section 106 draft proposal with KC Russel Harris sitting silently next to him throughout. Notably, Tim Smith is Partner at the law firm BCLP and has held a number of high-profile appointments. (Part-time Tribunal Judge appointed in 2013; part-time Deputy High Court Judge appointed in 2019; Member of the Law Society’s Planning & Environment Committee from 2009-2021, chairing it from 2017 – 2020; Member of the Conduct and Disciplinary Panel of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) 2016-2022, which reviews and assesses breaches of the Code of Conduct of the RTPI, a Chartered Institute and the international professional body for town planners responsible for maintaining professional standards with over 27,000 members in 88 countries.)
What has RBKC been doing? After a reasonable start, they recently disappointed in their cross examination of the appellant’s heritage witness. The scheme’s heritage impact plays a key role in RBKC’s reasons of refusal. Rather than cross examining on the material parts of the harm to the heritage assets - the listed station, townscape and conservation area - RBKC’s KC decided to focus his cross examination on the listed subway tunnel.
What have we achieved?
- The Planning Committee unanimously refused a scheme that was put forward by the RBKC planning department for approval.
- RBKC committed that RAs will be consulted for large schemes at pre-application stage (unfortunately the Christie’s backyard was not big enough, so we have asked RBKC to amend the criteria).
- As a result of our pointing out how misleading wide-angle visuals can be, making buildings look much smaller than they actually will be, RBKC now requires 50 mm lens views for an application, which is in accordance with the 2019 guidelines of the Landscape Institute. During the cross examination of the appellant’s townscape witness expert Prof. Tavenor, we learned that RBKC is now the only of 53 London borough’s Tavenor has dealt with to require 50 mm lens verified views.
- If the Planning Inspector were to overturn RBKC’s decision and approve the scheme, the community would at least get some elements of the Station Capacity Upgrade, as they are now embedded in the Section 106 Agreement.
- Finally, it has become clear during the inquiry that we residents are not NIMBYs opposing developments in general. We have demonstrated a professional approach, with a clear line of planning law-based arguments and providing independent expert witness evidence to oppose this particular scheme.
We continue to fight the scheme as it is unacceptable for the harm it causes to the listed station and the character of our neighbourhood with its height, massing and inadequate design. It would still not deliver Step Free Access to the Piccadilly Line, nor would it provide much-needed Changing Places Toilets, both standard and necessary in the 21st Century and unacceptable not to be in place for our ‘gateway’ station’. We hope that the inspector will see through the developer’s argument agenda and not be afraid to apply local and national planning laws.
In the meantime, TfL has been reluctant and not interested in considering RBKC’s offer to contribute £7.5m in funding for SFA at SK Station in the case the scheme does not go ahead. RBKC made this offer public at the end of 2021 and wrote a letter to the Mayor of London in Feb 2022. TfL left it there. As there is no guarantee that the planning inspector will overturn RBKC’s refusal, one might assume that TfL ought to work on an alternative Plan B to deliver SFA. ONA approached TfL on bilateral basis via the GLA to get some insight on TfL management’s thinking about such Plan B and the feasibility study for SFA mentioned in the letter to the Mayor in Feb 2022. Sadly, TfL’s response on 24 Feb 2023 was, “Thank you for getting in touch on behalf of Ms Susanna Trostdorf in relation to step-free access (SFA) at South Kensington station. The matters that you have raised relate to an ongoing public inquiry to which Transport for London (TfL) has submitted evidence through its subsidiary companies, London Underground Limited and TTL South Kensington Properties Limited, who are main parties. It is therefore not appropriate for us to comment on these matters outside of the inquiry process.”
In Summary
There are a number of legal planning grounds that would allow the Inspector to reaffirm RBKC’s refusal. The tricky issue for her lies in defining the degree of harm to heritage assets (listed station, townscape and conservation area) and weighing it against the public benefit aggressively promoted by the Appellant’s high profile legal representatives.
Can the Appellant really argue that there would never ever be SFA for the D&C lines at the Station, if this ASD scheme is not going ahead?
At present we do not know where the balance lies. We hope to get a better idea on 19 April, when we will hear the Planning Inspector posing questions to the Appellant’s heritage expert Alice Eggeling. We invite you to come to RBKC’s Town Hall and listen.
For those who are interested in the inquiry’s closing statements if held online, we will circulate the date and joining details once set.
Please get in contact if you have any questions.
Susanna Trostdorf, Planning Lead, ONA