The new owner of the portacabin site had a small exhibition of the plans for the site this evening.
21 new flats plus ground floor retail space.
The building will vary from 3 storeys close to Stanstead Road to 6 storeys next to the railway.
The development will need to include some social housing / affordable homes on the site.
Sounds like a good use of the site, if they can attract a suitable retail (or office use) tenant for the ground floor, and providing they maximise the soundproofing for residents.
Sounds like the space is finally going to get put to good use. Been a waste for far too long now. Now to see what sort of retail goes in there, when of course it finally happens.
If I’m honest at first I thought it was a good idea. However, I have recently changed my mind due to concerns raised from friends. The building would spoil the landscape. A brand new building taller than the bridge and the houses close by. A square in a triangular plot. Of course the store would be convenient, but at what cost?
The following was also discussed:
Yes there is more housing but it never comes down to just housing there are more factors to be considered. You wake up to pollution and noise of trains and cars. You go to bed with pollution and noise of train and cars after a hard days work. When you go onto your balcony you see and inhale car emissions whilst trying to sip a cup of tea.
You look out of your left window and you see train tracks. Then you look out of your right window and you see the tops of houses. You look out of your front window and you see car emissions. You go to the back window hoping for peace and you see cars parked incorrectly and houses which some owners have given up on.
Yes there is double glazing. Double glazing is good but doesn’t have that type of sound prevention. You would be less than 5 metres away from the trains. Triple glazing wouldn’t prevent that. What about all the gunk from trains and their tracks spraying across your windows? If I am not mistaken these negatives all outweigh the positive of a convenience store.
This post was last modified: 11-06-2018 09:13 PM by JeffreyA.
You raise a series of valid concerns that the developer is going to need to address but it shouldn't be impossible to build housing on this location. Just on the other side of the railway bridge, Olympic Heights was built a few years ago and seems to provide reasonable quality accommodation. The portacabin site is larger, so it should be possible to build something there.
The flats on Perry Vale (City Walk) were built with triple glazing on the front and residents there complain more about the ballroom (behind the site) than the traffic and trains.
When I spoke to the developer, they said they plan for all units to be dual-aspect. I suggested that it might be nice to have better lighting under the railway bridge, and that could be provided as part of the section 106 contribution.
My main concern would be a retail unit that fails on the site. It is a challenging site for a shop due to the poor access for cars and pedestrians, but if the rental levels were appropriate I could imagine that something could work.
So I'm not sure exactly what should go on the site, but I'm really pleased to see it being used for something, and if reasonable quality housing can be built on the site, I think we should welcome that, given the limited space available in Forest Hill for new house building.