DHFC / Green Dale latest planning application

[jay66]

There's a new planning application on Southwark's portal seeking to remove the protective covenants that were put in place in 1990 to prevent the current DHFC stadium being used for anything other than leisure, recreation or education. In order to build 219 flats on the stadium they need to remove this clause. They also need to block access to the Green Dale astro turf so the public can't go there whilst they are bulldozing it and building the new stadium.

Comments accepted until 23rd march so don't delay:

https://planning.southwark.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=RQ696ZKB00300

Full version of the Section 106 agreement from 1990 here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4Ht_hAPixkZZVpjR1pKV0VMcUU/view?resourcekey=0-rgwkAhylmVKbAYlMoG_puQ

(admin note: merged with the other thread about this subject)

[janecordelia]

Stop Plan to build on Green Dale Astroturf and surrounding land

The locally used Astroturf will go forever and not be replaced. That is the bottom line. This community asset will be gone. There is nowhere else like it in the area. Oh, except DHFC, of course! Are they going to offer free access for the children of the area? They never have.

The Council is planning to overturn an agreement to protect this Metropolitan open space to allow developers build flats, and a new stadium maybe if the money doesn't run out.

Southwark planning ref. 23/AP/0429

Importantly, for the community is section 4(3): If the the obligation is removed, hoardings can be erected by DHFC and the developers NOW with no date for when building starts, that would restrict access to the Astroturf. It could be two years before building starts as planning permission runs out in Feb 2025.

Please object to this discharge of duty by the council by Friday 23rd March.

Follow this link:

https://tinyurl.com/gdastro

[yorksgirl]

Do I remember, that there used to be a very pleasant swathe of Metropolitan Open Land (supposedly protected), where Sainsburys, and the giant Sainsbury's car park, private sports club etc now sit.

Do I also remember, how Southwark Councillors and officers swore themselves absolutely blind at the time that if only this 'one-off' huge loss of MOL took place, there would never be any further loss of the remaining amenity land and they would defend with their dying breaths the remaining MOL?

Do I also remember that some of those very same Councillors are still in office in Southwark?

Not the officers of course. Long departed on lovely pensions to spacious homes in very leafy, high amenity greenery of Surrey, Kent etc.

[ab29]

Southwark council won't stop until every inch of green is gone and everything concreted, honestly

[malumbu]

Do remind me of where things stand, I though this had gone through quite detailed challenge already and as such a petition will not do a lot of good, and you will need to challenge through judicial review which costs £££££.

Whatever the case for and against it doesn't help if you turn to sweeping statements. All local authorities get things wrong from time to time, they also get a lot of things right. Obviously subjective!

[nivag]

More lies being spread about this again from Friends of Greendale

[malumbu]

Not talking sides on this but it did amuse me that Friends of Greendale had to explain where it was.....

[BrandNewGuy]

Isn't that from 3 years ago?

[first mate]

My understanding is that DHFC have promised to give Charter schools free access to the new pitch and facilities, for how long is not clear. This does not address the point that the current astroturf is free for all to use and is therefore a community asset.

Making facilities free for Charter school use for an unspecified amount of time is a great bit of spin and will appeal to parents but the fact remains that land currently freely available for public use is being taken away from everyone else.

[Earl Aelfheah]

Do I remember, that there used to be a very pleasant swathe of Metropolitan Open Land (supposedly protected), where Sainsburys, and the giant Sainsbury's car park, private sports club etc now sit.

Do I also remember, how Southwark Councillors and officers swore themselves absolutely blind at the time that if only this 'one-off' huge loss of MOL took place, there would never be any further loss of the remaining amenity land and they would defend with their dying breaths the remaining MOL?

Do I also remember that some of those very same Councillors are still in office in Southwark?

Not the officers of course. Long departed on lovely pensions to spacious homes in very leafy, high amenity greenery of Surrey, Kent etc.

 

Yes, fairly sure I remember that commitment too.

[sjsl]

If you are thinking of objecting and haven't got round to it, please do so. Supporters are currently double the number of objectors, this is an important local amenity – free open space for young people and a wild life haven.

[Pink Panther]

Do I remember, that there used to be a very pleasant swathe of Metropolitan Open Land (supposedly protected), where Sainsburys, and the giant Sainsbury's car park, private sports club etc now sit.

Not unless you're at least 100 years old.

[Sue]

Do I remember, that there used to be a very pleasant swathe of Metropolitan Open Land (supposedly protected), where Sainsburys, and the giant Sainsbury's car park, private sports club etc now sit.

Not unless you're at least 100 years old.

 

I'm not 100 years old (yet) and I remember that.

There was a great outcry, and a condition of the Sainsbury's being built was the park in front of it.

Massive traffic jams were also predicted, with the cars going to and from Sainsbury's, delivery lorries etc.

The massive traffic jams never happened, and although I was against the development, I actually think the park is better than what was there before.

[Ben Clasper]

Dulwich Hamlet Football Club is something everyone in ED should be proud of and protect. It always amazes me how little the club is referred to in any of these calls to oppose the lifeline to the club. This is the East Dulwich Forum, if you actually care about East Dulwich can I suggest you walk Lordship Lane and ask the shop owners, restaurant owners and pub owners what this club means to them, ask them how painful it was when the club was exiled away from Champion Hill in the way the 'Friends' of Greendale or 'Friends' of Dog Kennel Hill Wood (sic) would seemingly like to see again. Can I ask you to consult the thousands of ED residents that attend the game and the thousands of local school kids and families and charities who have been given free tickets in the past few years. I don't understand how you can be on the East Dulwich Forum if you are unmoved by the sea of pink and blue on the Lane every other Saturday and what that means to our community.

[first mate]

Supporting the continuation of the football club while also wishing to preserve MOL and freedom of access for all, should not be mutually exclusive.

[redpost]

If they really want to build housing, then rebuild the sainsburys with housing on top.

Oh, I forgot it's far cheaper to build on virgin land

[Hassie]

Thanks for the reminders. Have now added my support for this application. Up the Hamlet!

[Administrator]

The consultation has recently been reopened due to an error being made with the first attempt.

The new closing date is 23/04/2023. If you have already replied, then your comment will still stand.

New notification notice: https://planning.southwark.gov.uk/online-applications/files/91D2459536A1C1C702BD906ABF8F5FD1/pdf/23_AP_0429-FILE_COPY_-_NEIGHBOUR_NOTIFICATION_LIST-3644466.pdf

Comment Form: https://planning.southwark.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=makeComment&keyVal=RQ696ZKB00300

[yorksgirl]

Do I remember, that there used to be a very pleasant swathe of Metropolitan Open Land (supposedly protected), where Sainsburys, and the giant Sainsbury's car park, private sports club etc now sit.

Not unless you're at least 100 years old.

 

I'm 62, PP, and when those promises were made I was 30-ish. Blink of an eye, and I remember it all perfectly, thanks. (Quite a few members of my family have made it into their early 100s by the way, and all sharp as a pin to the end...centenarians aren't unusual these days).

[1921]

Walked around Greendales this afternoon and it was almost impossible to get past the hoards of people using it......

Given it is half term, and a beautifully sunny this afternoon, it was just me and the dog and we saw 2 other people?

What time of day is it as busy as it is made out to be?

[Borderlands]

I remember the green space before Sainsbury's was built on it and the fight to try and protect it, which was obviously not won. The tiny park is better than nothing but in no way compensates for the giant carpark that is completely out of scale with the store itself. Greendale is all that is now left of the MOL - and it is not a huge area by any stretch of the imagination. It needs formal protection now. Someone posting here seems to think that the only importance of green spaces has to do with it being full of people all the time - but that could never be the case even for formal parks. But Greendale should not be considered as if it is some kind of untended park that needs to be prettified, made more parklike and have chunks removed for private benefit only: it is a rare green informal oasis - a wildspace- accessible to the public in a landscape otherwise full of privately owned acres rising to the Sydenham Hill ridge. I've objected again to the development, this time to the demand to remove covenants and clauses that are there for very good reasons.

My objection to the removal of clauses restricting development has nothing to do with whether the football stadium rebuild is necessary or whether football fans are more deserving than residents. This is about reminding Southwark about why they put in the restrictive clauses in first place. And the reasons are still pertinent so they should not be removed. If they are, it will reveal just how threadbare Southwark Council's actual claims to care for our greenspaces, wild, parkified, or ancient, really is as others have pointed out (look at the misuse of Peckham Rye Park for the Gala). The removal of the clauses will also not guarantee the building of a new stadium with its privatised commercial facilities that the fans (who may not be residents) are hoping for.

It was pretty clear when applications were put in during the 1990s to build on the green field sites off Dog Kennel Hill (I think most of it was Crown Property or belonged to King's College) that the developer’s primary aim was (and probably still is) to build dense multi-storey housing (out of keeping with the area on that side of road) and that they decided the best way to persuade to the council to allow this was offering some kind of community benefit - ie., the refurbishment or rebuild of the football stadium and, perhaps, new facilities. Of course, the idea was not a commitment to actually to do it….The plans to move/build a new stadium, seem to me to be a kind of Trojan horse application, in the full knowledge of the potentially more remunerative possible housing estate. LB Southwark seemed to see through this offer when they put the covenants and clauses in place and made sure that the application/s specified the football grounds must come first and be completed before any housing estate was built with all the attendant disruption, noise and extra traffic affecting to the local community. They also knew that even outline planning permission for housing could simply end up with the land being sold on for gazillions without any housing or the football club being rebuilt. Then the developer's plans revealed the planned erosion of the MOL and there was an outcry as informal open green space like Greendale is a rarity in this area. But the protection offered for MOL is generally very weak. Really the whole area needs some kind of designation, like Local Nature Reserve (with the astroturf given some kind of protection as a free community amenity?). Then that would mean we don't revisit countless applications for development -and Southwark Council abetting the eroding of the MOL's value or allowing building or encroachment by tipping or whatever during building works that can nibble and nibble away at it until it is gone.

I remember even during Thatcher's time in power how the council did it's utmost to support a true green agenda with real protections and money funding to build on what we had/have in the borough. Unlike now.

[Froglander]

Are there any updates on this?

[Dulwich dweller]

On 23/03/2023 at 01:01, Ben Clasper said:

Dulwich Hamlet Football Club is something everyone in ED should be proud of and protect

Why? Why should i be proud of it?

 

On 23/03/2023 at 01:01, Ben Clasper said:

I suggest you walk Lordship Lane and ask the shop owners, restaurant owners and pub owners what this club means to them, ask them

Certain businesses. A cafe on the lane has recently gone. I doubt the owner would agree with you're assertion, a couple of boozer perhaps yes. DHFC brings people into the area for a time and no doubt it helps but any business is completely reliant on that or in danger of closing if the club wasn't here. Sainsbury's off sales might drop a bit though.

[claresy]

I love Greendale and would like  to speak out against any attempts to build, tame or spoil. However when I go to 'make a comment' on the link in the first post, it says none are being accepted. Please advise.

[Alec1]

1 hour ago, claresy said:

I love Greendale and would like  to speak out against any attempts to build, tame or spoil. However when I go to 'make a comment' on the link in the first post, it says none are being accepted. Please advise.

The consultation has ended, which is why you can't comment any more.