106 Lordship Lane planning application - Refused

[haruki]

I doubt that the "quality" of a restaurant plays any part in whether or not it is granted permission. Even if it did, I fail to see how a chain restaurant would lead to better quality. I can't think of any chain restaurants that are better than independents, particularly the Mediterranean ones.

As for all the half-empty restaurants on LL, maybe if we didn't have 10 or so Indian restaurants it wouldn't be the case!

[sjf1]

I'm very concerned about this planning application as anybody on the proposed 1st floor terrace will be able to see directly into the bedrooms of my two young children.

[StraferJack]

That's true for a lot of people in london. I have 10 houses that can see into my child's room. So what ?

[sjf1]

I don't have problem with my neighbours seeing into my house, I just feel uneasy about strangers being able to take a seat at a table and spending an afternoon looking in on my children. I don't think I would be alone in feeling like that.

[StraferJack]

Over dramatising

Your children may be special but noone is going to go to a restaurant to spend an hour or two staring into their room.

[Jeremy]

Sjf1 - I do understand why you're concerned about the loss of privacy, and it sounds like you have reasonable grounds for appeal.

But - you do seem to be over dramatising this, I highly doubt any diners will really want to sit there and stare at your kids as you describe. Even if they did, investing in a pair of curtains could solve that one.

[KalamityKel]

doesn't mean to say it wont EVER happen though. Why should families be left feeling insecure? Why should residents have to resort to using curtains?

Besides where else on the Lane is there similar use of the first floor?

*shrugs*

[northlondoner]

sjf1 Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I don't have problem with my neighbours seeing

> into my house, I just feel uneasy about strangers

> being able to take a seat at a table and spending

> an afternoon looking in on my children. I don't

> think I would be alone in feeling like that.

Are your children golden unicorns , with hooves of the finest ivory, perhaps ? Or gossamer winged angels weaving rainbows as they flit around their room sprinkling golden dust ? Is this why people will want to spend an hour or two staring into their room ?

How do you cope with taking them into the public ? 😇

[KalamityKel]

northlondoner Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> sjf1 Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > I don't have problem with my neighbours seeing

> > into my house, I just feel uneasy about

> strangers

> > being able to take a seat at a table and

> spending

> > an afternoon looking in on my children. I don't

> > think I would be alone in feeling like that.

>

>

> Are your children golden unicorns , with hooves of

> the finest ivory, perhaps ? Or gossamer winged

> angels weaving rainbows as they flit around their

> room sprinkling golden dust ? Is this why people

> will want to spend an hour or two staring into

> their room ?

> How do you cope with taking them into the public ?

> 😇

Is there any need for sarcasm? As a neighbour to the area sjf1 has a right to their own concerns whether you agree or not

[northlondoner]

Agreed.

[Cora]

Sjf1 moved next to a shop - a restaurant with the potential for increased noise and intrusion of privacy is a massive change and hopefully her objection will be taken seriously. Sjf1 I strongly recommend you talk to your neighbours (or post them letters) and between you support each other in posting objections. There may be people who rent nearby, they too can object but not realise they have a say. Have also pm'd you.

[James Barber]

I've asked for this planning application to be called-in and decided by councillors if officers are minded under delegated powers to grant permission. Until recently such decisions would have been decided by local Dulwich and East Dulwich councillors but the councils constitution was changed to centralise such powers.

To preserve Lordship Lane as a shopping high street we need to keep at least 50% as shop units. So losing this shop unit in my opinion should be fought. As well as this particular applications detail about the noise it will cause for neighbouring residents.

[Penguin68]

To preserve Lordship Lane as a shopping high street we need to keep at least 50% as shop units

What is your evidence for this ratio? What counts as a 'shopping unit'? Poundstores? Charity shops? A high street with a preponderance of these 'shopping units' would not be a vibrant economic centre (visit many sea-side towns in Kent). The quality of what shops are there (a closed Iceland store v an open M&S?) and the 'support infrastructure' to those shops, which very much includes places to eat at and cafes are what makes a successful shopping area. If new eateries open and less successful ones close - then so be it. Maybe someone with a good shop idea will take up that space. What we absolutely don't need in LL is closed shop units, or ones with 'desparate' tenants - or shops converted into housing. The Wood Vale retail block is being partly turned into housing (two units gone already) - that's doing the remaining shops no favours at all.

[James Barber]

Hi P68,

that's a policy criteria we've had added to planning strategies for Southwark and specifically the East Dulwich area.

Of course 50% doesnt guarantee anything but it helps and the council is not able to select tenants for freeholders to use a sharper instrument.

[Penguin68]

And I ask again 'what is your evidence for this?'

You can add unsubstantiated policy criteria for planning decisions till you're blue in the teeth, but it doesn't validate them to include them. [And I don't recall as a voter being asked to consider this as something in my best interest?]

As I have pointed out, we could have a high street full of pound shops and charity shops - this would presumably be a huge tick in your planning criteria policy box, and be a complete disaster for the area. And as soon as the planning gauleiters start to decide on applications based on the business of the applicant - 'I think we have enough Indian restaurants now, but we'll accept an application from a German one; we are now just looking for a haberdasher to move in to LL...' and so on you have madness arising. Certain types of business, betting shops, sex traders, perhaps you might take a view on, but really...

In the end, if the people who live and visit here want a business - it will do well - if they don't, it won't. When politicians try to micro-manage market economies you can be pretty sure that disaster beckons. When they do it using wild guesses and groundless assumptions maskerading as 'policy' it will happen more quickly.

[James Barber]

Hi P68,

The proposed application includes a 1st floor dining terrace inches from bedroom windows.

Surely you can agree that would be inappropriate and a recipe for problems?

Planning policy was approved and officers provided the evidence otherwise it wouldnt hold water. Lots of evidence that mixed high street do well but that leaving it purely to the market to decide what is best for us can kill high streets.

[StraferJack]

" inches from bedroom windows. "

sorry - for clarity, how many inches?

[Penguin68]

James

Specifics of any planning application (for whatever use) can be challenged - I still wish you to explain, or get your officials to, how a High St where, for instance, 30% of the 'retail' zoned sites were charity shops, pound shops or lying empty and unused is evidence of a high street 'doing well'.

If you have a mixture (50:50 or whatever) of varied premises in a High Street all of which are vibrant, attract customers and so on, fine, that's probably 'doing well' - but I'd rather see some business going on than none, or 'low rent' businesses which tend to congregate in run-down areas.

There is no magic ratio - to believe so and blindly act so is frankly stupid. I can understand that where the council owns property in a street and where it has competition for tenants then choosing what they believe to be an advantageous mix might be effective (though councils are not the first place I would be going to to look for effective business consultancy) but to force private owners of land only to use it in some way that the council approves of taking some ratio into account (this street has eateries, but not yours) is high-handed and unacceptable. Of course areas can be zoned for mixed retail, for industrial and so on, but once you allow a mixture of shops and restaurants then to favour incumbents over newcomers (which effectively you are by your 'policy') is to act anti-competitively - but then open market competition has hardly been the watchword of the ruling cliques in Southwark, has it?

Don't try to confuse objections to specifics within an application (a roof top terrance apparently 'inches' - so I assume no more than 18 or so - otherwise your hyperbole would have been in feet) is a different class of objection to -'it's not a shop' which is what you have prayed in aid in your earlier post.

[DaveR]

Planning ideas about retail/commercial mix are going to have to catch up with reality i.e. online shopping is making lots of traditional high street shops inherently uneconomic. No point in holding out for businesses that probably won't come when there is another broadly suitable business ready to go.

The issues re privacy and specific use in this case seem to me to be classic, fact specific 'hard' planning issues that are beter dealt with by specialists i.e. planning officers, rather than politicians.

[Jeremy]

It's not something I know much about. But I would have thought that if there's only a set number of A3 premises premitted in the area, then landlords of the remaining A1 premises will have to rent them out at a price which is affordable to prospective businesses. So therefore by restricting the number of A3 licences granted, you help ensure that the retail businesses can makes ends meet.

If there's no restriction, then the price of all units goes up.

[maxxi]

Agree that a business (restaurant or otherwise) is preferable to an empty shop (and I see nothing wrong with a pound shop either) - not sure what the view from this proposed back terrace would be like though, a fine aspect of the undertaker's yard next door?

As for keeping retail premises for retail purposes there are empty retail units on the Lane (including one two doors along from this proposal) that are still 'for let' and show no signs of being snapped up.

[eddie]

An ?un-official and un-scientific? review of the premises on Lordship Lane from Goose Green to the Police Station (excluding North Cross Road) has identified the following usage of space:

Retail Shops 53%

Bars, Restaurants & Take Away 25%

Estate Agents 13%

Banks, PO, Office, Other 9%

If you include business?s on the side streets off Lordship Lane then the ratio for retail space in nearer to 60%.

[Penguin68]

(and I see nothing wrong with a pound shop either)

I see nothing wrong with 'a' pound shop (or even a couple) - but once your street is dominated by pound shops and charity shops (as I have said, look at some of the dead high streets in small sea-side towns) it is close to moribund. My point is that maintaining a false 50:50 ratio (and it is above that now, currently, it would appear) is a policy without thought. It is which shops, not how many, which are key to high street vibrancy.

By the way, the very wonderful 'thingy' shop (A J Farmer) next to Callow Lockmsiths is, in my view, by no means a 'pound shop', even though it offers an excellent range and value (I am just a customer, and have no interest in it). Every High Street should have one of these.

[James Barber]

Well we're agreed on something then P68 - speaking as an occassinaly customer of AJFarmer.

[Freddy1929]

Farmers is the best shop in Lordship Lane, excellent value, not over inflated prices like the rest of the posh shops in LL, it is like Woolworths to me, if you need something, Farmers will have it, and if they haven't got it - you don't need it!