Ziser London have revised their planning application for the Matalan site and Brent are asking for comments again. We’re still getting to grips with the new application but we will send in our comments soon. The deadline’s Tuesday 16 June 2020.
The most obvious change is that it no longer goes up to nine storeys at the corner of Temple Road; that will be 7 storeys in keeping with rest of the Broadway frontage. However, it does go up to about 8 storeys over the stairwells, which seems to break the rule that new buildings shouldn’t be more than 2 storeys higher than existing neighbours and provide a precedent for later buildings – e.g. on the Wickes site – going still higher.
Block A facing Temple Road (red lines show previous proposal, grey areas are further back)
Those balconies are unchanged since our last objection.
There’s more impact further along Temple Road. Originally, the fourth storey was going to be stepped back but now that’s been brought forward, creating a sheer 4-storey frontage, rising to 5 storeys above and beside the stairwell and more further back, so the whole development will dominate Temple Road even more.
Block B facing Temple Road (red lines show previous proposal, grey areas are further back)
They still propose 238 units altogether, which is a lot for the site and more than called for in Brent’s Local Plan. Of those, 14 units are to have affordable rents, a slight increase on the original 12 but still not making any useful contribution towards Brent’s targets and serious need, and doing little to justify such high-density development.
They do mention that although Matalan’s lease was going to run out at the end of August, they’ve agreed to extend it until planning permission’s granted.
In short, we welcome the removal of the 9-storey corner but a lot of our old objection still stands and there are new problems. We’ll send Brent our new comments before the 16 June 2020 deadline and you can too – click here for the revised documents and here to comment. Our quick notes on making effective objections are here.