Adam Hart, HCD CEO from 1996-2005, representative for the Objectors to the HCD Planning Application, gave a speech at the Council Chamber in front of the Planning Sub-Committee detailing some of the key reasons why the development on the south side of Gillett Square is risky and a bad use of public funds, and how the Planning Application is full of omissions, inaccuracies and half-truths.
Here is the transcript:
Along with the many others who have commented, written in some 120 letters and the over 1,500 people who passionately petitioned LBH on this matter, I am objecting to this application.
I do this as long term Hackney resident and parent and somebody who has been closely been involved for over 30 years in the all the developments and its people and groups, in and around Gillett Square. I have worked for many years as the CEO of the applicant Hackney Co-operative Developments (HCD) and as the named Public Entertainment license holder for Gillett square. I was full time occupant of the Bradbury Street workspace for over 15 years. I remain a committed and active member of HCD, despite its recent repurposing, and a director of the Vortex Foundation charity that funds cultural events here in and around Gillett square.
I therefore ask you as LBH members to give due respect and open minded consideration to what I have to say in the very short time I have here now. There is much else that can be said, as detailed in the written submissions to LBH Planning dept, partially summarised in the officer’s report that you have before you, to which I will confine our objections, here and now.
Given the general dictum that officers advise and inform, and that members decide and instruct, I will show that in this case you have been crucially misinformed – by errors and omissions of fact, and very poorly advised on matters of architectural urbanism and aesthetic and opinion – all of which is subject to relevant national and local planning regulations, guidelines and strategies as well as particular decision planning decision precedents.
On that basis alone you can safely reject the current recommendation to approve this application.
There are also other considerations that can be argued to be material which have bearing here against approval such as the active restrictions on demolition placed by public funders including the EC on parts of this site.
There are three main areas of objection to this report upon which the officer’s recommendation turns. They concern issues of Scope, Design and Sustainability.
1. Scope
The context of this application and the site area is narrowly and wrongly identified in this report. This leads to the omission and exclusion of any consideration of the negative impact of this proposal upon the whole of Gillett Square as defined in the 2004 master plan and planning permission documentation for Gillett Square, which has yet to be completed, as recognised in the current DAAP which explicitly describes the need for an active frontage on Stamford Works as part of the completion of Gillett Square. In that context the existing car park is a temporary measure, and indeed functions on many occasions as part of the square now for larger cultural events.
This omission has several consequences –the principal one being that the application should be treated as a major development proposal that affects the future of the whole of Gillett Square and the Bradbury Street area neighbourhood and the surrounding buildings on both sides of the square. As such issues of economic, environmental and social sustainability and attendant equalities issues cannot be overlooked, disregarded or lightly dismissed as they are in this officer’s report.
Beyond this, and looking to a brighter future and completion for Gillett Square-as advocated by the LDA AAUU head Richard Rogers who oversaw the first phase of design and works for Gillett Square in 2006, the proper vehicle for strategic planning is the reconvening of the truly innovative and successful Gillett Square Partnership, involving all key stakeholders in and around the whole Square. LBH has committed itself to this in its 2006 planning documentation and subsequent specific actions in 2008-10.
This is the best way forward to promote and not destroy the remarkable social cohesion, social and rich cultural energies in and around Gillett square. There is much opportunity to work together for all of us to do this in context, rather than pressing ahead with this narrow, destructive contentious plan. HCD’s and its current LDA funders’ objectives for increased workspace provisions and environmental improvements in and around Gillett Square can be achieved in a much less damaging and much less costly manner.
2. Design
The officer’s argument hinges again and again on this report on the mitigating balance of the purported high quality of the design, against the many various defects that he concedes and partially addresses although not without some crucial total omissions. These omissions include the verified view of Bradbury Street from the West, i.e. from Kingsland High Street where the majority of people entering Bradbury Street and Gillett Square arrive. Other omissions include the damaging impact on the existing north facing Bradbury Street offices which will be deprived of light and will have to contend with users placed right outside their windows in the proposed double height “shared terrace and meeting places areas” on the first and second floors.
This is an “ad hoc” scheme that neither understands nor respects nor improves the existing character of this remarkable, interactive and creative engaged setting.
Various words are to justify this opinion of high design quality, such as “creative”, “expressive”, “varied”, “contemporary”. Most of these are either empty of meaning or so promiscuous in meaning that they can be attached to any development plan – in the name of anything goes here. NOT SO! If we are to make anything of these words they actually imply quite the opposite of good design here, destroying the existing Design week 2000 and LBH shortlisting design awards for the market pods, ruining the functionality and connectedness of the deck access walkways, creating cramped new spaces, damaging the existing offices natural lighting, spoiling and hiding the heritage elevation, streetscape and roof lines, encasing the workspace in a façade that (even the planning officer is unsure can work) to create an overbearing plastic shed that amounts little more than a folly or a sham, at best a pale imitation of and cursory nod to what is of value here, but speaks most of separation, and yes social cleansing and economic exclusion.
3. Sustainability and Equality
Contrary to the officer’s assertions, whether or not this scheme is classed as a major development, sustainability is the golden here that runs through all national regional and local planning considerations that cannot and should not be ignored here, nor can they be overridden by the supposed design quality of this scheme as this report attempts, but fails to do. We cannot get away from the following universal sustainability criteria for this plan:
1. The Economics of its negative implications for local business and livelihood, in the short and long terms, through inevitable disruptions and unserviceable rental increases (that will be generated by development debt)
2. Environmental: the negative environmental impact and wastage of material and financial resources in unnecessarily demolishing the market pods and in building their replacements.
3. Social and equalities issues: this project is clearly economically dependent on a higher paying demographic of mainly white businesses people and corporate satellites moving to work or live in this borough, and will threaten the existing good balance of this site’s BEM beneficiary profile and the boroughs commitment to promoting and preserving equality and other valuable social characteristics of this remarkable and valuable creative and diverse space.
In sum: in its current form this application represents a poisoned chalice for the applicant, and in balance fails to meet planning requirements.
It should and can be refused and sent back by you today for major rethinking and further consultation with stakeholders to produce a simpler, non-damaging scheme that can meet the basic objectives of increasing workspace provision and environmental improvements in around Gillett Square. In doing so you will have reinforced the borough’s core values -to work for the many not the few – and avoided bringing the name of social enterprise into disrepute, as a disguised form of social cleansing. I urge you to be brave and unprejudiced in this matter.