Here are notes of meetings held recently with both Landsecs (21 Moorfields) and Multiplex/Brookfield (1 London Wall Place)
21 Moorfields
On 11th October Helen Kay and Hilary Sunman met with Ross Sayers of Land Securities to discuss the new proposals and express concern about the proposed access point in Moor Lane. We followed this up with a letter on 17th October setting out residents’ concerns:
‘ The residents are keen for this development to be completed with such a prestigious let, and are pleased with the reassurances over access to the station, a minimum of light spillage, the lowering of the west building, the use of the terraces and a small piazza. However, the proposal for a servicing entrance will be contentious for the following very good reasons.
The noise and disturbance of 80 lorries a day with a security gate being opened and closed does not sit well with the duty the Corporation of London has in its Local Plan for Residential Amenity (Policy DM 21.3). If such a change is granted on this narrow street with its acoustic peculiarities, the 200 bedrooms, 142 apartments, the young families and numerous people working from home then it would not say much for Residential Amenity.
The greening of Moor Lane has been in the Local Plan for some time and has been postponed due to the many developments in the area. You will have seen the plans for wide pavements, rows of trees, planting of beds and also the quiet cycle highway. The planning for this was carefully thought out with much consultation and the funding is even in place, ready to go as soon as 21 Moorfields is complete.
Finally, the cycle highway system is a really good scheme for getting people out of cars and safe on the streets. They are popular and very busy at the start and end of the working day. Lorries cutting across a major north south cycle route at these times will not be safe.
In our meeting with the Chief Planning Officer at the Guildhall, we were assured that as far as the Highways and Traffic assessment is concerned the analysis carried out in February 2015 stands, with its recommendation that with good systems in place another servicing entrance on Fore Street Avenue is manageable. You say that Deutsche Bank has these systems in place so there should not be a problem.
When we looked at the plans with you at our meeting last week it did seem possible to move the UKPN site, as was the plan in the consented scheme, thereby allowing access to the servicing area from Fore Street Avenue and you said your team was working on that.
There were over 100 objections to an application for Wagamama to have a door to the restaurant on Moor Lane. We had a dialogue with the company and eventually they understood the impact this would have on their neighbours and they withdrew the application. We believe that there will be this level of objection if not more to your application for a servicing entrance on Moor Lane. The 2000 flats in the Barbican will want to protect their ‘buffer’ streets.
We can only hope that Deutsche Bank really does want to be a good neighbour and that the servicing entrance reverts to the consented scheme. We can then look forward to the quiet ‘greened’ street that we have been promised’.
On 27th October Ross Sayer replied with the following response:
Following the public consultations and our subsequent discussions, we have been carrying out further objective analysis comparing the appropriateness of servicing the scheme from both Fore Street Avenue and Moor Lane.
It has been decided that the Moor Lane servicing location is the most appropriate method of effectively servicing our scheme. This is due to a number of factors. We have previously spoken about the structural, security and mechanical and electrical service related challenges. In addition to this the congested nature of Fore Street Avenue in its current state is an undesirable pedestrian route without adding a further servicing route to this small road. With the addition of Crossrail and the occupation of London Wall Place, further pedestrian flow is anticipated in this area. We feel that this additional pedestrian flow, coupled with the additional vehicle congestion associated with an additional loading bay would lead to an unsafe and unworkable solution.
With the loading bay located off of Moor Lane, appropriately sized for the scale of the development, and set back 27m within the building, this can be effectively managed to ensure no vehicles reversing in the street and no queuing vehicles in the street. This location will also ensure that all vehicles approach the site from Ropemaker Street, keeping vehicles away from the South end of Moor Lane and Fore Street. We feel that this well managed servicing strategy is a more positive solution to the residents than adding to the existing congestion in Fore Street Avenue which, we believe, would lead to queuing traffic along Fore Street, and potentially Moor Lane, once both 21M and London Wall Place are occupied. During the next stage of design development we will also be reviewing the quietest method of providing access control and would look to discuss this further with you over the coming months.
On this basis we will be submitting our application to the City today.
1 London Wall Place
Liz Hirst and Helen Kay arranged a meeting with Tim Wells from Multiplex, Sharlene Rhoden and Matt from Brookfield joined us. They will be the asset managers for No 2 LWP and the public realm.
The public realm includes the high walks – litter, drainage, skateboarding and the lift. Brookfield will have 24 hour surveillance on the high walks to stop skateboarding
The café and restaurant will be opening when Schroeder’s move into LWP1 in July 2018
The high walks will be completed and paperwork to CoL for a 15 December Highways meeting – Kristian Turner is the contact. Then there has to be 28 days before the high walks are open to the public. Should be mid-January
There is a launch of the completed No 2 building on 9 November and 2 very large and lit rabbits will be placed in the ‘garden’ area and London Wall side of the building for 10 days
On current plans Schroders expect to finish fit-out of No.1LWP in July/August 2018. Until this time the rubbish collection may continue from St Alphage (while they continue to develop the gardens). Brookfield has suggested that Schroders put together a servicing plan asap & we’ll need to make sure that this complies with the planning condition to load and turn inside the bay on Fore Street when it is operational. Interestingly, Brookfield also said that the volume of deliveries coming to No.1LWP via Fore St Avenue was not so great as to make it unreasonable for 21 Moorfields to use the same street for their deliveries…..
There was a suggestion for 2 weekly fire alarms but they agreed to just have the one statutory fire alarm test. It will be on Fridays at 08:30 and will last about 2 minutes
We asked about light spillage; No 2 building will be fitted with Correx blinds on the north side facing Andrewes. This will make it easier for us to liaise over a management plan for closing the blinds.
This is something we would like on LWP1 building as no blinds were fitted on this north side in the design; we will be meeting with Schroeder about this
Mary Bonar will chair a liaison group for LWP2 and the asset management team, Brookfields. Petra Einwiller, Lionel Meyringer, Robert Barker, Richard Dykes, Nigel Pilkington and myself will be members of the group.
Helen will chair the LWP1 liaison group and will need WH residents to join her.