Woolwich tower block: Campaigners lobby at town hall

Residents Group Speak Out Woolwich turned out in force to present their petition calling on Greenwich Council to throw out the controversial scheme proposed for construction near John Wilson Street and Tesco.

The group waved banners calling for social housing for all, and handed out leaflets opposing the Spray Street Quarter as well as Meyer Homes’ latest efforts.

John Edwards, spokesman for Speak Out, addressed a packed council chamber when delivering the 1,600 strong petition.

He said: “Most of the signatures were collected within a week. This shows that a development with little or no social housing is unacceptable when there are 17,000 people on the housing waiting list in this borough.

“It shows a development with no family sized homes is unacceptable. It shows that building on the little green spaces we have is unacceptable.

“It shows that a 27-storey private tower looming over General Gordon Square in the heart of the community for profit is unacceptable.”

Councillors were set to throw the plan out on Tuesday night before Meyer Homes allegedly threatened legal action causing the debate to be scrapped at the “11th hour.”

Mr Edwards continued: “This is a cynical ploy for the developers to gain more time to think of a way to push this through. We must stand firm against such aggressive practices.”

Meyer Homes’ proposed three buildings between nine and 16 storeys as well as the 27-storey centrepiece.

This is what the project would look like 

The developer included 20 per cent – or 161 – affordable homes in the plan, which is below what officers said was acceptable.

Officers called the scheme “overdevelopment”, and said in their recommendation to councillors: “The tower would be an incongruous form of development, unacceptably dominating and overbearing to General Gordon Square and the surrounding townscape and Woolwich Town Centre.

“The proposed development would provide an insufficient amount of onsite affordable housing as well as providing no onsite social rented units.”

In response to the petition, deputy leader of the council Dan Thorpe said: “It is important to clarify this was a decision from the applicant to push that legal challenge and in order to protect the interests of the council reviewing this application we had no choice but to act the way that we did.

“Obviously this council is determined to make sure this regeneration does involve local people and and is about delivering in particularly social and affordable housing for people. We want have been campaigning for this in our own manifesto to give us more powers to build social housing that everybody so clearly wants.”

Meyer Homes told News Shopper earlier this week: “Our proposal has been thoughtfully designed to support this regeneration by providing good quality homes and employment opportunities to the area. We are working through how we can deliver as many affordable homes as possible to help support accessible living in the town centre and also reviewing how we can deliver the proposed workspace for starter businesses again to encourage economic development and jobs.

“As part of our ongoing review and following recent feedback, we have been testing a lower scale building on Phase 3, opposite General Gordon Square which we are now discussing with the Council. Once we have had further local consultation we will be able to assess how the project can move forwards to complete this exciting new quarter for Woolwich.”