Battersea Reach Pathway -2021/5234
The Battersea Society objects to this application. As we set out in detail below with regard to the Mendip/Chatfield Road pathway and the garden alongside it, both the current situation and the changes proposed in the application are in conflict with the policies relating to the riverside set out both in the current Local Plan and in the new draft Local Plan; and they are wholly unacceptable. We strongly support the Council’s policies to enhance both public access to the riverside and the volume and quality of public realm. This application seeks to do precisely the opposite.
The provision of public access via a pathway running from the corner of Mendip Road and Chatfield Road to the river walkway was part of the planning application 2006/4533, and it is reflected in the s106 agreement between the Council and St George Battersea Reach Ltd signed on 2 January 2008 (not 2 June as stated in Russell Cooke’s letter of 19 November). The position remained unchanged by subsequent deeds of variation.
In the deed of variation of December 2014, the access is shown clearly on Plan E, with the pathway indicated as an 'unadopted right of way maintained by the landowner'; and restricted access to the garden alongside the path is also indicated.
The deed of variation of 11 May 2018 again shows the pathway clearly on Plan D as a public access area, with the garden alongside as accessible (along with two other garden areas largely surrounded by buildings, and a third behind the garage on York Road between 9am and half an hour after sunset each day.
We are not aware of any subsequent documents that alter that position. The barrier at the corner of Mendip and Chatfield Roads is thus non-compliant, as are the locked gates and the notices stating that there is no public right of access from the pathway alongside the south-west of the garden either to the garden itself or to the rest of the pathway towards Chatfield Road. The recent attempt to bar access to the pathway by locking the gate from the riverside walk is largely pointless, since alternative access can be gained by walking round the front of Ensign House. The pathway alongside the south-west of the garden thus remains as an ill-lit dead-end and an invitation to anti-social behaviour and worse.
The letter from Russell Cooke refers to an "Application Document dated 6 October 2021". Since that document is not included in the papers on the planning portal, we have to rely on the letter itself to ascertain what is proposed. The letter states that the “Application to Vary seeks to change two out of four curfew areas (the Ensign Garden and Genoa Garden) to “private amenity areas”, meaning that public access is not permitted in the Ensign Garden and Genoa Garden. For the other two curfew areas, we are proposing to change the wording so that these are open to the public from 6am – 10pm each day (the purpose of this is to ensure clarity over when these areas are open to the public, as “half an hour after sunset” is too vague).”
We have to guess from the two plans available on the portal which are the Ensign and Genoa Gardens, but we presume that they must be respectively the ones a) alongside the closed pathway and b) hemmed in by Flotilla House, the garage on York Road, and the Access Storage site. Any public access to the latter could be gained at present only via yet another locked gateway in front of Flotilla House; and we are unclear whether the planning applications and consents relating to the redevelopment of Access Storage and the garage would involve demolition of the walls that currently prevent access to Genoa Garden from any other direction.
For the present we are prepared to accept what we understand to be the proposal to restrict public access to Genoa Gardens. We are prepared also to accept the proposal that public access to what are referred to as ‘the other two curfew areas’ should be restricted to between 6am and 10pm each day.
The proposal relating to the currently closed pathway from the riverside to Chatfield Road and Mendip Road, and the garden alongside it, is, however, completely unacceptable, and is unsupported by any evidence. The report from Security Risk Management Consultancy provides only a partial and generalised outline of a selected considerations relating to crime prevention, with nothing at all specific related to the pathway and garden. It ignores the widespread evidence that well-lit and regularly-used routes and spaces are among the best deterrents to crime; while poorly-lit culs-de-sac are precisely the opposite.
We trust that this application will be rejected, and that enforcement measures will be taken to open up the pathway and the garden