Stormy council meeting approves Landsec plans for Lewisham Shopping Centre

As widely predicted, Lewisham Council’s strategic planning committee gave its approval on Thursday 16 October to Landsec's plans to demolish Lewisham shopping centre and multi-storey car park and replace them with 1,744 homes, along with student accommodation, co-living homes and a new shopping mall.

Landsec are owners of the shopping centre and car park.

The planning committee granted unanimous approval, despite hearing strong objections from a representative of Lewisham House and from Lewisham People's Assembly, who have started a campaign to save Lewisham shopping centre.

The meeting became heated at times, with two members of the public gallery removed by Lewisham Council security staff.

A presentation of the planning application led to a number of questions from councillors, ranging from how local cyclists would be consulted over the Section 106 agreement relating to pedestrian and cycle improvements, through to details of how the new music venue would operate. 

However, the bulk of questions asked by councillors centred on the level of affordable housing being offered by the development, which will provide just 16% of affordable housing. Lewisham Council’s Local Plan states that that the threshold level of affordable housing is a minimum of 35%. 

In seeking to defend the level of affordable housing diverging from Lewisham’s Local Plan, the council's Major and Strategic Projects Manager claimed that the level of affordable housing was the “maximum viable offer, determined by the council viability consultants and the Greater London Authority (GLA)”.

When the meeting moved on to hear directly from Landsec, the questioning by councillors widened to cover issues relating to car parking provision, the proposed community café and the impact the development would have on Lewisham market.

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In response to questioning by Councillor Paschoud (Perry Vale ward) regarding concerns raised by Lewisham Cyclists, the applicant provided an assurance that they would look again at the details of east west crossings through the development.

In objecting to the application, the representative for Lewisham House - which has a 900-year lease on the Citibank tower on Molesworth Centre - urged the committee to defer Landsec’s planning application.

He highlighted that their own proposals for the tower were carbon saving and would deliver housing earlier than the Landsec proposal, in part because their plans avoided a timely and expensive compulsory purchase process.

Although they would not be building affordable housing, their plan ensured early delivery of affordable housing "through a payment in lieu arrangement", while they pointed out that Landsec’s proposals only delivered affordable housing at the later stages of the development.

The committee also heard from a representative of Lewisham People's Assembly, who berated the scheme’s low level of affordable housing. This led to further questioning on this subject by councillors, with the most intensive questions coming from Councillor Tam of Evelyn Ward.

As the meeting came to an end, the proposal to approve the planning application with outline plans was put forward by Councillor Paschoud and seconded by Councillor Bernards of Forest Hill ward.  

However, even the voting process even had an element of controversy with Councillor Parry and Councillor Tam both restricted from voting on grounds that they had not been present throughout the whole of the meeting. 

Following the unanimous vote in favour by the remaining six members of the Strategic Planning Committee, Councillor Tam informed members of the public that her restriction on voting had been because she had briefly left the room “for a toilet break and to cough outside.”

The committee papers for the meeting, including a last minute addendum can be found here, with a recording of the meeting here.

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