Opportunity for World Class Stand at the Oval Spurned

• Londoners hope to save open space and light from large corporation

• Landmark Scheme thwarted by investor's constraints

• Hotel to dwarf social housing with damaging impact on quality of life for local residents

• No Environmental Impact Assessment for the scheme, inspite of green stance of landlord, Prince Charles

• Local residents angered at "Sham Consultation"

• Residents supportive of a genuine world class scheme

Londoners hope to save open space and light from large corporation.

A group of local residents are objecting to plans to build a multi storey hotel which will cut out all light to their homes and deprive them of privacy.

The proposed development by Arora Hotels, a 170 room 5 storey hotel is only metres away from a highly residential community with families and young children.  ‘We were promised a world class development and this is not what has been proposed’ says Lisa Young, Chair of the residents group United Friends of Oval (UfO).

 UfO is objecting to the development on the grounds that the community were not consulted regarding the scale and impact of the development on people’s ordinary lives.  Residents were only informed about the plans in February while works are proposed to begin in September.  The very day residents were first being consulted plans were already being prepared for submission to Lambeth Council.

‘We do not object to regeneration in the area however it should be done in a way that is sensitive to the residents of the Oval Ward’, says Lisa Young.

Residents are concerned that according to current plans their homes will be in darkness by midday.  In addition there are 6 schools within half a mile and parents are concerned about the introduction of strangers to the area.

Residents have written to Prince Charles who is the Oval’s landlord.  Representatives of the Duchy of Cornwall have visited the residents and the site however this did not greatly influence the plans.

Plans have been submitted to Lambeth Council and residents only have 2 weeks of opportunity to stop this horrific monstrosity on their doorstep from being approved, still they have formed a community group and have hope that Lambeth Council will hear their plea.

For more information and interviews with local residents:

www.unitedfriendsofoval.co.uk

Phone Lisa 07910 251 788

Pictures of the development and more detailed information are available on request.

Landmark scheme thwarted by investors’ constraints

Faced with the opportunity to develop a new world class stand in time for the ashes series of 2009, Surrey County Cricket Club have submitted a planning application for a massive hotel, infilling the open spaces at the South East corner of the ground.

The stand is funded by the Arora Hotel Group, whose condition of engagement is that a 170 room hotel be squeezed into the crammed South East corner of the ground immediately behind the stand.

The proposed development is no match for the distinctive grace of the landmark OCS development at the North end of the Ground. According to one Lambeth resident, the planned building "looks like the old Lambeth Workhouse, not a world class Stadium."

Even the scheme's architects agree.  At a recent “consultation” one of them told a resident that the business constraints had left no scope to create a beautiful building.

Hotel to dwarf social housing with damaging impact on quality of life for local residents

The hotel's rooms will overlook and overshadow the flats of longstanding residents of Lohmann and Lockwood house. Its delivery and waste disposal access are sited on the narrow road at Kennington Oval, less than 20m from the front of Lohmann House. This will create substantial disruption to the lives of residents at very unsocial hours. The mass and proximity of the building will also deprive an estimated 450 residents of Lohmann and Lockwood house of a substantial propoportion of the daylight they currently enjoy. On the ground floor, flats will be deprived almost entirely of direct sunlight.

No Environmental Impact Assessment for the scheme, in spite of green stance of landlord, Prince Charles

It’s built on Duchy of Cornwall Land, but the proposed hotel is environmentally out of date - far from the landmark Green development which the developers claim and which the values of the Duchy would suggest. The developers have not even commissioned an Environmental Impact Assessment for the scheme.

Local residents angered at "Sham consultation"

Letters have been sent to residents but no serious attempt has been made to engage or act upon their reactions to the scheme.

Two consultations have taken place - one in February, the other in July, after plans had already been submitted to the Council. At the February consultation, residents were told that the plans were sketchy, that the building would be less massive and that residents' reactions would be incorporated into the next stage. At the July consultation, the model was more massive. Apart from a slight change in colour, residents say that none of their suggestions had been incorporated. It transpired that the submitted plans had themselves been drawn on February 1st, before the initial consultation from which they had been withheld. At every stage, the consultation has been dealt with as cynical management exercise rather than a collaboration which might actually improve a scheme.

Residents supportive of a genuine world class scheme

Angered residents remain supportive of the ambitions of SCCC to build a world class stand at the South End of the Ground and are campaigning for:

1.      Proper consultation with local residents about the development of a new stand.

2.   Proper research and consultation on the impact of a substantial new hotel development on the area.

3.   An architectural competition to produce a scheme which matches the grace, beauty and landmark status of the OCS stand at the North End of the Ground.

4.   An undertaking that any proposed scheme be subject to an Environmental Impact Assessment before permission is given.