Developer offers £5,000 to Hounslow Park to make up for lack of communal space in flats – plan rejected

Hounslow Council has rejected a developer’s planning application to add two extra storeys to a block of flats after councilors said approval would set a “dangerous precedent”. Whitelocke House on Lampton Road, Hounslow is a converted commercial space with 32 homes – the developer’s plan was to add a further eight and use a local park to compensate for the lack of communal space for residents.

However, the plan received 13 reactions from neighbours, including people who live below the planned extension. Three of them attended the meeting at Hounslow House to explain their opposition.

They told councilors the building was already experiencing maintenance issues, including the lift constantly needing repairs, roof leaks, the building shaking when planes fly overhead and poor waste management. One opponent said, “(Management) cannot keep up with the current demands of the current number of residents.” This, they said, was despite the landlord “doubling the service charge”.

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He added that the lack of waste management means “our flats stink, to put it bluntly”. Residents reasoned that if the building’s population density were to increase, it would only deepen the problems faced by many.

Neighbors were also worried about living under a construction site for months. Representing the developer, it insisted it meets the standards required for things like bins, as does its expansion plan.

The project representative added that steps will be taken to limit the amount of disruption construction will cause, including a dust and noise management plan and building parts of the project off-site.

He added that the plan “provides much-needed housing”. However, concerns about population density resonated with councilors who had their own issues with the amount of space offered to residents of the new flats.

In the plan, recommended for approval, the developer would have to pay a fee to compensate for not providing enough common space for new residents. This meant a payment of around £5,300 to Lampton Park management, which was to be used for outdoor space by new residents who did not have enough shared space at home.

Cllr John Stroud-Turp focused on the plan’s use of Lampton Park to appear to bend regulatory rules. “Personally, I’m not sure that’s a road we’d want to go down that much because it opens the door to any park being a usable shared space.”

Cllr Tony Louki said the payment to the park should be at least doubled and that the developer had given up “lightly”. Cllr Stroud-Turp echoed this sentiment saying it would be “dangerous” to set a precedent where this is acceptable and adding that residents “deserve better”.

“How much would it actually cost a developer to put in 95m2? A lot more than £5,000, in fact, probably 10 times £5,000,” he said. “We are bought into it by bringing Lampton Park into the mix. £5,000 wouldn’t even get us a new set of signs for Lampton Park, let alone new facilities.”

After some back-and-forth between council officers and the meeting chair, the vote was advanced and the plan rejected.

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