200 Great Dover Street

This was flagged up on another thread, but seems to warrant a thread of its own. Plans are afoot to build another tall structure on Great Dover St where it meets Long Lane.

http://planningonline.southwarksites.com/planningonline2/AcolNetCGI.exe?ACTION=UNWRAP&RIPNAME=Root.PgeResultDetail&TheSystemkey=9531067

You're right, Longlaner.

Just to recap from the other thread for those who haven't seen it:

Last year Helical Bar bought Conoco House at 200 Great Dover Street from CLS Holdings for £8.7 million.

This is the current 5-storey building on the site:

Which has a number of small occupiers including the London College of Accountancy and USPG.

I can foresee people in the Empire Square tower being a bit uncertain about such a tall structure so close, but it's early days, of course.

I see the planning application says the 19 storey building will be "student accommodation". Whose students - do we know?

Few will mourn the loss of the current building (unless the Friends of Curtain Walling have recently been set up as a new heritage pressure group!), but since when has it been the case that plans for a 19 storey building could be approved at officer level with no planning committee involvement.

Southwark planning website wrote:

Expected decision level: Delegated Officer

LR - It's only a screening opinion request to see whether the development would need an Environmental Impact Assessment - not a full application.

Quite normal for it to be an officer decision.

Apparently no Environmental Impact Assessment is required. It will be interesting to see local residents' and businesses' views once the actual plans are up for discussion?

James Hatts wrote:

LR - It's only a screening opinion request to see whether the development would need an Environmental Impact Assessment - not a full application.

Failed to spot that - but why would a developer be asking for an EIA screening on such a development???

When a full planning app does turn up, as well as the obvious visual impact of the tower, IMO there need to be some touch conditions about archaeology.

Given that the scandalously curtailed 2006 excavations under St George's crypt found that the layout of the roman road was not as expected, even after the 2002 dig at Tabard Square which found the Londinium plaque, there could still be some interesting finds undisturbed by the piling for the 60s building.

The officers' report is now online.

I wasn't aware that there is an implemented permission on the site dating from 2002 for 567 flats + retail + leisure.

I think the implemented planning permission referred to is for Tabard Square which is described in the report as an 'adjoining site'.

It seems to me that although Southwark have decided that an EIA isn't necessary a building of the size proposed will have a considerable impact on the immediate area!

Doh - of course - I read it too quickly and assumed it was another of these 'dig a trench, lay a metal rod and its implemented forever' planning permissions.