Sheerness Royal Dockyard

Issue
Proposal for additional housing in the grounds of Dockyard Terrace, officers' accommodation dating from the 1820s and one of the very few remaining parts of the historic dockyard at Sheerness.

Our view
The planned additional development was over-intensive; there was scope here for a conservation-based scheme which respected the historic configuration of the surviving dockyard and the plan form of Dockyard Terrace. The historic dockyard had been grievously maltreated in the second half of the twentieth century, but there was an opportunity here to make amends in part, and kick-start lasting regeneration in Sheerness, by treating the historic dock buildings (including the Commissioners' House, shown here) as the centrepiece of a sympathetic scheme that drew lessons from the success upstream at Chatham. The Georgian Group has played an active part in promoting such a scheme as an alternative to the current proposals.

Result
Success! The site threatened by unsympathetic development was acquired in its entirety by the Spitalfields Trust in March 2011 and will be fully restored. Read more...

Southgate Grove, Enfield

Issue
Lodge extensions are a staple of our casework – the host lodges are detached and desirable for family use but are often too small for the purpose – but the planned addition to this small 1800 lodge to Nash’s Southgate Grove (now know as Grovelands), is not, as it stands, one that we will be holding up as a model.

Our view
The lodge has been a modest, single-bedroomed house since the conversion of Grovelands to a hospital but the current proposal is to double its size by adding an identical, linked building alongside. As often with lodges, the building’s significance and architectural coherence consist principally in its small, self-contained form, which would be fatally compromised by the aggrandizement necessary for it to function as a modern family home.

Result
Pending.

Hammersmith Mall

Issue
The London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham are currently considering plans for the redevelopment of the site around their listed town hall in King Street to provide housing and offices.

Our view
We have no difficulty with this in principle, but we are concerned about the impact of a planned thirteen storey tower on Hammersmith Mall and its listed Georgian buildings and have accordingly objected to that element of the scheme. Tall buildings are so much in vogue that they are incorporated in these kinds of schemes almost automatically, without due consideration being given either to the impact on wider views or to the fact that, with thoughtful design, high density is achievable without building high.

Result
Pending.