Wimbledon Park Residents Association

WPRA responses to the latest Greyhound Stadium consultation – submitted to the Council on the 7th October.

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Thanks to the hard work done by Peter West and Michael Tyler of our planning group, the following responses were submitted to the LBM planning department on the 7th October.

Here is the content of the Summary response. The pdfs of the other reports can be found below the letter

Attention Sabah Halli
Development Control
London Borough of Merton
Merton Civic Centre
London Road
Morden
SM4 5DX 7th October 2015

Re: Planning application 14/P4361: Redevelopment of the Wimbledon Greyhound Stadium

Summary Response to the revision of the AFC/Galliard Homes Application

Dear Sabah Halli

The Applicants have submitted revised plans. However, the changes are of a somewhat
superficial nature and do not alter the main elements of their plans. Consequently, the
changes do not address the previous objections of the Wimbledon Park Residents’
Association, or indeed the objections of several statutory public bodies. As such, the previous
objections of the WPRA submitted for the original AFC/Galliard Homes application still
hold. We now summarise our comments on the revised application.

Transport:
Our initial objections still stand. Approval is still being sought for a major development proposal without providing any meaningful upgrades to transport infrastructure despite the prospect of 1500 new residents and 20,000 football supporters entering and leaving the stadium and housing on match days. Additional traffic data analysis from the Applicants confirms that the existing road network is congested and the Plough Lane/Haydons Road junction is already operating in excess of capacity. The development proposal is acknowledged to make matters much worse and the proposed mitigation works to Haydons Road are undeliverable by Merton’s transport official. We share TfL’s view that the unverified data obtained from South West Trains which shows adequate capacity on weekends services is most likely inaccurate and are very concerned that whilst TfL acknowledges that road closures will be necessary at the end of matches in the stadium, the application, instead of proposing infrastructure and design solutions, proposes absolutely nothing to mitigate the impact of the crowds on pedestrian walkways and existing pinch points. As is the case for much of the identified shortcomings, despite the time allowed for the applicant to address these concerns, there is still no solution for the lack of provision for coach parking on the site. This would indicate that there are no solutions and the resulting impact on Wandsworth, Tooting and Merton will be complete chaos.

Flooding:
We do not agree with the discussion of the Applicants in the revised plans concerning the sequential and exceptional tests and we conclude that their plans do not pass these tests. Given the overdevelopment of the site in the Applicants plans we remain unconvinced by their new calculations that claim to show that their plans lead to greater flood water storage than the site has at present. We do not think that the applicant can use unpublished information on the
flooding modelling of the River Wandle and we consider that our previous objections to building 602 residential units in a functional flood plain still hold. The site is subject to frequent surface water flooding and flooding from the River Wandle. When the latter occcurs the site is
very likely to also be subject to the former and the flood water modelling should be carried out assuming that both are present. Given the uncertainties in the estimates of future flood risk, it would be prudent not to accept a plan that overdevelops the site and proposes to store flood water in underground car parks, but rather one that is smaller in scale and possesses a natural mechanism to store flood water.

Retail:
We object to the provision of the retail unit on the grounds that it fails to meet the criteria set in Merton’s retail policy DM R2. This proposal is not a replacement for an existing unit and the Applicants fail to take into account the other retail units already proposed within the 5 minute isotope from the site. Merton have already granted 405 sq.m. of retail through application no. 14/P3578 and there’s a Lidl proposed by Blackrock on the Plough Lane Retail Park opposite the site, both of which are considered more suitable locations for a convenience food store.

Schools, GP provision and heritage:
The Applicants persist with their arguments that there is no need for the provision of new school places or GP’s and our previous objections on these subjects and heritage still hold.
Yours sincerely

WPRA Summary response

WPRA Flooding response0

WPRA Transport response

WPRA Retail response