A plan to build a block of 74 flats on Snaresbrook station car park has been published following TfL’s decision to sell the land for development.
Residents are being consulted on the plans at meetings next week. The developers, Pocket Living, say that all of the flats would be affordable – costing 20% less than local prices – and would be sold to first-time buyers.
It would be the developer’s second site in Wanstead, following the flats built at Gardner Close, behind the Bull pub.
Earlier this year that development won an award for “Best Use of Brownfield Land” at the 2022 Planning Awards. That site has 20 flats, so the new proposal is significantly larger.
Planning to build affordable homes I’d good but what about the immediate residents in the Snaresbrook area whose gardens backs on to the car park?
Their privacy and light access will be severely compromised.
My street – a few minutes walk from Snaresbrook station – is already used for parking by commuters, to the point where it is difficult for residents to park. I suppose it is too late, but this decision will only increase that pressure.
The site is too small. It will tower over the station which is one of the few stations that seems open and attractive. There will be nowhere for residents to park including wheelchair users and other disabled passengers who find the station helpful for accessing other parts of London. This should not go ahead.
I entirely agree with Helen Hewland’s comments. Where are people to park at the station of near their own homes, who have limited mobility which compromises their ability to do otherwise? Has our country become so self focussed we don’t care about our impact on anyone but ourselves? This is another short term “solution” to tfl s finances forced on them by a government that refuses to acknowledge that ownership of railways should be in public hands as it is in other countries. The planning system was brought in to put public needs first…after the nation realised the need for the community ownership of the key features of a properly run country. Many today have forgotten this massive lesson learnt in the past at great human cost. Be wise. Read history. Building these flats is not some charitable action but another of private greed. We all know affordable is never affordable for the vast majority presently unable to afford their own home and has social costs, e.g. affect on local environment, that the developers will never pay.
When I objected to the Gardner Close scheme, I was told, Sadiq Khan wants it, so it will go ahead. All objectives were ignored.