Brentford Voice Urge Residents to Attend Planning Committee

This Thursday to see decision made on Ballymore's car park

The Planning Committee will consider the planning application for the car park on Thursday 1st August at Hounslow House, 7 Bath Road, Hounslow, TW3 3EB. The meeting starts at 7.30 p.m. and the agenda is a busy one with the car park being the eighth item to be considered. The full agenda and the car park item can be found on Hounslow site.

Members of the public can speak to the item but only if a request to do so had been lodged by Friday last week. Brentford Voice will address the committee but it is unlikely that we will have more than 2 minutes to do so.

However there is strength in numbers and if any readers of this update would like to attend the meeting then that would be most valuable. You should be aware that it could be a long evening. We would suggest that you bring some water or drinks as drinks are not available in the building.

Brentford Voice would like to emphasise that this is the first of many planning applications that will emerge for the area south of the High Street and elsewhere in Brentford. We are therefore keen to ensure that we get off to a good start and any demonstrations, shouting, or talking out of turn would be very counter-productive.

The planning application under consideration on Thursday is for “reserved matters”. This means that the principle of the development is not up for debate and the matters to be agreed deal only with scale, appearance, means of access, layout, and appearance.

Brentford Voice has examined the planning history of this development which was permitted in 2015 and for which much of the technical work was done three years earlier than that. We do not believe that we can raise a credible objection to the principle of the development or, indeed, to the general principles of its size and massing and its use mainly as a car park. These aspects do indeed appear to have the benefit of planning permission.

However, we will watch with great interest for any further response from the Mayor of London who was scathing in his report on the temporary car park on the grounds of its adverse impact on air quality and traffic. The planning application under consideration on Thursday is for a permanent car park but logic would suggest that the Mayor’s views on that would be even stronger. We understand that talks have been going on between the Mayor’s office, the developers, and the planners at Hounslow but we are not privy to those discussions.

Within these limitations Brentford Voice has made a number of points whereby we hope to reduce the height of the building, albeit not by a great amount, and improve its external appearance. We will underline the need to have a free “stop and shop” period in the car park once work on the Morrisons site had begun. We will also point to the “canyon” effect that will be created in this part of the High Street when two large developments (the car park and the L&Q development on the Morrisons site), each over 30 metres in height, will be separated by only about 20 metres of pavements and road.

Finally, we will reiterate our very strong belief in the need to appoint a Town Centre Manager to plan, co-coordinate and lead in implementing a programme of improvements, actions and innovations for Brentford town centre as a whole, including the land to the south of the High Street.

If you interested in becoming involved with Brentford Voice please email caseym@blueyonder.co.uk

Brentford Voice

July 30, 2019