1 Creekside planning application

A planning application has been submitted for the corner site of Creekside/Deptford Church Street for a mixed use development of housing and commercial units.

The land on which the development is proposed, opposite the Birds Nest pub, is currently occupied by the MOT centre at 1 Creekside, and the adjoining unoccupied area which the council fenced off with hoardings a year or more ago. This council-owned land was sold to developer Bluecroft, which owns 1 Creekside, under a deal which will see the council leasing back the commercial space on a long-term basis to generate an income.

I hope that the council has fully tested the viability of its plan, given the amount of new office and commercial space in the area that is either still empty, or just coming on stream. A number of spaces in the Deptford Market Yard building right next to the station still remain unlet, with the starter units in the market yard itself exhibiting a fairly high churn rate.  New developments on Creekside such as the high-spec, high-rent Fuel Tank at Faircharm and the Artworks spaces at the other end of the Creekside (and the other end of the rental spectrum) mean that the market is becoming somewhat saturated. 

It's a fairly small strip of land and the council's commercial space is intended to occupy an overheight ground floor which accommodates a mezzanine level, so the buildings have to be quite large in order to accommodate just 56 residential units. No matter how you cut it, this is going to have quite an impact on its neighbours. The architects have split it into two 'cores' with the intention of giving it a bit more character than a single block.

They've incorporated a yard at ground level which goes through between the two cores and around the back to Creekside. The documents show all kinds of nice landscaping, although I'm not entirely clear what a 'rain garden' is and the landscaping is often the bit that gets cut back when the penny pinching starts. What is intended to be a pleasant space for those who use it, more often turns into a drafty, litter-strewn wasteland. 

Talking of aspirational landscaping, there are a lot of trees shown on the renderings. Past experience suggests that when it comes to actually planting trees outside new developments there are a myriad reasons why they don't materialise - and considering that this development involves the loss of trees on the existing land, let's hope that the planners are willing to enforce their provision if the proposal gets permission.

You can find the details of the planning application via the council's planning portal by searching the reference number DC/18/106708; the official deadline for objections has passed but objections can be submitted up to the date of the committee hearing at which the application will be considered.

Stephen Lawrence Centre fences to go!

It's not often that I am sufficiently moved to put an exclamation mark in a headline, but when I discovered that the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust had submitted a planning application for new landscaping around its building on Brookmill Road, and when I realised that this new landscaping includes TEARING DOWN THE FENCES, my heart sang.

I've always felt that this was a woefully unfriendly building - even finding the entrance door can be a challenge - and the fencing around it makes it look more like a Northern Irish police station at the height of the Troubles than the community building it is intended to be. This may be the reason I've never been inside. I don't dislike the building itself, just the overtly unwelcoming face it offers to its neighbours. 

Unfortunately the building was vandalised just a week after opening in 2008; the huge wall of glass designed by Chris Ofili was smashed by bricks thrown from outside the perimeter in what was dubbed a racist attack at the time. The fences failed to prevent the attack - finally they are going to be removed and hopefully the centre will start to have a more neighbourly relationship with the local area. 

First phase of the centre's reinvention was this week's launch of the new 'co-working' space which featured in Wallpaper magazine. It seems that the next phase will address the poor public realm on the site itself, and its relationship with Deptford.

There's not much in the way of renderings in the planning application, but the main change is going to be the removal of the steel fences and the gates, with just a low wall retained. A new pedestrian  route into the site will be created right in front of the building entrance, and a range of landscaping, picnic tables and raised planting will be installed within the site. On the Brookmill Park boundary there will be raised allotment beds.

I look forward to getting a full length view of the magnificent windows. 

Lights out over Deptford

How many of you visited the wonderful Lumiere festival of light in town last weekend? I hope you got your fill of awe-inspiring illumination as you ain't going to get much in SE8, not even the bog standard stuff. 

With bitter irony, as Deptford's night-time economy takes an upturn, its public lighting seems to be going head-first down the pan.

Of all of Deptford's public areas, Giffin Square is surely the one most generously provided with lighting facilities. As well as eight towering lamp standards which each carry five or six lights on the top, the square also has small lights set in some of the stone cubes, and strip lights place randomly between the paving stones in the square.

Hard to imagine when this is the scene after dark in Deptford's main square. The north side of the square, in front of Costa Coffee, is pitch black.

Out of more than 40 lights on the eight lamp standards in the square JUST TWO are actually working, shining pitifully down on this gloomy landscape.

Luckily floor level is lit sufficiently to prevent pedestrians tripping over the randomly-placed blocks of granite, but almost everything else is in shadow.

What exactly is the point of having a lamp post with six lights on the top if you can't be arsed to replace the bulbs? 

Walk a bit further and you start to suspect this is not just a one-off fail. 

Douglas Square was refurbished with those odd hanging lights a few years back - four sets of cables each with three lights strung between poles to illuminate the market square. 

Or not. 

ONLY HALF of the lights in Douglas Square are working - six out of twelve unlit and no sign of them having replacement bulbs any time soon. 

As if that's not bad enough, anyone walking to New Cross station has to pass through yet another square of gloom on their journey.

The infamous 'public realm' (I use the term advisedly) outside the Waldron Centre is also cast into shadow as soon as the sun sets. There are four streetlights in the square, only one of which continues to shine doggedly onto the uneven and unfinished asphalt with its dead trees.

The lamp in the photo below may look like it's on, but in fact it's just being lit up by the lights behind the lettering.

Street lighting in Lewisham is the responsibility of Skanska and John Laing, who took it on in a huge 25 year PFI contract in 2011.

Lewisham Council's website includes an online reporting form which also lists the faults that might occur. Some of them - including any situation where three consecutive lights are out of order - are classified as 'emergencies'. These can only be reported by calling the freephone number, and the contractor promises a one-hour response to fix them.

Having struggled with this 'reporting' system in the past, I'm not surprised to hear from a correspondent who says they reported the Giffin Square lighting fail several weeks ago. So much for a one-hour response - surely it's just a case of putting new bulbs in?

Looks like we're going to remain in the dark for some time yet. Anyone want to do the mushroom joke?

'Liveable neighbourhood' plans for Deptford Park and environs

Late last year Deptford Folk (the user group for Deptford Park and Folkestone Gardens) got the welcome news that a bid for funding from TfL had been successful. The bid was developed in partnership with Sustrans and proposes a number of improvements to walking and cycling routes in and around the parks - some of them quite substantial projects in their own right.

The money is coming from the 'liveable neighbourhoods' fund and the first tranche will be used to cover the cost of further feasibility studies, with a second slice paid out later for the actual work, presumably depending on the projects being proved feasible - a potential total of £2.9 million for these schemes.

The overall package includes six 'Copenhagen Crossings' (improved road crossings for cyclists and pedestrians) at locations around the parks, and seven more substantial 'interventions' which involve improving existing cycle routes, and creating and opening up new ones, among other things.

One of the flagship 'interventions' which would impact directly on access to Folkestone Gardens is improvement of the existing crossing of Rolt Street, which links the Woodpecker estate (and the pedestrian and cycle route through it) to the gardens.

Although this already exists as a raised crossing, and is on the bend of a road ostensibly with a 20mph speed limit, anyone who uses it will know that this counts for very little. A lot of traffic uses this route as a cut-through, especially in the rush hours, and much of it takes this corner way too fast. There is no refuge or island to slow drivers down, and visibility is poor for anyone coming out of the park, due to the bend in the road and the density of parked cars outside the houses.

Last year Sustrans held a public workshop which involved restricting the road width with some cunningly-arranged straw bales, and inviting school groups and passers by to experience the new road environment and give their feedback on the idea.

During this 'temporary street event' Sustrans also recorded the number and speed of vehicles that passed in both directions - this was collected over a seven day period, 24 hours a day, including the day of the event. Data (which is published in the report here) showed a reduction in traffic speed of around 23% in one direction and 17% in the other at the counter nearest to the restriction. 

I'm curious as to whether this speed reduction would be a permanent outcome of the traffic calming measures that Sustrans is proposing. How much of the speed reduction was down to drivers wondering why there were bales of straw in the road, and kids were prone on the road behind them? Don't speeds just creep back up once drivers get accustomed to new driving conditions? I presume Sustrans has monitored what has happened in other schemes, and I'd be keen to know how it pans out in the long term.

One of the other major projects that the funding will be used to investigate is the plan to create a new cycle route under Evelyn Street, right next to the Blackhorse pub. This route will provide a safe route for cyclists and pedestrians between the parks and estates on the west side of Evelyn Street and the riverside paths and parks of the Pepys estate and Surrey Docks.

It is a collaboration between Deptford Folk, Sustrans, the Ramblers Association, Lewisham Cyclists and Lewisham Council and would create a new route along the line of the former Surrey Canal.

I'm particularly excited about this as when I looked back in the archive I realised I've been banging on about it for seven years now. Seven years! Turns out I've got stamina!

You can read my initial blog post here which includes a photo of the bridge parapet, and a subsequent one here, in which I remarked on improvements to the layout of the buildings proposed for the Wharves development (now the Timberyard) which would make this route a possibility.

It will also build on Deptford Folk's subsequent work which involved objecting against the planning application for the Shurgard storage facility that has just been built at the end of Blackhorse Road. If this application had passed in its original form, the building would have obstructed the proposed route. But Deptford Folk was successful in challenging the application, with the result that the building footprint was moved slightly to leave space for a cycle route on the west side of the road.

With the recent funding award we may at last find out how feasible this idea is, and perhaps even see it brought to fruition in the near future.

More details of the Deptford Folk plans can be seen on the web page here, and if it's something you want to get involved with, they also have an email newsletter you can sign up to, so you'll be kept in the loop. 

The anchor cometh

The imminent return of the anchor to Deptford High Street is a demonstration that people power really can make a difference - although you do have to be incredibly bloody-minded and tenacious, particularly if it involves dealing with local councils.

Luckily Deptford has got more than its fair share of bloody-minded and tenacious folk, some of whom were not willing to take no for an answer after the council removed the anchor from the south end of the high street during the renovation works in 2013.

The anchor was a much-loved reminder of Deptford's maritime past; it might not have originated from a Deptford-built ship, but it provided a symbolic link to the prosperous days of Deptford's Royal Dockyard and local people did not take kindly to it being removed. Long term followers of this blog may recall that I was particularly narked about the consultation that took place before its removal; the consultation included a question about what should happen to the anchor, and 84% of respondents agreed that it should remain in Deptford.

However council officers chose to interpret this as supporting the permanent relocation of the anchor to Convoys Wharf - something I'll wager not a single one of those respondents even considered would be an option.

Lobbying for its return has been a long and complex process, with the usual meetings, petitions and lobbying being interspersed Deptford-stylee with parades, street interviews, posters, paper bags, tattoos, chalk and red tape - both literally and figuratively. If you want to read all the ins and outs, they are set out in minute detail on the Deptford Is Forever website. Tireless efforts by DIF and the Deptford Society were fundamental to getting this issue resolved, despite repeated efforts by council officers and even some council members to obfuscate, delay and derail the process.

Cutting a long story short, the upshot of all this activity is that a mere five years since being removed (a drop in the ocean of Deptford's history) the anchor will be restored almost to the exact spot, but without the plinth that created a handy seating area for Deptford's street drinkers.

As we all predicted, the street drinkers did not magically disappear when the anchor was removed - they just relocated to other places in the high street where they had somewhere to sit - Giffin Street and Douglas Square are firm favourites now.

Anchor and plinth - ideal for an alfresco pint

Anchor no plinth - not so comfy

Current ETA is February although don't hold your breath; the ETA has slipped a few times already, but there's no reason to think it won't happen. Planning applications have been submitted and approved, funds have been found (from the appropriate part of the community infrastructure levy, one assumes) contractors have been briefed and all they have to do now is get Hutchison Whampoa to let them on the site to pick up the anchor for a good wash and brush up ready for its triumphant return. 

I'll certainly be raising a glass (discreetly of course) to celebrate.

The scandal of Deptford's empty homes and abandoned public realm

When Lewisham Council spends £4 million annually on providing temporary accommodation, and the borough has one of the highest levels of rough sleepers in London, why are newly-built apartments allowed to stand empty?

And why is the council allowing the same developers to wriggle out of their commitments to improve public realm, plant trees and provide disabled parking spaces?

This development on the corner of New Cross Road and Watson's Street has been finished for more than a year now.

The red brick building which faces onto New Cross Road and the smaller, grey/brown bricked block are part of the same development by Kitewood Estates which created a total of 44 new homes; 35 for private ownership and 9 for social rent. The flats for social rent are located in the lower block on Watson's Street, at the end of the development furthest from New Cross Road - the entrance, or 'poor door', to the social housing is in the extreme left of the picture below.

Not a single one of the private flats, which have separate entrances closer to New Cross Road, is occupied; they have lain empty since the block was finished. 

The entrance to the low-rise flats has a sign propped in the window warning that the properties are protected by a security firm; the corridor leading from the street to the flats on the main road still has protective covering on the floor and several notices in the door warning that entry is forbidden and giving a phone number for deliveries.

The casual passer-by might be forgiven for thinking that the blocks are still under construction - the large retail units at street level have been boarded up since being built, and the patchwork of footpath and public realm on Watson's Street is clearly nowhere near finished.

But the social housing is already occupied and the pavement has been like this for months. Surely this is not how it is supposed to be?

Indeed not - the planning application for the block (which was initially refused by Lewisham Council but which was passed at appeal) gives details of the soft landscaping and public realm improvements that the developer was promising.

You can get a clue from the rendering below, although for the full details it's necessary to go to the drawings.

The plans promise six semi-mature trees (five London Plane trees, and one Tulip Tree) and six Witch Hazel shrubs next to the block, to soften its hard edges no doubt. Three mature trees were removed so that the block could be built.

The soft landscaping was even made one of the conditions when the application was given permission at appeal. 

The inspector's report said:

All planting, seeding or turfing comprised in the landscaping scheme hereby approved shall be carried out in the first planting and seeding seasons following the occupation of the buildings, or the completion of the development, whichever is the sooner. Any trees or plants which within a period of 5 years from the completion of the development die, are removed or become seriously damaged or diseased, shall be replaced in the next planting season with others of similar size and species.

As well as soft landscaping, the plans included the creation of four disabled parking bays (the ground floor flats are designed to be accessible for wheelchairs) and a delivery bay, presumably to service the retail units and/or allow parking for refuse collections.

Instead there is a mish-mash of asphalt, a wave of shabby paving stones that hug the edge of the block for dear life, and remnants of the concrete pavement that dates back long before the building work started. If you're walking down here watch your step, especially if you are old or unsteady on your feet - pity the few new residents who have to negotiate it on a daily basis.

When developers fail to deliver on this kind of commitment, and bugger off leaving the job unfinished, it's down to the council's planning enforcement team to sort it out. Officers have the power to investigate breaches and ensure that developers don't get away with cutting corners.

But Lewisham Council's planning enforcement team had other ideas. After the Deptford Society brought it to their attention last year, an 'investigation' was launched.

A copy of the officer's report, which was issued to the Deptford Society last week when they chased the issue up, came into my possession.

The report makes interesting, if jaw-dropping, reading.

Responsibility for enforcing the construction of disabled parking bays was dismissed with the excuse that "if parking is required to make the scheme acceptable then it would have been specified by the planning inspector as a condition for the development".

As for the public realm the comments confirm they couldn't even be arsed to visit the site:

"The aerial photos shows that the soft landscaping scheme has been substantially implemented; to the extent that the aerial photos only show a minor difference to what was approved as part of the appeal decision. The information gathered as part of the desktop study demonstrates that the conditions have been substantially met, and that any breaches of the planning conditions are only minor in nature."

Allowing a public pavement to be left in this state can only be described as negligent - not to mention a personal injury claim waiting to happen. 

And who are the villains in the piece? Which money-grabbing developer is responsible for leaving newly-built flats empty while housing is in such short supply?

Ironically, while the original development was the work of Kitewood Estates and they are most likely responsible for the unfinished state of the public realm, since July 2016 the entire block has been owned by London & Quadrant Housing Trust, bought at a cost of nearly £15 million. 

Outdoor bars proposed for Deptford Market Yard

It took an embarrassingly long time for Deptford Market Yard to reach full completion, and there are still a few kinks that need properly ironing out (parking abuse etc), but overall the end result is pretty pleasing.

The quality of finish on the carriage ramp retail units is pretty good, and the public realm stuff is attractive and seems durable, excepting the flimsy bollards which have almost all been flattened by our local drivers and are currently being replaced. The trees add a very pleasant atmosphere to the yard and soften the somewhat hard edges of the brick, stone, steel and timber that is used throughout the rest of the landscaping. As they mature I think this will only improve.

I like the mix of independent tenants in the retail units, although I do worry how many of them are actually managing to make a living; the promised market has yet to materialise and although the managers of the yard seem to be putting on events now and again, I'm not confident it's enough to generate the footfall to bring sufficient business to these units.

There are also ongoing issues that demonstrate how poor the current management is. The flimsy bollards that were initially installed at each end of the yard were promptly battered and eventually flattened by manoeuvring drivers. Wholesale abuse ensued, and with no parking enforcement the yard rapidly turned into a car park. After weeks of nagging the management company put up parking notices, which has improved the situation somewhat, but the installation of the new bollards seems to be taking an unreasonably long time and there are still some serial parking abusers who are going unchallenged.

But the latest plan by owner U&I plc - to bookend the public spaces with two outdoor bars, one under a posh tarpaulin - seems to be heading in totally the wrong direction. If the planning application that has just been submitted gets the go-ahead, you can kiss goodbye to any opportunity to relax while you eat your sandwiches sitting on the benches in the dappled shade of the trees.

The proposals involve nothing more imaginative than dumping two converted shipping containers down on the new paving, and annexing a large proportion of what is currently public space under a fabric roof connected to the street lights and weighted down with huge water containers. Punters will sit at tables that can be folded away at night for storage, but the roof is intended to stay in place - a permanent temporary arrangement.

Permission for two 'bars' is sought - a large one outside the station and a smaller one down at the other end of the market yard, next to the lower part of the carriage ramp.

The larger one has a capacity of 150. 

The leaves of the trees will not be visible to anyone at ground level - the most visible and significant elements of the landscaping will be annexed to act as supports for a plastic tent to keep the rain off those wanting to indulge in what is essentially middle-class street-drinking. 

As well as being attached to the trees, the roof needs guy ropes to tie it down. The proposal suggests that large water containers will serve this purpose. You know the kind of thing.

The design and access statement which forms part of the planning application also suggests that plants in upcycled oil barrels will be dotted around the bar area, presumably to add a bit of greenery to make up for the greenery that you can no longer see. It proposes that patio heaters - one of the most environmentally-insensitive inventions ever - be used inside the tent. 

It also includes designs for the eight market stalls that will be placed opposite the existing carriage ramp, although this does seem a little like an afterthought. Six 'food trucks' will be parked between these stalls - on the diagram below, which has the high street at the bottom and the station top right, the yellow boxes are the bars, the red boxes the food trucks and the blue boxes the market stalls. 

The bar opposite the station would be placed right in front of one of only two public benches in the market yard, thus cutting public seating by half in one fell swoop. The remaining seat would fall within the bar area so it's unlikely to be available for public use, and even if you do get to sit on it you'll only be looking at a load of people drinking. Not to worry, you can always sit on the picnic tables under the tent - provided you have the money for a drink of course.

You're probably getting the drift that I'm not in support of this proposal. I'll set out a few of the main issues as I see it. 

1. The annexing of the public space. 

It's clear from the diagram above that the proposed bar would take over most of the public space outside the station (and quite a bit of the remainder has already been annexed by the bars and cafes at this end of the ramp). The public realm works very well, it has been refurbished to a high standard with good quality street furniture and it looks good. I often see people sitting on the benches enjoying sandwiches or just hanging out, watching the world go by. It can be, and is, used for events - whether that's dancing or a 'carless car boot sale', or any other temporary use. If a bar under a tent took over the space, this genuine public enjoyment would be lost, and temporary events would only be possible if they fitted in the space and outside the opening hours of the bar.

2. Where are the toilets?

No details have been provided of where the toilets will be - or even if there will be any. There is only one toilet for most of the carriage ramp (Little Nan's and Mousetail each have their own) so where are all these customers going to pee? Deptford already has a problem with public urination, this won't help. Perhaps they are going to dump (pun intended) some ugly Portaloos next to the remaining flower beds. Who needs greenery in any case? 

3. Why is it ok for some people to drink outside and not others?
Street drinking. The anchor got the blame for causing problems down at Deptford Broadway, but the street drinking that used to happen there is now rife in Douglas Square, and still causing problems. Why should that be classified as public nuisance but put the drinkers under a tent and charge them more, and it's a legitimate business. It also neatly leads me into the security issues. What's to stop the 'undesirable' drinkers just bringing their drinks and joining the party? Will they have to put barriers round the seating and have security on the door?

4. Loss of amenity.
The vast majority of the ground-level landscaping that was created as part of the public benefit from the development will be squandered. Seats will be unusable, plants will have their light blocked and the flower beds will become a litter trap, difficult to access for maintenance, the trees will become tent poles (and most likely leaning poles at the lower level).

5. Noise nuisance.
Residents in the Deptford Project already suffer noise from some of the units under the carriage ramp - speakers get brought outside by some tenants even though their leases prohibit it - and with a large bar in a mostly hard-landscaped area, the noise from drinkers can only add to this. Other local bars such as the Job Centre and Buster Mantis have limits on when outside drinking areas can be used, to limit noise for adjacent residents. Allowing a huge open-air bar in front of a huge residential building would make a mockery of this and could reasonably lead to other bars challenging such restrictions.

The planning application can be found online here http://planning.lewisham.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=_LEWIS_DCAPR_89709

Deptford anchor consultation

Further to the council report in March which recommended the return of the anchor to Deptford High Street, Lewisham Council has launched a consultation into some aspects of its proposed reinstatement. These include the style and type of textured paving that will be placed around it (to assist the visually-impaired) and whether a plaque should be included, and if so, what this should say.

Current timescale intends the anchor to be back in position in time for Deptford X festival in late September.

The public is invited to respond via the online consultation survey where you can also find background information about the process (downloadable here).

There is also a drop-in session at Deptford Lounge on Tuesday 20 June between 3pm-7pm.

The current documents show the anchor to be somewhat sidelined in the proposed location at the top of the high street; why not have it more central in the streetscape? At the moment it looks like an afterthought.

The online consultation closes on Tuesday 27th June.

Sun Wharf revisited

I didn't make it to the 'consultation' event for this Creekside development which took was held last month, but I've been taking a look at the information that the developer put on show and which is now available on the website. It's still not a planning application as such, but I guess we can expect one to be made pretty soon, given that this is the second public event and that's probably more than enough to tick the required boxes.

I wrote about this development at the time of the last consultation, when the building heights were proposed as being seven storeys to 16 storeys high.

Scroll on a year and the revised plans (below) show that the heights proposed range from 'one to two storeys' to 'nine to seventeen storeys' although the information provided on the exhibition boards seems rather deliberately vague, and for some reason (no doubt to justify the height of the main tower) includes the blocks on Kent Wharf next door.

It's not easy to distinguish the difference in heights from the diagram above - if they'd chosen different colours rather than different hues of blue to differentiate the buildings, it would have been a lot easier, and of course the cynic in me thinks that was probably the reason behind the choice. And having one category ranging across potentially eight storeys, in particular since it only applies to two buildings, one of which is not even part of the development, muddies the water even more. 

Who are the 'communications' experts who put together these public consultation events? Since they are being paid by the developers, I shouldn't really be surprised that they seem more adept at creating smokescreens than at communicating basic facts to the general public.

What's all this about, for example? Why would the public care about how you intend to label the different parts of your development? What is a 'Victorian' wharf building in any case? What characteristics does it have and is it anything more than a vague aspiration at this point? Looking at the first image in the post there's nothing distinctly different about these buildings that I can see, frankly this diagram is irrelevant.

But I digress. Here's a few renderings from the 'information' boards for anyone else who missed it.

View from the Greenwich side of the creek, with the railway viaduct shown on the left hand side. Original plans were to open up routes through the railway viaduct, and although that's not explicit in the new details, the renderings suggest that it's still part of the masterplan.

Full east elevation - the white buildings on the right are Kent Wharf; an idea of the tower height on the left can be gained from the presence of the railway viaduct on the far left.

Above is a view from within the development itself, looking south towards the railway viaduct (on a street parallel to Creekside).

Oh look, green spaces! But not for the general public, only for the residents. These will be at 'podium' level, between the housing blocks. 

The renderings include an (almost) separate building for Cockpit Arts, whose current home on Creekside will be demolished to accommodate the development. I assume that they negotiating hard for favourable terms on the final scheme - having an independent building which ensures Cockpit Arts can continue its existing work in Deptford is essential. Presumably they are also in discussions to ensure that any impact on their designer-makers during the rebuild and relocation is minimised.

Of course it's all aspirational at this stage, but I was particularly taken by the level of aspiration needed to envisage the 'wonderful sunny aspect' that this new public realm is expected to have. 

The developers say that they are going to create a new public space 'in the proximity of the historic Normandy Dock inlet' which will have a cafe and outdoor seating. 

Looks quite attractive on the rendering, but in reality it is an east-facing strip of land which will only get direct sunshine for a short time in the morning, being overshadowed by the railway viaduct on the south side. Even its morning light could be threatened if/when Greenwich agrees to develop the land on the other side of the creek, no doubt with more of the high-density type of blocks that are already built on sections of the waterfront that have already been developed. And at the bottom of a seventeen-storey block it's likely to be pretty breezy.