Back in March 2015 we reported on Hyde’s plans to redevelop the Harleyford Street and Community Centre site on the Estate. Their plans involved nine flats for sale, a replacement community centre with outdoor space and either offices or a small retail space on the ground floor facing the main road. Those plans can be found here.
Hyde’s Saba Choudhury (New Business Project Director, Group Business Development) wrote to the TA recently as follows:
“Sainsbury’s has told us that TfL has given them feedback on their application for the Harleyford Street loading bay, but not a final decision. The feedback is that TfL are very unlikely to allow a peak time use of the loading bay but will almost certainly allow off peak use of a bay on Harleyford Street which is a positive step forward.
Consequently Sainsbury’s are revising their application to request a loading bay for off peak use, which would be after 7pm and before 7am. The proposal is the Sainsburys use of the bay would include an early morning delivery between 6am -7 am to deliver papers, milk and bread and between 7pm and 11pm for all other deliveries. They have indicated that that the morning deliveries would take around 15 minutes a day, and the main delivery after 7pm would be 45 minutes of which there could be between 1 and 3 per day depending on demand. These hours will avoid the main pedestrian traffic to and from the estate and we will work with Sainsburys to ensure all noise mitigation steps are taken to minimise disturbance to residents.
Sainsburys are preparing their revised application but unfortunately we are still not able to provide you with a timeframe to get a definite final decision from TfL, so we are still holding off from any further work on our Harleyford Street proposals until that decision is finalised. Once we have confirmation from TfL we will let you know , and outline the likely timeframe for finalising consultation and design and submitting the planning application.”
So, nine months later, we are no further forward in knowing whether or not Hyde’s plans will go ahead. Residents objected strongly to the idea of Sainsbury’s being able to use anywhere within the Estate as a loading bay so that proposal was dropped – and it has to be said that we are extremely sceptical about loading/unloading taking place by a busy bus stop on a major road (a red route and cycle superhighway) being approved. Plus – those residents who rightly objected to lorries unloading outside their front doors will be just as incensed at the idea of those self-same lorries unloading directly outside their living room and bedroom windows. If and when Hyde ever gets to submit a planning application, we expect many objections from the residents of Kennington Park Estate.