Access Denied
Planning said yes, Highways said no.
What happens when the Highways Authority refuses construction vehicle access to your site from the road, the only road. Even after Planning Permission has been granted.
Well, nothing happens for a while. Not on site anyway!.
Our client Urban-lab are a socially conscious architecture and development practice and created a niche development strategy forming Development Agreements with existing and dilapidated church facilities in and around London. The plan, to demolish existing drafty, un-modernised and under-utilised church space and construct modern and welcoming community space with apartments above. A win-win situation for the church, the community, the local housing requirements and the developer of course.
The project planning process was a long drawn out ten-year saga. The church pastor was decidedly fatigued by the whole affair, initially working with a previous developer who had been refused planning permission multiple times over the years. Urban-lab picked up the project and sped through planning in 2018, satisfying what seemed like an eternally unsatisfied Newham planning authority.
The planning application submission did include a detailed construction logistics plan by PTP, noting access arrangements and traffic management plans to control vehicular access from the front elevation off West Ham Lane and into the site designated area. West Ham Lane isn’t a red route itself and construction vehicles were not intending to stop and wait on the A-class road. The plan by PTP followed Transport for London’s (TfL) Construction Logistics Plan Guidance (April 2013) entirely. Box ticked you’d think.
The site, as pictured is landlocked, aside from the front elevation which borders West Ham Lane. Established buildings and built-up areas are to the South, West and the North side.
Planning condition 7 is a pre-commencement condition requiring a demolition and construction management logistics plan to be prepared and submitted to Newham for approval. Further detail and consideration to the existing (approved) Construction Logistics Plan required, nothing unusual here. Newham would be seeking the advice of their internal Highways department on the proposals of course.
“Works shall be carried out in accordance with the approved Demolition and Construction Management and Logistics Plan.
Reason: To ensure that works do not prejudice the ability of neighbouring occupier’s reasonable enjoyment of their properties, to safeguard the amenities of the area and manage the impacts of the development and to ensure that works shall not represent any unacceptable level of vehicle movements such that the safety of pedestrians or other road users shall be unduly prejudiced.”
This all seemed reasonable. Any town planning consultant and any traffic highways advisor would have followed the same path and prepared the same reports. The Main Contractor was procured and the demolition and construction management plan prepared and issued for discharge of the pre-commencement condition.
The response from Highways to the plan as submitted was a flat no. Access from West Ham Lane, the only road to border the site was denied.
Say what ?? the general response from the team.
Without vehicular access to the site from West Ham Lane, nothing could be demolished or built. The site perhaps doomed to be under-utilised and forever crumbling, it’s fate sealed. So here we have a stalemate. But also here we have the point where developers become successful, or not. The ‘on the ground’ local knowledge, tenacity and bargaining skills of developers can be what makes or breaks a project. No more so than when faced with what would seem like an insurmountable challenge.
The existing buildings to the side of the church are fully occupied and utilised NHS and BT facilities. Access into these spaces and to the side of the site would be nigh on impossible. Impossible to gain access approvals gaining adequate space to allow for separate vehicular roadways and set down points.
Our development scheme requires basement excavation, piling and a tower crane. Not something you can squeeze into a few parking spaces!.
By a stroke of luck, the existing buildings to the rear of the site are two unoccupied residential blocks. They were owned at the time by Guinness Housing Trust. With valuable insider knowledge, our developer was well-aware of the plots and their legal ownership status, having reviewed the site some time back as a potential development opportunity. Guinness were also due to relinquish their lease back to Newham within a very short time frame. Were the Highways and Planning Authority aware of this and therefore pushing Urban-lab to investigate access from the rear?. Not sure. If they did know there may have been some underhanded actions going on here.
None the less. The site at the rear is accessed from Arthingworth Street and has existing access roads and car park areas sizable enough for this to work. One year’s worth of meetings, construction management plans, programmes and negotiated offers with Newham to formulate a licence agreement allow ensued. A whole year.
The contractor was appointed under a JCT D&B 2016 with a hopeful view to start on site three months into this negotiation process. The developer by now tied in knots to allow the funding to be secured and commit to the Development Agreement with its long stop date now not seeming that long!
Initial negotiations with Newham were eye-opening to say the least. Representatives of the planning authority stated outright that the existing residential buildings were to be re-developed by themselves. Newham directly suggested we demolish both of the existing buildings as part of the access agreement. To the tune of some £80,000. Were the existing buildings in the way of our access through this land? No, of course not. A barely disguised request for financial incentive is what happened here. The result being a further £80,000 of cost to the developer to satisfy the planners on a scheme that already had planning granted.
Ultimately the licence agreement has been now resolved. Access has been granted for a part period of the construction programme from the rear and moving to access from West Ham Lane for the later part of the build. The Licence Agreement was signed in February 2020 and we started on site swiftly in March.
The full time and financial implications of this situation are not to be underestimated. An entire 12-month delay to the start on site after planning approval was already granted. A full year of negotiating and meetings. A Contract awarded and then suspended with some preliminary and contractor costs to be covered. A re-sequence of the build resulting in an additional programme period the resulting additional preliminary costs. Plus of course the legal costs of the agreement itself. The final word from Newham, a £45,000 financial settlement in lieu of the demolition of the existing residential buildings please.
A total figure on this would be in the region of a £150,000 cost increase.
Could a situation like this be avoided?. I don’t think so. Many sites in and around London have access restrictions of course but would you consider the risk that access to the site would be denied. Unlikely.
Without our Developers’ local knowledge here the situation would have been a much tougher wrangle and would have taken indefinitely longer to agree. Newham did request a financial incentive to allow this and the legalities and moral code of this move remains questionable. But this is sometimes the world in which we live.
So how would I advise a developer to prepare for such an unknown series of events. A robust contingency allowance, in-depth local knowledge of the area and of the powers that be and some very adaptive thinking.
Starting on site 9th March 2020 after a year delay was a joy. Finding unknown asbestos a week later and a COVID19 shut down two weeks afterwards is a whole other story!.
Existing site, West Ham Lane Baptist Tabernacle - Neil Johnson (Flickr)