Plans for 218 flats on Shakespeare Road waste site

A property developer has approached Lambeth council over plans to build 218 flats on the controversial Norris waste processing site on Shakespeare Road between Brixton and Herne Hill.

Urban & Provincial is already working on several South London projects, including a £500m project in Peckham.

In a letter to Lambeth council it details its proposals for three separate buildings on the site from five to 11 storeys high:

  • 218 residential apartments (14 x studios, 104 x 1 beds, 81 x 2 beds and 19 x 28 beds) 
  • 67 of these units (35% by habitable rooms) are proposed as “affordable” (25 x 1 beds, 30 x 2 beds and 12 x 3 beds) with a 73:27 rented: intermediate mix; 
  • New landscaping, including new public realm along Shakespeare Road, and a private communal courtyard for all residents.

Because of the size of the proposed development, national legislation requires the developer to ask the local authority for a “screening opinion” on its environmental impact.

The developer told Lambeth council that the proposed scheme would develop a brownfield site for residential-led development.

It said the proposed land use “is consistent with the council’s local plan that seeks to promote residential development the site represents a key opportunity to complement and build upon the existing uses in the area.”

Local residents earlier this year started a petition to close the site as being inappropriate in a residential area. They said its continued presence on the Shakespeare Road site would be incompatible with the Railton Low Traffic Neighbourhood.

Other Lambeth residents, in West Norwood, are already protesting through the Norwood Action Group over plans to transfer the site’s operations to a residential/town centre area there.

They point out that Urban & Provincial’s request for information from the council on the environmental impact of the scheme does not mention the impact on West Norwood.

Read Urban & Provincial’s full application to the council.