Tories push another Putney tower

Last week councillors met to decide the Ram Brewery planning application in central Wandsworth.
Alongside the main application (which to recap is for twin towers of 32 and 42 storeys among other buildings on the brewery and adjoining sites) was an additional application to redevelop a site opposite King George's Park known as Cockpen House.

This plan (which unlike the brewery itself is in Putney constituency) would have built a 16-storey building above the park.

The real significance here is that, at present, there are high buildings - the three Arndale estate blocks in Neville Gill Close plus the new "Parkside" block - along just one side of King George's Park. This application would have opened up a new "front" for developers along another side, enclosing the park beneath these blocks as well as adding 200 new flats - 300-odd residents - plus all the associated traffic piled into Wandsworth's already gridlocked road network.

Most attention on this massive application, understandably, has focussed on the landmark skyscrapers on the Brewery itself, leaving the Cockpen House application almost unremarked on. And just look what the Council tries to do when no one is waging a campaign against over-development: the Tories recommend approving their tower blocks.



Labour councillors have "called in" all four planning applications to be debated by all sixty councillors at the full council meeting tonight which, given the importance of this application is only right. But there are 51 Conservatives and just 9 Labour councillors in Wandsworth, so don't expect much to change after tonight's important council meeting - except that if it doesn't, they'll have established a precedent that could make tower block-style overdevelopment elsewhere in Putney that much easier.