Planning officers in Westminster council have advised a primary school against plans to expand its play space, in part because the plans would ‘harm the views’ from the nearby five-star Grosvenor Hotel.
The Guardian reported that parents at a central London primary school say they feel ‘let down and angry’ having spent two years planning and fundraising £100,000 to pay for the design and feasibility studies, £84,000 of which came from Westminster council itself through its community infrastructure levy.
St Peter’s school in Belgravia has only a small, 170 sq metre strip of play space for 200 pupils, and sits minutes from Victoria station in one of the densest corners of London. Parent Rebecca Bryant has led a two-year process to build the playground, resulting in a design that would incorporate part of the road outside and close it to through traffic. The road is quiet, with busy traffic passing by at both ends but not cutting through, according to some parents, who said that even during rush-hour and school drop-off hardly any cars drove up the road. The children desperately needed the playground as many lived in flats, Bryant said.
Westminster council told the Guardian that the hotel view is “not a primary concern or the reason that the council advised the proposed playground would not receive planning permission… It would be lovely to extend the playground on to the highway, but it simply isn’t practical. This has been explained to the parents on a number of occasions including in writing following a formal approach. This is a busy area of central London, and the road is needed for traffic to access several office blocks, of which one is on a site allocated for the Crossrail 2 railway. It’s no place for a playground.”
Bryant, however, said that it was “completely untrue” that the council had told the school that the playground would never be feasible. “If they had, they would have saved us – and the public purse – a huge amount of money. This comment bears no relation to the formal advice we received.”
The Guardian quotes the pre-planning advice letter received by the school:
“The playground extension is considered to harm the character and appearance of the conservation area and … of the grade 2* listed Grosvenor Hotel. This harm is likely to be ‘less than substantial’ … however, it would be at the upper end of this harm. Accordingly, such an application would not be viewed favourably.”
It continued: “The introduction of a netted sports court would contribute to a cluttered streetscape … [and] the parking bays on Lower Belgrave Street and the single yellow lines provided for loading are … well used and, therefore, we would find their loss to be unacceptable.”
More on this story on the Guardian website.