1999 proposal

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There is an existing planning consent on the site, dating from a resolution in 1997 for office retails and residential development together with a new underground station, parking, a service area accessed from Pelham Street and ancillary facilities. This scheme included demolition of the existing buildings on site with the exception of a limited number of terraces on the north facing façade on Thurloe Street and the existing station facing south to Pelham Street.

A summary of this consented scheme is as follows:

• Nos. 20 – 34 Thurloe Street to be retained, but only façade to new office provision;
• A loading bay for Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) to be located midway along Pelham Street;
• Replacement of the existing bull-nose by a new entrance rotunda three storeys high; this new entrance would link via a new arcade to a second rotunda four – storeys high, at the back of the site (almost in line with Exhibition Road) which would contain the ticket hall and entrance to the trains; an arcade at right angles to the first, linking Pelham Street with Thurloe Street and Exhibition Road; to offices;
• The eastern half of the site to be decked over as a residential mews, with terraced frontages onto Pelham Street, Thurloe Square and the interior of the new mews, which would have car parking at a lower deck; and
• The maximum height of the Consented Scheme is 26 m above street level.

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Since the commercial-led Consented Scheme was approved, further detailed work was undertaken by the 2003 developers to assess the full structural and operational costs associated with the redevelopment. It subsequently became clear that the Consented Scheme would not offer sufficient viability to allow the station works to proceed and the permission was therefore not implemented.

Grounds of objection to London Underground Limited's January 2004 Planning Application to renew permission for the Terry Farrell 1997 consented scheme

Architectural Objections

1. The Consented Scheme ("CS") entails rafting over the entire site, for car parking. Rafting over is unnecessary and expensive and sacrifices the open air aspect of the station.
2. The CS lacks architectural coherence. The five storey office block on Pelham Street is too large, undistinguished and sits unhappily over the retained Leslie Green underground façade.
3. The CS requires the entire loss of both the north and south porticoes of the Arcade, including their wrought iron work and lettering.
4. The Farrell Design Statement for the withdrawn 2003 scheme actually criticises the consented scheme, which they prepared, on grounds which include less than ideal servicing off Pelham Street, lack of enhancement to the public transport interchange and the fact that the opportunities for the Museum tunnel were not fully considered.
5. There would be much more traffic, particularly into Thurloe Square, caused by vehicular access into the ground level parking for the Mews houses and to the underground car park off Thurloe Square.
6. Lorries would require access to service shops and offices off Pelham Street. This would be, at best, difficult and at worst, would require the disruption of traffic for large vehicles. It would severely exacerbate existing traffic problems in Pelham Street.
7. The rafting over will require piling which will take place in engineering hours, that is to say between midnight and 5 a.m.
8. The CS includes the demolition of nos. 20-32 Thurloe Street but retaining their façade during construction will mean raking shores and structural scaffolding and will cause huge disruption to pedestrian and vehicular traffic for a prolonged period. (20-32 Thurloe Street is the terrace containing the restaurant Daquise and the publishers Medici).

Planning Objections

9. LUL accepted the need for an environmental impact assessment in the planning statement submitted in 2003 with the withdrawn scheme. But the original planning application for the CS was not the subject of an environmental statement. The current application must include such an assessment, which should deal with views, sunlight, daylight, noise and vibration, light pollution, construction impacts and so on.
10. The original application was considered by reference to the UDP dated 1995. But the latest version of the UDP was adopted in May 2002 and the scheme must be assessed against this more recent guidance.
11. In May 2003 the applicants' agents, Montagu Evans, stated that the CS was not viable; why is it supposed that it has become viable in January 2004?
12. The traffic impact assessment must be updated since traffic conditions have changed radically since 1996/97.
13. The original application addressed the Council's 1996 traffic management initiative at South Kensington but the Council's policy in relation to traffic management has developed since then.
14. The applicant has not submitted any assessment of pedestrian movement and flows with the application which will have changed since the original consent was granted.

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