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Letter from Ken Elmes
26 April 2003
The Government Office for London,
Your ref - planning application 03/1141/Ful & 03/1142/CAC
Dear Sirs,
I wish to lodge an objection to the above planning application by
London Borough of Richmond upon Thames for the development of Twickenham
Riverside, Demolition of pool buildings. I understand the GLO rules
for demolition in a conservation area are-
4.27 Consent for demolition should
not be given unless there are acceptable and detailed plans for any
redevelopment.
4.29 …… that demolition
shall not take place until a contract for the carrying out of works
for redevelopment has been made and planning permission for those
works has been granted.
The London Borough of Richmond do not have any plans prepared for
this site, in fact there have been many aborted proposals for the
site over many years. Their current suggestion for a temporary use
of only one third of the site for only five years with the remainder ’boarded
up’ is not even yet in the planning stage and only open to
discussion through a ’challenge’ to interested bodies.
4.27 The general presumption should
be in favour of retaining buildings which make a positive contribution
to the character or appearance of a conservation area.
The present pool building, built in the mid 1930’s, compliments
the development known as Thames Eyot adjacent on the up stream side
of the pool built in the same period. With Art Deco touches both
buildings compliment each other as viewed from the river and are
in keeping with the period and riverside.
There are, at present, passed and approved plans to use and refurbish
part of the pool building for public use, as was the original intention
by the purchase of the riverside site, by Twickenham Urban District
Council in 1924, for public walks and pleasure purposes.
Yours sincerely
Kenneth Elmes
Twickenham
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