Twickenham Greggs site approval greeted by local councillors

Richmond Planning Committee has overturned the recommendation of the planning officers to refuse the proposal for the former Greggs factory, Twickenham and allowed it to proceed by seven votes to two.

Award-winning developer London Square hailed the decision as “a victory for common sense.” London Square will now build 116 new homes, with 58 affordable homes, 47 of which are London Affordable Rent homes, which are genuinely affordable, on the 2.7-acre derelict brownfield site, which has been vacant since 2018. An earlier application by London Square was turned down in 2020.

Mark Smith, group development director, London Square, commented, “Last night’s decision will provide 58 new affordable homes – almost double the overall number of affordable delivered in the borough in the past year.

“We applaud the local ward councillors who made representations to support the scheme and are delighted that the planning committee decided to listen to the local community rather than be led by the advice of planning officers who were concerned about a loss of unviable industrial land. It is a victory for common sense.”

Mark continues, “Planning policy is a snapshot in time and dates very quickly. The protection of industrial land post-pandemic in a residential neighbourhood is no longer appropriate for this site in a borough which has the highest proportion in London of home working – 58.75 per cent. We look forward to delivering a new chapter for the site with a beautifully designed scheme.”

The residential plan includes 116 new homes – a full 50 per cent of those will be genuinely affordable homes, fully compliant with our affordable housing requirements in the local plan – not just the full 50% but the tenure split within that is also compliant, with 80 per cent at the genuinely affordable London Affordable Rent and 20per cent for shared ownership.

Cllr Rhi Lee said,” It’s so rare that a private developer is able to provide that level of affordable, and we have to very carefully consider how valuable this benefit is, how difficult it is to achieve these sort of affordable figures and how we ought to accept this very considerable planning gain as a valid reason, that outweighs the considerations on industrial land in this specific case, in this specific location, to move for approval.”

Assael Architecture provided the CGI picture and are the architects on the project.

Sign up to receive our weekly free journal, The Forum here.