The proposal includes 5 tower blocks up to 16 storeys high, which would make them significantly taller than anything else in Old Malden. These heights are incompatible with tall buildings policies of all three Boroughs.

In their reasons for refusal, the Kingston Planning Committee minutes state:

“The proposal, by reason of its layout, orientation, scale, appearance and shape, would constitute an incongruous and discordant form of development, that would be out-of-character with the prevailing built form in the surrounding area, failing to respect local distinctiveness, and failing to comply with the
provisions of Policy D3 of the London Plan. The development would not constitute good design and accordingly fail to comply with Policies DM10 and CS8 of the Kingston Core Strategy, the Kingston Residential Design SPD, Chapter 12 of the NPPF and Policy D3 and D9 of the London Plan”

Under the London Plan (Policy D9 B3) “Tall buildings should only be developed in locations that are identified as suitable in Development Plans”

In the Kingston Core Strategy 2012 (Policy CS 8) the Council did not identify the gas holder site as suitable for tall buildings. As Kingston updates its Development Plan, it has produced a Draft Tall Buildings Strategy which also fails to identify any of the surrounding area as suitable, and states that tall buildings should be located in urban centres.

Importantly, the London Plan (Policy D9 C3) also goes into detail about the appropriate visual impact of tall buildings in terms of the design, form, proportions and their relationship to the surrounding area.

Paragraph 3.9.3 states tall buildings should be “appropriate for their location and do not lead to unacceptable impacts on the local area.”

Sutton and Merton also have a tall building studies that reached similar conclusions to Kingston.

It should come as no surprise that all three Boroughs that meet at the gas holder site are aligned, and consider this to be an area unsuitable for tall buildings under their policies.

Kingston’s Site Assessment 2019 calculated the site suitable for 78 to 166 homes based on Suburban character.

If you are objecting to the height of the proposed buildings, yo may wish to state what height you would find acceptable.