UK: Plans for a 688-bed PBSA tower by developer Joseph Homes have been recommended for approval by Southwark Council.
Designed by TP Bennett, the plans are a revised version of a scheme by HTA which was given consent last year, featuring 219 homes and 2,986 square metres of commercial workspace in a 32-storey tower and a connected five-storey block.
However a report to members of Southwark Council’s Planning Committee says Joseph Homes “reassessed the viability and deliverability” of the approved scheme, which was designed and decided not to progress it.
The latest incarnation of the Sylvan Grove proposals would deliver 688 student rooms, 1,983 square metres of commercial space and 23 flats across two buildings – one 34-storey tower and a seven-storey shoulder block. All of the flats will be for social rent and will be in the shoulder block.
A planning statement supporting TP Bennett’s current proposals cited “significant increases in build costs and changes to Building Regulations and Fire Guidance requiring the inclusion of a second core” among the viability issues. It also said “slow growth of residential values” was a factor.
Recommending the proposals for approval, planning officers said the scheme’s appearance drew on the industrial heritage of the wider Old Kent Road area and incorporated part of an existing warehouse on the site into the scheme’s lowest levels, set back from the tower.
They added that although the tower element of the scheme has two additional storeys in comparison with the consented HTA scheme, the increase in height is only 1.8 metres because the student accommodation will have lower floor-to-ceiling heights.
“The development is similar in appearance to the extant permission, however due to the alteration from residential to PBSA, external balconies have been removed, which has subsequently reduced the extent of articulation and depth across the façade,” officers said.
