Saturday, July 15, 2017

Let's see a final improvement to the Stag Brewery plans: more public space by the river

There's no question that the plans shown this week for the development of the Stag Brewery site in Mortlake are an improvement on those shown in the previous exhibition in March.

Housing density has been reduced somewhat, public areas between the housing blocks are a bit wider and the proposed tower block - previously described to me as the "visual flagship" of the development - has been scrapped.

I was impressed by the ingenious plan for a large underground car park - which will have space for 750 cars. Proposed restrictions on where those cars will be allowed to turn at its two entrances and exits will, in theory, prevent additional traffic using the mini-roundabout at the end of Sheen Lane.

But there's one further improvement which I think local residents would appreciate for generations to come. It only involves, for the developers, a small sacrifice of the end of one of the housing blocks, neatly bringing it into line with one next to it.

The square I've highlighted in red would be the housing that would go. The result (picture below) would be the creation of a much larger public space open to the river by joining together two smaller proposed spaces:


The above is taken from the previous development proposals. The new housing blocks are arranged a little differently in the current plans but those changes do not affect this proposal - which would create a really good-sized open area by the river.

I would encourage local residents to lobby for this change. Once the plans are accepted, public access to the river is never likely to become available again.

UPDATE:

I've now been able to download the new proposals and show how my suggestion still applies in the new design: