London apartment block that deviates from plans must be torn down, says council
- ‘Blight on the landscape’ in Greenwich lacks promised gardens, children’s play areas and accessibility for wheelchair users
Robert Booth Social affairs correspondent
Wed 27 Sep 2023 04.19 EDT
First published on Wed 27 Sep 2023 02.00 EDT
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Buildings rarely look as good as the airbrushed architects’ visualisations produced to persuade planners to grant permission. Extra sharp highlights, implausibly blue skies and deeper colours are all part of the dark arts of the computer-generated rendering.
But the gulf between what was proposed for an apartment complex rising 23 storeys above the Thames in south-east London and what was actually built has finally proved too much.
After counting 26 major deviations from the original planning permission that it granted, the Royal Borough of Greenwich has taken the extraordinary move – “unprecedented”, it said – of ordering the developers of the Mast Quay II development to pull it down. It means tenants in 204 flats now face the prospect of finding somewhere else to live.
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Well clearly the correct politicians and bureaucrats didn’t have their pockets lined right!
Now will the politicians and bureaucrats have the courage to have it torn down?
Seems like a waste, but if they don’t, it sends the wrong message. I can imagine the lawsuits and pity parties that will ensue.
Perhaps if the “profit” and then a little extra is removed from all involved, a more economic result MIGHT be achieved. But only if all involved are equally screwed.
Seems a waste of prefectly good building to send a message to the “marketplace”.
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Reinke Faces Life 