A group of Londoners concerned at plans for almost 700 mostly luxury homes on the Royal Mail’s Mount Pleasant sorting office site in Clerkenwell, already granted permission, has requested approval for a rival design intended to provide 40 more affordable homes under a ‘community right to build’ application.
Residents near the site have submitted initial designs for 125 homes, up to half of which could be affordable, in a planning application that decries the Royal Mail’s ‘brutal, fortress-like proposals and their tokenist attitude to public participation’.
The Mount Pleasant Association, made up of local residents and campaigners, has secured backing from Legal & General and a development company, U and I Group, to mount its own bid to buy the site. It has submitted a ‘community right to build’ application for part of the site to the London borough of Camden, to be followed by other applications for the rest of the site if its bid is successful. The group intends to provide 40 more affordable homes than the existing scheme
The Royal Mail is expected to sell the site next year for a sum that could reach £300m. Following public consultation, the company has already secured planning consent for 681 homes in a series of blocks rising to 15 storeys. Many apartments are expected to fetch more than £1m, while 24% would be classed affordable.
The design team behind their rival scheme includes Francis Terry, a leading traditionalist architect, and the work is being steered by Create Streets, an organisation that campaigns against tower block architecture in favour of a return to more streets and squares where residents gather informally and interact.
