Residents blast plans to bulldoze nursing home for 14-storey tower block

By Robert Firth, Local Democracy Reporter

A nursing home will be bulldozed to make way for a 14-storey tower block despite furious residents saying the area deserves better.

Plans to demolish Woodlands Nursing Home in Duggard Way, Kennington, and build 126 homes across six blocks in its place were approved narrowly by Lambeth councillors at a heated meeting on June 27.

Residents living nearby had urged councillors to vote down the proposals, saying they included too little affordable housing, would block light to their properties and were too close to a Victorian water tower that once supplied water to comedian Charlie Chaplain’s childhood home.

Previous plans to plonk a 29-storey tower with 258 homes on the nursing home site were thrown out by Lambeth council in 2021 over fears the development was too big for the area and would block light to existing residents’ homes.

But this time around councillors voted by a majority of four to three to approve the development even though it contained just 20 affordable homes. The proposals rejected in 2021 promised that half of the total 258 homes would be affordable.

Mum-of-two Kim Loddo, a business owner who has lived in Kennington for 20 years, said the new plans were unacceptable.

She told councillors: “I’m here because we deserve better than this. The council said it was suitable for 90 units and it was sold on the condition that 50 per cent of these would be affordable housing, affordable housing for us the people of Lambeth. […] It’s not good enough.”

Kennington resident James Hamer added: “In many ways this is worse than the appeal scheme. The main block is now just less than 10 metres from the water tower.

“When compared to the public benefits which… are limited in terms of affordable housing, overbearing and overlooking and the distinct lack of housing compared to last time, the developer should have to do better and Lambeth deserves better so I urge you to refuse this scheme.”

More than 800 written objections to the planned development on the former nursing home site that has been empty for a decade were received by Lambeth council.

Labour councillor Rebecca Spencer, who went on to vote against the plans, quizzed council officers how the developer had been able to get away with providing so little affordable housing in the scheme.

In response, a representative from the council’s planning advisor Avison Young, hinted the viability of the development had been harmed by having to reduce its height.

Neil Sams, from developer Lifestory Group, told councillors that the redevelopment of the nursing home would benefit the local community.

He said: “The former nursing home on the site has been vacant and derelict for 10 years, offering no benefit to the wider Kennington community.

“We wish to work in partnership with the council in order to deliver a range of public benefits to the area, particularly at a time when there is such an acute need for affordable and private homes.”

Four Labour councillors: Jessica Leigh, Malcolm Clarke, Martin Bailey and Saleha Jaffer voted to approve the development.

Fewer than 20 minutes before casting her vote in favour, Cllr Jaffer, member for St. Martin’s Ward, said she was going to reject the plans.

Scott Ainslie, Green councillor for Streatham St Leonards, Rebecca Spencer, Labour councillor for Gipsy Hill and Ibrahim Dogus, Labour councillor for Waterloo and Southbank voted against the plans.

Pictured top: CGI of how the development would look next to the Victorian water tower  (Picture: Lambeth council planning documents)