Parade of empty shops and flats to become new apartment block

By Robert Firth, Local Democracy Service

A parade of shops in Streatham will be bulldozed and replaced with a seven-storey apartment block.

Lambeth councillors waved through the redevelopment of the 1930s Dorchester Parade at a planning meeting on Tuesday.

The new building, in Leigham Court Road, will contain 18 flats and two shops on the ground floor. Two-storey Dorchester Parade currently has four flats and three shop units, all of which are empty.

None of the new homes would be classed as ‘affordable’, but £204,894 would be set aside by applicant Dorchester Apartments Ltd for affordable housing elsewhere in the borough.

A viability assessment produced by property firm Avison Young for the council found the development wouldn’t make enough profit to include affordable housing.

Neighbours in Dorchester Court objected to the proposed building, arguing it was too close to their homes and higher than a previous development planned for the site.

Adam Beamish, a planning consultant speaking on behalf of Dorchester Court residents, said: “The proposed development fails to respect or reflect the more modest proportions of the existing building immediately to the south.

“And [it] fails to facilitate the sympathetic and appropriate street scene transition between the more modest proportions of those existing buildings and the taller, larger buildings in the centre of Streatham Hill.”

But Sinisa Rodic, design director at Rodic Davidson Architects, told councillors: “[It provides] a more attractive corner design and a clearer demarcation between the area of the tall and mixed use buildings in the Streatham major centre and the lower scale residential buildings outside it.”

All councillors on the planning committee voted to approve the proposed building, except Cllr Scott Ainslie, who abstained.

Pictured top: CGI of approved seven-storey apartment block to replace Dorchester Parade in Streatham (Picture: Lambeth council)