Planning Inspector rejects slums of the future on Ridley Road

A planning inspector has refused to allow slums of the future to be built in Ridley Road market. The seven cramped sub-standard studio flats would have been on the 2nd floor of the Shopping Village which is owned by the off-shore developer Guy Ziser's company Larochette Real Estate Inc and registered in the secretive British Virgin Islands tax haven. 

The Shopping Village has been contested space ever since Larochette bought it, tried to evict the ground floor traders and applied to convert it into offices and luxury flats. The community applied successfully to have it declared an Asset of Community Value. Larochette then agreed to refurbish the building instead. The artists on the upper floors were evicted in 2022 to enable the refurbishment to take place. Mr Ziser applied to convert the empty artists spaces into residential studio flats, claiming he only needed prior approval from Council planners. Hackney refused the application, saying full planning permission was needed. The Planning Inspector, on appeal, disagreed with Hackney but he also refused the application for prior approval so Mr Ziser lost the appeal. 

There are limited grounds for refusing a "prior approval" application. Our objections were that the studio flats did not meet the requirements for good design - they would suffer from excessive noise, inadequate ventilation and they would not provide healthy homes enabling a sense of well-being. 

Each studio flat would have only one window facing due south, in full sun, and directly overlooking the street market. That window is the only natural ventilation. The market starts setting up at 6am and trades all day and noise continues with HGV water bowsers using pressure hoses cleaning up the street after 7pm. The Market Bar next door has a licence until 3am, a noisy outdoor area and often with long queues waiting on the street to get in. 

Larochette argued that the street noise would not disturb the residents because the windows would have secondary glazing. But the Inspector agreed with our comments and concluded "Comments raised on the proposal query how ventilation will be provided for the proposed single aspect flats. If residents were to open their windows to provide ventilation, this would significantly reduce the effectiveness of the proposed secondary glazing, with subsequent harm to the living conditions of residents due to noise both from the bar as well as from the adjacent market. Given the lack of alternative methods of ventilation, it is reasonable that residents of the proposal could expect to open their windows to access fresh air...I conclude that the impacts of noise from commercial premises would lead to significant harm to the living conditions of future resident....The proposal would not comply with the Framework which seeks to avoid noise giving rise to significant adverse impacts on quality of life and achieve a high standard of amenity for users of development."

Hackney argued that approval should be refused because the area suffers from extreme parking pressure and the new residents cars would compound the problem. The Inspector agreed with that too, concluding that allowing the studio flats would cause "unacceptable transport impacts" and that the site had excellent access to services and facilities by sustainable means of transport.

The Inspectors finding that Larochette only required prior approval from the planners, and not full planning permission, has wider implications. In its Dalston Plan Hackney has declared all the buildings on the north side of Ridley Road as development opportunities. Hackney planners will have limited grounds to refuse prior approval applications for their conversion into flats and this could compromise development standards. 

Hackney's Local Plan 2033 shows all the buildings along the north side of Ridley Road as development opportunity sites 

Note: The reason the Planning Inspector found that only prior approval would be required for residential conversion is that Hackney's 2021 Article 4  map failed to include the north side of Ridley Road as part of Dalston Town Centre where full planning permission would still be required.  Other later maps outline the Town Centre and do include the north side of Ridley Road. Hackney will have to make a new Article 4 direction with a new map to correct the error.