The final modifications to RBKC's Local Plan, which includes policies relevant to the development at Kensal Canalside, have been agreed with the Inspector.  The Planning Department reports to stakeholders (that's us!) that the Local Plan 2024 will be recommended at full Council later in July 2024.

Schedules of the modifications can be found on the Council's NLPR Inspection website but these are impenetrable to the casual reader.  The full Local Plan 2024 will be published in due course.

FoKGC is satisfied that our concerns were heard and responded to by the Inspector and by the Council.  Thank you.

The Victorian Society's objections to the Canalside planning application can now be found on the RBKC planning application portal.  The chief grounds for objection are the height an mass of buildings damaging the setting of,and views from, the Victorian monuments in the Cemetery.  

The Society urges "refusal, unless considerable amendments are made".

The response of the General Cemetery Company to the Canalside planning application is now available to view among the many documents on the RBKC planning website (search by keyword or look up 15 February 2024).

In summary GCC supports the development of a brownfield site and would in principle support a 24-hour route through the Cemetery between the development and Kensal Green Station.  

In mitigation of (a) the harm caused by the development to the setting of the Cemetery (views, etc.) and (b) increased footfall in the Cemetery, the GCC requests that the Council secures:

1. funding for "the repair and ongoing maintenance" of heritage assets as a means of offsetting harm (which is inevitable)
2. preparation of a Conservation Plan by the developers (at their expense) including details of how these financial contributions will be applied to offset harm
3. funding "to facilitate delivery of a safe and useable route through the Cemetery which would not be to the detriment of the Cemetery and its on-site heritage assets".

The response of the Greater London Authority (GLA) to the Ballymore / Sainsbury planning application was published on the Council's website this week.  To summarise in quotations from its Summary:

(the proposals offer) "a low level of affordable housing considering the scale and nature of the proposed development"

"the proposed heights would be contrary to the locational requirements (of the London Plan)"

"the harm (to designated heritage assets) must be outweighed by public benefits"

(the site access) "does not adequately cater for walking and cycling and has adverse effects on the highway network and on bus journey times".

Overall "the application does not yet comply with the London Plan".

Those wishing to read the whole document can download it from the Documents section of the planning application record (reference PP/23/06575), searching for it either by date (24 January 2024) or by keyword (GLA). 

Responses are still being received to the planning application by Sainsbury Ballymore to develop the larger part of the site to the south of the Cemetery.  These will be posted on the Council's website as soon as they are processed by the Council.  However, a week after the closing date for public comments (12 January), over 1,000 responses have been published, of which about 650 are objections.

In writing to the Chairman of the Friends in January 2024, the Council's case officer for the scheme said:

"No meaningful conclusion could be derived from numbers alone.  Of greater importance is the content of those representations, which will be considered in the assessment of the proposals.  All representations will be summarised in the report to the Planning Committee, and the Planning Committee will have access to all representations in full too."

All the documentation supplied by Sainsbury / Ballymore to support their planning application on the larger part of the Canalside site is now publicly available here. Use the 'Documents' tab to go to the relevant page(s).

If you wish to read relevant parts of the Environmental Impact Statement we recommend you use the keyword search facility to navigate through over 100 parts to the application.  Select keywords from the list of relevant parts as follows: 

•    Chapter 4 (The Proposed Development)
•    Chapter 10 (Daylight, Sunlight, Overshadowing)
•    Appendix (Daylight, Sunlight, Overshadowing)
•    Chapter 14 (Built Heritage)
•    Drainage Strategy
•    Transport Assessment

Alternatively, the Friends will be posting a briefing note on our main concerns following the next Trustees' meeting on 11 December.   You may prefer to read this in considering a response.

If you wish to comment on the Planning Application as an individual member of the public, please do so before 12 January using the Council's online form here.  The Trustees will be submitting comments in the public consultation period and also supporting the agencies pursuing detailed discussions with the Council and developers before a scheme is recommended to the Council for approval, probably in 6-9 months' time.

The Planning Inspector informed RBKC by letter on 25 October of the main modifications required for the New Local Plan to be considered sound.  The Council must now prepare a revised version of the Plan for further consultation.  It is heartening to see that many of the revisions required to the Kensal Canalside site allocation reflect the representations made by Historic England in the summer.

The construction and property press reacted enthusiastically this week to news from Ballymore and their architects, Faulkner Browns, that a planning application has been submitted to RBKC on the Canalside site.

No details are available apart from reports in the press, but it appears that the application is for only Sainsbury/Ballymore's part of the development north of the GWR railway lines.  The proposals are summarised as:  a total of 2,519 new homes, of which at least 500 will be affordable, plus two parks and a local high street with a reinstated, historic canal basin at its heart. Plans also include over 90,000 sq ft of high street shops, cafes and restaurants as well as a new Sainsbury’s Supermarket.

We shall report further when more is known.

Kensington and Chelsea's proposed modifications to its Local Plan, following the Planning Inspectorate's public examination in the summer, were uploaded to the website this week, together with a new study of the visual impacts of the Canalside development if heights were lower (but buildings more closely-packed). 

Significant modifications to policy follow from discussions with Historic England but there are no major modifications proposed (yet) which are specific to the Canalside site and adjoining heritage assets.

The Inspector has now to consider what modifications she thinks should be incorporated, subject to public consultation.

After completion of the public hearings, the Planning Inspector has issued notes of the further research and information required before she determines whether the Plan is sound as it stands, or requires modification.  The bulk of this information is required from the Council, and 1 September 2023 is currently the deadline for the last remaining items to be submitted to her.  If any modifications are, in the Insepctor's opinion, necessary, these will be the subject of further public consultation.  The timescale for finalisation of a satisfactory Local Plan is therefore, we assume, more than a few weeks and less than a few months from today.

The Inspector's action notes arising from the hearings were issued on 24 July 2023 and can be found here.

The Planning Inspector completed public hearings on the RBKC New Local Plan in the week ended 21 July 2023.  She is awaiting information from the Council requested during the hearings and will then consider what modifications she might require the Council to make to the Plan.  A further stage of public consultation would then be necessary on the modified Plan.

The new information being added to the evidence she had before her can be found on the RBKC website here .  Of particular relevance to the Canalside development (SA1) is the advice from Transport for London added on 12 July.

Historic England’s representations to the public Examination hearings on the RBKC local plan were published along with all other representations admitted, this week.  The final paragraph of the statement relating to Kensal Canalside and the heritage assets of Kensal Green Cemetery, including the landscape and biodiversity, reads:

“At present the plan does not provide a positive strategy for the conservation of the historic environment, nor is it adequately justified as it does not adequately reflect the evidence base.  It also fails to align with the London Plan. Given this, we do not consider the plan to be sound at this stage.”

HE propose a series of meetings with the Council in order to prepare a “statement of common ground”.

You can access this statement in its complete form using the list of documents on the RBKC web page.

You may also be interested in the Friends and other organisations’ representations in regard to the Kensal Canalside Opportunity Area, and Historic England’s response on Conservation and Tall Buildings, which can be accessed from the same list.

The Planning Inspector will hear evidence on a number of issues raised in December concerning the soundness of RBKC’s New Local Plan over the course of several hearing in June and July.  The Inspectors’ lines of enquiry and the dates on which these will be heard have now been published online.  Challenges to the soundness of the provisions for Kensal Canalside will be heard on 22 June, and issues concerning the Council’s policies on conservation and design, including tall buildings, on 19 July.

This is a kind of process of appeal.  Only those who made representations to the Council in December that the Plan was unsound in some respect may attend and speak, or make further written representations in advance of the hearing (or both).  We intend to pursue relevant issues which we put forward in December and which the Council did not consider justified amendments to the Plan. 

The Inspector’s information states that sessions will be live-streamed to enable participants and the public to watch the proceedings.  Further information on this will be issued in due course.

In March 2023 the Planning Inspectorate appointed an independent Inspector to examine the New Local Plan submitted by RBKC at the end of February.  You can catch up with the documents, the personnel and the progress of the examination of the plan here.

Dates have been announced when the Planning Inspector will  hold in-person hearings at the Town Hall:

Tuesday 20 June to Thursday 22 June 2023

Tuesday 11 July to Thursday 13 July 2023

Tuesday 17 July to Thursday 19 July 2023

One of our Trustees has drawn our attention to the provisions in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill which will give greater protection to registered Historic Parks and Gardens such as Kensal Green Cemetery.  The Bill is currently in the House of Lords, so there is some hope that it will be passed before the summer recess. 

In the current draft of the Bill, Part 3, Chapter 3 relating to Planning and Heritage requires a local planning authority, when considering a planning application, to have special regard for the desirability of preserving or enhancing a registered historic park or garden or its setting.  This brings parks and gardens on Historic England’s register into a comparable state of protection as ‘listed’ historic buildings and monuments.

A full Council meeting at the Town Hall on 1 February 2023 approved the New Local Plan for RBKC, the Labour Group voting against this.   The final version to be submitted to the Planning Inspectorate is not yet available on the Council’s website, but we shall provide a link as soon as it appears.

As noted previously, no significant amendments were incorporated into the parts of the Plan which most affect us.  However, it is heartening to know that we are not alone in our concerns about the Canalside development, including elected members of the majority Conservative persuasion.  Those who have an hour to spare can see and hear the debate here.  You are advised to Fast Forward to minute 53!

A full Council meeting at the Town Hall on 1 February 2023 will consider the final amendments to the Borough Local Plan before submission to the Planning Inspectorate.    

RBKC has compiled a summary of all responses to the draft Local Pan on which it consulted in late 2022.  These, and the very few modifications which officials are recommending, can be seen on the Council website: the complete agenda for the meeting here, and the report on responses received and the Council’s reaction here. 

A total of 16 individual responses, including that from the FoKGC, were received by the Council in relation to the proposals specific to Kensal Canalside, of which the majority challenged the soundness of the proposals, chiefly on grounds of inadequate transport links for a scheme of the proposed density, the questionable suitability of the site for tall buildings, and lack of clarity about the balance between public benefit and inevitable detriment to the surrounding community, biodiversity and heritage assets.  No significant modifications to the draft Plan will be made at this stage, so we cannot say we have had much impact on the Plan.  However, there is evidence that the Trustees’ comments were considered and the seriousness of our concerns recognised, which was our objective.

The New Local Plan for Kensington and Chelsea, now in its final stage before submission to the Planning Commission, proposes two bridges to create a north-south route from Barlby Road in North Kensington, across the GWR railway lines to Kensal Canalside, then on across the canal and through Kensal Green Cemetery to the Harrow Road. 

FoKGC responded to these proposals in the recent consultation on the New Local Plan by drafting provision for a fully-costed feasibility study to be undertaken, with stakeholder and community consultation, before plans were finalised for the bridge across the canal and route through the Cemetery (a proposal not reviewed since 2016, when an Elizabeth Line station was planned for the Canalside site).

The influential St Helen’s Residents’ Association, based in North Kensington, however, proposed that the provisions in the New Local Plan regarding both bridges should be omitted altogether, on the grounds that the requirement for them was not proven, and there had been insufficient regard for public safety in the proposals.

The Council’s detailed action plan for promoting and preserving biodiversity in the Borough was published on 25 November 2022.  It proposes a wide range of actions by the Council’s Ecology team in partnership with landowners and communities over the period 2022-2027.

You can view and download a copy here.

The Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery made observations on the draft plan during its consultation stage in the winter of 2021/22 and we are delighted to see its commitments reinforced and extended.  In particular the BAP emphasises the value of open space and biodiversity to human wellbeing, and the necessity of recognising these values in plans for the built environment. 

A key objective in the BAP is to enhance public access to, and engagement with, open spaces in the Borough and their diverse species.  The Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery look forward to participating in this programme as far as we are able.

In an introduction to The Telamon #93 (October 2022) Johanna Holmes, Membership Secretary, reviewed the Trustees' current activities and concerns.  Chief among these was, of course, the developing vision of the Kensal Canalside development and its implications for the Cemetery's character.  She confirmed the Trustees' opposition to a 24-hour fenced and lit route for cycles and pedestrians through the Cemetery in order to relieve the single existing route on and off the development.  Although, as she noted, this particular proposition seems to have receded for the time being, it is clear that a bridge across the canal and access from the south into the Cemetery are still very much on the agenda.  Chris Johns, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the General Cemetery Company has contributed the GCC's perspective on the context in which the various options, and their sustainability, must be considered, in the attached letter.  Both GCC and the Friends have expressed their commitment to working together through the significant changes which lie ahead.

You can view the letter by clicking here

The final version of the RBKC New Local Plan for the whole Borough was published online on 27 October 2022.  It contains the policy framework within which a planning application on the Kensal Canalside site will be submitted nd considered in 2023 or 2024.  Members of the public are invited to submit comments before 22 December 2022, after which the document, and comments received, will be submitted to the Planning Inspectorate in the spring of 2023.

You can access the relevant page of the Council’s Planning Consultation website here, where the Plan and supporting evidence are available, as is the questionnaire through which responses can be made.  Please be aware that, to be taken forward, comments from the public must be framed around the “soundness” of the Plan’s evidence, evaluation of options and conclusions.

The Trustees of the Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery will be commenting on those parts of the Plan relevant to the Kensal Canalside development and its impact on the Cemetery.  We are emailing members of the Friends this week urging them either to respond themselves or to let us know their views.

If you are not already a member of the Friends, please consider joining us at this crucial period in the Cemetery’s history.

In February 2022 RBKC began consultation on an array of documents which contribute to the review of the Local Plan for the Borough.  Planning policy as regards the Kensal Canalside Opportunity Area formed a very substantial part of the consultation documentation, and included both a draft policy statement for the area, which includes statements on the bridge across the Grand Union and route through the Cemetery[1],  and various pieces of supporting ‘evidence’ from specialist consultants.  Among the latter, of particular interest to the Friends were the reports assessing the impact on the Cemetery as a heritage asset and the impact on close and distant views from the Cemetery of the high buildings proposed.  You can download and read the documents here, and read the various responses specifically relevant to the Kensal Canalside proposals here.

In effect, the impact studies and the responses to the Council’s draft policies reveal in greater clarity the irreconcilable factors at work here.  While the visual impact on visitors to the Cemetery of a development of the mass and height planned is described as profoundly adverse, the planning regulations requiring the Council to optimise the use of the site, and the feasibility requirements to achieve financial viability, seem resistant to compromise on density or height.  The Heritage Impact Assessment recognises the importance and fragility of the landscape, monuments and individual buildings but reiterates that negative impacts can only be mitigated: the development will have a “transformative effect” on all aspects of the Cemetery.

The new Local Plan, once finalised and approved by the Planning Inspectorate, lays out in considerable detail the parameters for the developers’ planning application at Kensal Canalside, so it is worth keeping abreast of the process.  The Council’s timetable for publication of the new Local Plan, following consultation, was “Summer / Autumn 2022” but so far no document has been revealed. Following publication, the plan will, under present government regulations, be submitted to the Planning Inspectorate for examination as to its “soundness”, when there will be further opportunity for challenge.  A seismic shift in Planning Regulations has been heralded by members of the Conservative government, but the reality of this remains to be seen.......

Following public consultation in the Autumn of 2021 on the outline proposals for the Kensal Canalside site, the scheme is being revised (somewhat) and a full planning application delayed, probably until the first half of 2023. 

We have been told that the Council intends to hold a further round of public consultation events and we are keeping an eye out for invitations and news of these.

The developers have met both Trustees of FoKGC and Directors of the GCC.  However, it is still unclear whether proposals for a bridge across the Grand Union Canal, into the Cemetery, with or without a 24-hour through route to Harrow Road, are being reconsidered. 

In her most recent report-back to constituents (August / September 2022), Felicity Buchan, MP for Kensington headlines her work to “protect Kensington from overdevelopment”.  She focuses on three local sites: South Kensington, Earls Court and Kensal Canalside.  Of the last, she says that she will “continue to work with the Council and local residents to ensure that Kensal Canalside provides the right development for the local community”. 

Kensal Green Cemetery offers the local community a precious historic and biodiverse place for exercise, reflection and discovery, and The Friends hope to work with Felicity in the months to come to preserve its special offering alongside the new development to the south.

Following consultation in the Spring of 2021 on a Supplementary Planning Document for the Kensal Canalside Opportunity Area, the final document and a schedule of responses can be found here.

https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/planning-and-building-control/planning-policy/kensal-canalside-opportunity-area-spd

Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) is proposing a Kensal Canalside development, which will be in close proximity to the Cemetery and will have a visual effect and potential other effects on the Cemetery. The draft Supplementary Planning Document on which the Council consulted in the Spring of 2021 can be viewed here

https://planningconsult.rbkc.gov.uk/KensalSPD/consultationHome