The resident-led housing association, Phoenix Community Housing, had submitted plans to partially demolish Catford Police Station on Bromley Road to make way for 63 new homes. Lewisham councillors chose to unanimously grant planning permission during a planning meeting on Tuesday night.
Catford Police Station closed at the end of 2017 and since its closure, the building has been occupied by Live In Guardians who are allowed to live in disused buildings for a lower rate than normal in exchange for ‘guarding’ the vacant property.
In February 2022, not-for-profit Phoenix announced it had purchased the site and had initially wanted to build 65 new homes – but this has been reduced by two.
The plans will see 100per cent ‘affordable’ housing built on site, which will be split into 29 social rent flats and 34 intermediate rent flats.
The accommodation mix consists of 26 one-beds, 29 two-beds and eight three-bedroom properties. All of the three-beds will fall under the social rent tenure.
Phoenix will retain and convert the locally listed main police station building, while all of the other ancillary buildings will be demolished and replaced with two new blocks which would be between four and six storeys tall.
During the meeting, Steve Connor, Development Manager at Phoenix, said: “We are very excited about the proposals for Catford Police Station and we have worked hard over the last couple of years to provide a design that retains part of the locally listed police station building fronting Bromley Road – whilst responding to the local context and providing 63 affordable homes.
“As part of this, Phoenix takes the views of its residents and the local community seriously and we are committed to working collaboratively on our new homes programme.”
During the public consultation stage, the plans received 10 objections and a petition which had 37 signatures.
There were no objections from Transport for London, Thames Water, Historic England, the Met Police’s Designing Out Crime team, the London Fire Brigade, the Environment Agency, Historic England or Active Travel England.
Some of the local residents who had objected to the plans were present at the meeting. Residents spoke out against the proposed height of the six-storey block, arguing it will invade their privacy and is “completely out of scale” with the area.
They also raised concerns over the height and density of the building, and requested that no building is taller than four storeys.
Later on in the meeting, a planning officer referred to other buildings in the area that were five storeys tall such as the Passfields Estate.
He said: “It can’t be seen as out-of-character when you’ve got a five-storey block literally at the end of the road [which is] next to two-storey houses… so officers felt when we were looking at this that this scheme wasn’t out of scale with the immediate area.”
When it came to the vote, Chair of the Planning Committee, Cllr Jack Lavery called the scheme “fantastic” and highlighted that it was 100per cent affordable housing, before the plans were unanimously approved.
