Category Archives: Planning

Annual Awards 2014

On Thursday 25th September we were pleased to present our 2014 Annual Awards to the people behind the best developments in Richmond over the past year.  After a tribute from our patron Bamber Gascoigne to his fellow patron the late Richard Attenborough, Charles Pineles reviewed many of the changes that have taken place in Richmond over the last year.

14 Water LaneAwards were presented by Bamber Gascoigne and the Mayor, Councillor Jane Boulton, who are pictured here with our chairman Ian Bruce and the winners of this year’s brass plaque award: Sam Hanna with representatives from 3W Architecture and Affleck Property Services. The winning development was the three new houses in Water Lane, Richmond.

 

Brass Plaque Award

Richmond Society Award Plaque
Water Lane 1The winning development was three cottages in a difficult infill site on Water Lane.
The design takes careful architectural clues from neighbouring late nineteenth century commercial building resulting in a sensitive scheme which sits well in the townscape. It provides three residences of an affordable nature, thereby uniting the best of design, build quality and amenity.

 

Commendations

Whole Foods1-5 Lower George St
(Whole Foods Building)
Replacement of 1960s System build, concrete, Woolworths building with high grade brick and reconstructed stone four storey building comprising shops with offices over.


Mary Magdalene windows 003Parish Church of St Mary Magdalene
Cleaning down to bare metal of 19th century wrought iron metal window frames and replacement of opaque glass with clear but multi faceted glass yielding a particular warm and dappled effect to the interior with much improved illumination of the church in general.


St MatthiasSt Matthias Church
Reinstatement of West porch details worn away over past 100 years, in Bath stone. Addition of two highly decorative and contemporary sculptures and restoration of much worn out stonework.


7 Old Palace Lane7 Old Palace Lane
Cleaning white paint from front façade, re-pointing brickwork, reduction in hard-standing of front parking area to open basement to light and ventilation and installation of wrought iron railings at rear thus returning the entire terrace, of which the house made a significant, part to its homogeneity.


4 Spring Terrace4 Spring Terrace
Modern infill, set back to side of 1830s front façade. Design and build quality being of the highest order. Sensitive use of material and bonding matching proportions of original building.

 

 

Previous years’ winners can be seen on our Awards page.

 

Planning Matters May 2014

Lighting

It was the proposal to place concrete lampposts to replace cast iron gas lights round Richmond Green that caused the civic movement leading to the formation of the Richmond Society.

The erection of a blue disc traffic sign on a lamp post by the Old Palace Gatehouse recently drew our attention to a number of replacements of our simple designed posts, known as Revos. Further investigation has shown a plethora of differing designs, known as Oxfords, Cambridges and even New Designs.  This has disrupted the homogeneity of lighting around The Green.

We have now visited The Green with professional officers with a view to formulating a policy of replacing obsolete posts with a single design, whilst incorporating the English Heritage policy of ‘Save our Streets’ in ridding the area of superfluous signage clutter.

St Helena Terrace boat houses

Application for change of use of one of the boat houses along St Helena Terrace resulted in our sounding out as wide a section of the membership as we could prior to making our representations to the council. This is potentially an important step in the development of an historic area of listed buildings.  It could lead to their being converted to uses that would banalise an historic corner which so far has managed to retain its own very special character.

Star & Garter

The full application is now in and a decision is expected in September 2014.

Ancaster House May 2014
Ancaster House

Phase II of the same project is the development of the old Commandant’s lodgings at Ancaster House, opposite the home. It is proposed to retain the division of the existing building into three discrete houses, build a fourth in the gardens beside the Park, and add an additional three Town Houses along the Queen’s Road wall.

We are awaiting formal submission of the application before lodging our comments although we have had discussions on certain aspects of the subject with the developers.