£2m Pembroke Street flats ordered to be demolished
Property developer loses appeal to save 13 ‘ungainly and incongruous’ apartments
Published: 4th March, 2011
by PETER GRUNER
A DEVELOPER has just months before he must demolish a £2million block of flats in King’s Cross because he didn’t stick to the original planning agreement.
Property developer Niaz Choudhury, whose flats featured in the Tribune two years ago, has been told that unless he pulls the five-storey block down Islington Council will do it for him. He has finally lost an appeal against a government planning inspector who described the 13 flats in Pembroke Street as “ungainly and incongruous” in appearance and “harmful to the character of the locality”.
A council housing official said that it would ensure that all current tenants have departed before action was taken.
Mr Choudhury, who says he spent his life savings on the project, even named the block Choudhury Mansions.
The flats, on the site of The Marquis of Salisbury pub, were built five years ago and are currently rented to a mixture of professionals and foreign students.
Islington planning department argued that the flats built differed from the plans approved. Objections centred on the colours used for external painting, the “cramped and unattractive” entrance to the flats, lack of an internal bin area, an “obtrusive” lift tower on the roof and claims that some fourth-floor balconies overlooked flats on the Bemerton estate next door.
Mr Choudhury sought retrospective planning permission for the changes in 2009, but this was refused by the council’s west area planning committee.
He appealed but government planning inspector David Harrison sided with the council. He said there were a number of significant differences between the plans as approved and what had been built.
Mr Harrison added: “The overall difference is so marked that I am in no doubt that what has been built is not the approved building.”
Mr Choudhury offered to put right all the objections to the development rather than see it demolished.
But in his report Mr Harrison states: “I do not consider that the range of alterations to the building put forward by the appellant would overcome the harm to the appearance of the area.”
Mr Choudhury said: “At the end of the day it’s four main items. They don’t like the colour, they don’t like the lift house, they want the bins kept within the building rather than outside, and they are worried about overlooking next-door flats. OK, I can sort all these problems out. Surely they don’t need to demolish an entire block of mansion flats because of a few issues over the original plans.”
Cllr Rupert Perry, a previous chairman of planning, said: “This developer erected the shoddiest building in our neighbourhood and thought he could get away with it. No developer should think Islington Council’s planning policies can be ignored. We are no soft touch. We want affordable housing built to family-sized dimensions. And we require the highest standards of design and amenity space.”