Lendlease Turns Down Abundance 'Tarmac Garden' Plan
Developer reviews its strategy on community use of space near Empire House
|
Abundance has expressed disappointment over news that Lendlease has decided not to allow it to create a community garden in a disused car park space near Sainsbury's.
Over the past three months Abundance has been negotiating with LendLease over the creation of a community garden – dubbed the Tarmac Garden – on the abandoned car park at the corner of Essex Place and Acton Lane.
The plan
was to create a space in the style of the Jardin des Joyeux in Paris which
would enhance biodiversity and improve the current eyesore. It would have
been a ‘meanwhile’ garden, one of the main conditions being an agreement
to leave within a month of notice as LendLease has planning permission
to create a block of flats on the site.
"This was a big step up for Abundance London. Heads of Terms for
a lease were agreed and Abundance spent a lot of time ensuring the correct
legal structure was in place. We also carried out some initial clean ups,
removing broken glass and other debris from the area and surrounds."
said Karen Liebreich of Abundance.
However, Abundance has been informed by letter last week by agents Nash
Bond who are acting for LendLease that “the strategy for this site has
been reviewed and regrettably we are no longer able to move forward with
offering occupation of any part of the site or shop units.” This change
also affects other charities which had been negotiating for space in
the shop units within Empire House.
Karen Liebreich said: “It’s a real pity as we had
already spent a lot of time and effort on this project, have a good volunteer
team in place, and had received support from the London Borough of Hounslow,
Gunnersbury Nature Reserve and many other local groups. The area has been
an eyesore, and we felt we could have made something beautiful and fun
that would be good for local biodiversity, and involve local people and
schools. We understood that we were about to start, so obviously we’re
disappointed at the waste of time and effort.”
It is believed two charities had been negotiating for pop up shops in the empty units within Empire House and had applied for rates relief.
"The boarded up frontage of Empire House affects the health of the High Road as a whole, and we were really hopeful that creating a small oasis of biodiversity, even if only for a short period of time, would have shown that developers can work productively with local community groups to create positive results," said Karen Liebreich.
A spokesperson at Lendlease said: “We have decided to review the strategy for our Chiswick site and unfortunately this means we will no longer be leasing any part of the site or any shop units at this time. As soon as we’re able to share more on our long-term plans we will.”
Like Reading Articles Like This? Help Us Produce More This site remains committed to providing local community news and public interest journalism. Articles such as the one above are integral to what we do. We aim to feature as much as possible on local societies, charities based in the area, fundraising efforts by residents, community-based initiatives and even helping people find missing pets. We’ve always done that and won’t be changing, in fact we’d like to do more. However, the readership that these stories generates is often below that needed to cover the cost of producing them. Our financial resources are limited and the local media environment is intensely competitive so there is a constraint on what we can do. We are therefore asking our readers to consider offering financial support to these efforts. Any money given will help support community and public interest news and the expansion of our coverage in this area. A suggested monthly payment is £8 but we would be grateful for any amount for instance if you think this site offers the equivalent value of a subscription to a daily printed newspaper you may wish to consider £20 per month. If neither of these amounts is suitable for you then contact info@neighbournet.com and we can set up an alternative. All payments are made through a secure web site. One-off donations are also appreciated. Choose The Amount You Wish To Contribute. If you do support us in this way we’d be interested to hear what kind of articles you would like to see more of on the site – send your suggestions to the editor. For businesses we offer the chance to be a corporate sponsor of community content on the site. For £30 plus VAT per month you will be the designated sponsor of at least one article a month with your logo appearing if supplied. If there is a specific community group or initiative you’d like to support we can make sure your sponsorship is featured on related content for a one off payment of £50 plus VAT. All payments are made through a secure web site. |
May 28, 2019
