Located on the former Folgate Estate, the AJ100 practice’s proposals for Weston Homes envisage a part-5, part-13 and part-32 storey development including 191m² of commercial floorspace and a 2,797 m² health centre.
In planning documents, PRP says the scheme at 711-733 Old Kent Road includes 116 affordable homes, 47 per cent of the total. Other tenures include 59 homes for social-rent, and 57 intermediate rent homes. The remaining 129 homes would be for private sale.
The housing mix is majority two-bedroom homes, followed by one-bedroom homes and a smaller number of three and four-bed units. Social rent homes are three or four-bed apartments.
PRP says it has designed the scheme so that tallest building, Block B, sits at the junction of Old Kent Road and Devon Street with a base, middle and crown intended to create a slender profile on Southwark’s skyline. Its façade would use darker brick at the base, with vertical brick piers and grouped windows through the middle and a lighter-toned crown.
The scheme would retain and refurbish the Victorian shopfronts at 731-733 Old Kent Road, which are locally listed. The retained façades would form part of Block C, which would contain around 2,797m² of potential medical-centre space. A further 191m² of retail space is proposed at ground-floor level in Block B.
Block A would provide the scheme’s affordable homes. PRP says its design is intended to strengthen the connection between the site and the proposed Livesey Park, with the residential entrance located to provide natural surveillance over the newly created public realm.
Residents would have access to a landscaped communal amenity space at first-floor podium level, including play space. The scheme also provides private balconies. The design statement says that 95 per cent of the homes would be dual-aspect.
The development would be car-free, apart from three blue-badge parking spaces. The design statement says this reflects the site’s public transport connections following the proposed Bakerloo Line extension.
Under Southwark Council’s draft regeneration framework for Old Kent Road, up to 20,000 homes are planned in the long term, depending on completion of the Bakerloo line extension.
All homes in the PRP scheme would meet the Nationally Described Space Standards, while 90 per cent are designed to meet M4(2) accessible and adaptable standards and 10 per cent to M4(3) wheelchair-user standards.
Southwark Council will now decide on the application.