A new college and hundreds of homes will be built in Lambeth despite concerns about the pressure extra residents will put on the Northern line. Councillors approved Lambeth College’s latest redevelopment plans for its Clapham and Vauxhall campuses at a meeting on Tuesday evening (February 27) despite opposition from local residents.
In Clapham, 529 homes will be constructed alongside a new smaller college building. Existing structures on the site will be bulldozed, including an award-winning £20 million building completed just 15 years ago.
At the college’s campus in Vauxhall, a total of 262 homes will be constructed in a huge 24-storey tower. The block will replace previously approved plans to build 272 rooms for students on the site as part of the campus’s wider redevelopment, which is already under way. The new London South Bank Technical College based on the site was finished in 2023.
Ben Oates, the council’s planning officer for both schemes, admitted that plans for hundreds of new homes on the Clapham campus would ‘add further pressure’ to Clapham Common station, despite it already being at capacity on weekday mornings. But he said Transport for London (TfL) had told the council it was ‘not feasible’ to remodel the station to accommodate more passengers or increase the frequency of trains on the Northern line.
Clapham Common is one of two stations on the Northern line, along with Clapham North, to have island platforms, where passengers waiting for Underground trains in both directions share the same waiting area.
In an attempt to ease pressure on the station, Oates said that the council had secured cash from the developer towards ‘bus stop countdown signs’ to ‘encourage passengers to travel towards nearby Underground and Overground stations’.
Speaking against the Clapham campus plans, Bruno Almeida Santos, an architect and local resident, questioned the decision to demolish a £20 million building on the site built just 15 years ago.
He said: “The retention of this asset would still enable the development of the site and would then meet the principles of circular economy and sustainability and more importantly not waste £20 million.”
Oates said the buildings on the site were ‘not designed for residential conversion’ and said works to preserve them would come with ‘significant costs’.
Residents speaking against the Vauxhall campus plans expressed concern about the height and design of the proposed 24-storey tower and loss of light to nearby properties.
One local said: “If this application is approved, we are repeating the mistakes of the 60s and 70s. Not only that, but we are setting a precedent: 12 flats per storey, a density similar to Hong Kong will be repeated across London.”
But Henry Squire from Squire and Partners, the architects behind the proposed tower, dismissed concerns about its design. He said: “I respectfully say that in this instance the views and sunlight and daylight to all of these apartments, given the nature of the building and its height, will be fantastic and I wouldn’t mind having one view out of one side or one view out of the other for my flat.”
Of the 529 homes planned for the Clapham site, 377 will be at market rents, 45 will be shared ownership, where a person buys a share of a property and pays rent to a housing association on the remainder, and 107 will be at the cheapest social-type rents.
In Vauxhall, of the 262 homes planned, 183 will be at market rents, 53 will be at the cheapest social rents and 26 will be at London Living Rent, which is usually around a third of local incomes.
Professor David Phoenix OBE, vice chancellor of London South Bank University, which owns Lambeth College, said the two projects would allow the college to improve its educational offer in the borough.
Speaking about the Clapham campus plans, he said: “The site has a new college at the heart that has been developed with staff at the college, and with specialists. The aim was to create an inclusive and welcoming space for students. The current provision is prefabricated and hasn’t been built with that specialist design in mind so it is not fit for purpose in terms of what we need.”
Labour councillors Joanne Simpson, David Bridson, Rebecca Spencer and Malcolm Clarke voted in favour of the Clapham campus plans. Green Party councillor Scott Ainslie abstained. Cllr Jessica Leigh, Labour member for Clapham East, voted against. All councillors voted in favour of the Vauxhall campus plans, except Cllr Ainslie who voted against them.
Photos: CGI of new planned Lambeth College building in Clapham.
CGI of approved development on Lambeth College’s Clapham campus
CGI of approved Vauxhall tower as seen from Deeley Road. Credits: Lambeth Council planning documents
