Rod Holliman said the flat “will not get any meaningful daylight” if the former West London Post Office is replaced with flats
A man living in Chelsea has said that he fears a nearby development will plunge his home into “near total permanent darkness”.
An already approved application for the site will see a five-storey building built on the site of a former post office in Chelsea Manor Street. However, the applicant was granted permission to make the scheme even higher at a Kensington and Chelsea Planning Sub-Committee on Wednesday (June 23).
Mr Rod Holliman, who lives in a ground floor apartment in Almeda House, which is directly to the left of the development, told the sub-committee that the two metre increase in height would “severely diminish” his living conditions.
“My home would be plunged into near total permanent darkness forcing me to rely on artificial light even at midday,” he said.
“This is not a minor technical brief, it is a catastrophic notable cost that would cut my current daylight in more than half.”
He accused the applicant of “maximising their profit at the cost of [his] total darkness”.
Mr Holliman’s window is already “deeply recessed” because it sits under an architectural overhang, the sub-committee heard. This means that vertical sun component levels (VSC), which are used to assess how much daylight a property gets, are already very low, the applicant said.
The room which would be affected has a VSC of 5.5 percent, while the Building Research Establishment says developments should aim for an ideal level of 27 percent.
Once the development is completed, these VSC levels will decrease by 2.9 percent – a total reduction of 52 percent. Mr Holiman told the committee that it was “purely the 2.1 meter increase which has achieved this.”
He added: “The only window that attracts daylight is the window being affected. We will not get any meaningful daylight at all.”
Huite Capital Limited is developing the site, after taking over from the previous developer, who submitted the previously approved plans for the site.
Drew Steadman, who is a daylight and sunlight specialist advising the applicant, told the sub-committee that the change in VSC levels for the affected window was “very small” and that the majority of the room would still get direct sunlight.
He said that the proportional reduction in sunlight seems higher because the VSC levels for the window are already so low. He added that the scheme “performs well overall in its context in our view”.
Council officers recommended the scheme for approval as they felt that the scheme’s harms were outweighed by its benefits.
‘The reduction in light is reasonable’
Councillor Anne Cyron, Vice-Chair of the Planning Applications Sub-Committee, said: “It’s very concerning to hear Mr Holiman’s concerns and it is concerning when people develop near your home, particularly when they change the height and the height seems really tall.
“I’ve listened really carefully to all of these arguments and my feeling is that the officers have assessed this correctly – that the reduction in light is reasonable given the context and the setup of the flat.”
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