Those living in the former Royal Military Academy feel as if promises have been broken as the site’s chapel and great hall were meant to be retained and revamped for community use
Residents living in a former military barracks in Woolwich have demanded action after their gym closed last year and other promised community spaces have never materialised. Greenwich Council has been called upon to enact enforcement penalties, but the South London authority said no planning agreements had been breached.
The Royal Military Academy was used to train commissioned officers of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers, as well as officers of the Royal Corps of Signals and other technical corps, until it was sold in 2006 to be converted into housing.
The residential development known as The Academy, Woolwich contains over 300 homes and is centred on Ashmore Road. Many of its residents purchased property under the assumption the site would contain a gym and other public facilities, but these are slowly dwindling and residents feel as if promises have been broken.
The Durkan Group bought the Royal Military Academy site from the Ministry of Defence for £15m in 2006, leading a £35m project to convert the former British Army facility into housing. As part of the original redevelopment proposals, the academy’s Grade II listed chapel and great hall were to be retained and revamped for community use.
Over the years the freeholds of these two buildings have been bought and sold by various parties. The chapel has since been converted into flats, and the great hall remains dilapidated and unused.
The hall had planning permission granted in August 2009 for ‘Internal alterations to the great hall to allow the building to be used as community space for residents’ which has never been enacted. It is currently up for sale, along with the east lecture house which has planning consent for a one-bedroom flat conversion.
Plans to convert the chapel, known as the Church of St Michaels and the All Angels, into community space and a gym were approved in 2015. Just like the hall plans nothing materialised, and three years later a proposal to turn the chapel into three flats was given the green light.
Residents were disheartened as these plans began to fall by the wayside, especially as many of them bought properties on the basis the development would contain community facilities. This frustration turned to anger when the gym onsite was closed last year. The property was sold and it is now also being converted into housing.
Susan Haroutunian is part of Residents Action, The Royal Military Academy SE18, a group that represents over 100 households at the academy. The residents group is putting pressure on Greenwich Council to enact enforcement action against those that own the freeholds of the proposed community spaces.
Susan said residents were “fed up” with the continual loss of spaces, especially the gym which had become increasingly used since the pandemic. The only remaining public facility at the academy is the concierge, but Susan said even the owner of that building was intending to turn it into flats at some point in the future.
She said her and other residents felt as if their properties had been devalued as many of them had bought properties in the Royal Military Academy development on the premise it would contain public spaces, in particular the gym.
Susan also said that as an architect she wanted to see the long-term future of the grade II listed great hall secured. She said: “It’s a shame. It’s a lovely little building that at the moment is just staying like that [unused], and the bottom line is this was meant to be a community space, both of them.
“So from us, we want to see action. We want the council to step in as they know the problems and that there has been clearly an understanding.”
Susan and the Residents Action group have been in touch with their ward councillors about the ongoing issue to try and get the council to take action. Susan said most of her direct dealings with the council had led nowhere, and she called the current situation “depressing and demotivating”.
Greenwich’s Green leader Tamasin Rhymes has been trying to help. Cllr Rhymes said: “It’s not an enormous site, but it’s a big enough site that there are lots of different bits of planning applications that have happened over the years since building started, and they’re not all necessarily connected in the planning officer’s eyes because they’re not on site and they don’t know it on the ground.
“It’s not that I necessarily think anybody’s made a mistake, but the fact that it’s not all been joined up has left the residents gradually but continually losing community space of any form at all, whether it’s the gym or this kind of putative entitlement to community accessible space of some sort that was supposed to exist under the original planning application.”
Cllr Rhymes said the dilemma was frustrating on two levels, the first being that the residents were slowly losing any form of shared space within the development and secondly that the “stunning and interesting” great hall building was gradually decaying through atrophy.
She was unsure whether Greenwich planners had any power to carry out enforcement action on the freehold owners of the proposed community buildings.
Greenwich Council’s planning department said it investigated the concerns raised by academy residents, but found there had been no breach of any planning agreement that would justify enforcement action and there was no requirement for the development to maintain a gym.
Planners also confirmed the changes of use of the chapel and the gym were approved through the proper planning process.
A council spokesperson said: “We understand some residents are concerned about community facilities at the Royal Military Academy development in Woolwich.
“The matters raised have previously been investigated by the council’s planning officers and no breach of the planning agreement that would justify enforcement action was found.
“The planning agreement does not require a gym to be provided. It does require community space to be made available for community use, but it does not specify that this must be provided in a particular building within the development.
“Under the agreement, community space must be made available free of charge on request for up to 12 days each calendar year. This can be provided in either the meeting room or the great hall.
“We are not aware of any requests for community space that have been refused, and there is no evidence that the requirements of the planning agreement have not been met.”
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