A renowned climate columnist has slammed Southwark’s planning department after realising new buildings on the Aylesbury Estate are facing the wrong way to use solar panels.
Southwark Council does not deny this oversight but insists the development is compliant with all its environmental planning policies.
In the 90s, Donnachadh McCarthy was a councillor for Faraday ward, which includes the Aylesbury Estate. Now an outspoken climate journalist, he is “heartbroken” by the blocks being built on the ‘First Development Site’ just west of Portland Street.
He says the development can never accommodate solar panels and pushes up too close to Albany Road, meaning there will never be space for trees or a protected cycle lane.
“It’s so frustrating. When I come here nowadays I face away so I don’t have to look at it. I spent twenty years of my life trying to keep this a habitable place, and for what?”
Donnachadh, who has been arrested multiple times for his climate activism, points out that the southernmost block is taller than those behind it.
As the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, this means the buildings behind the tallest one will be cast in shadow.
So any solar panels installed on these smaller blocks would be totally useless. At least one block also has its roof slanted northward, away from the sun.
Casting his mind back to his days as a councillor, Donnachadh said: “I attended workshops and saw kids draw what they wanted the Aylesbury Estate to look like.
“Kids were drawing pictures of solar panels on the estate and it breaks my heart that twenty years later we’re building a new Aylesbury Estate with no solar panels. The planning department is still so neanderthal.”
The buildings also push up right onto the Albany Road pavement, leaving no space for a protected cycle lane.
In the 90s, Donna says he passed a motion that said all new development should facilitate cycling infrastructure, but the passage of time appears to have swept this policy under the carpet.
The only way of accommodating a cycle lane would be to make Albany Road one way, an unlikely prospect given it’s a vital connection to Old Kent Road.
Cyclists and pedestrians in Southwark baked during last summer’s heatwave, as temperatures soared to a sweltering 38 degrees.
But Donnachadh points out that there is no space for trees that would help shade Albany Road. Research has shown that urban trees can reduce ground temperatures by up to six degrees.
The Aylesbury Estate redevelopment was approved in 2015. Even back then, Southwark Council and the Mayor of London’s planning policies made provisions for solar panels, trees and cycle lanes.
The 2011 Southwark Plan said that trees “help tackle climate change by cooling areas” and that new developments should be built “to high environmental standards”.
The Mayor of London’s 2011 London Plan, approved under Boris Johnson, said new buildings should be orientated “to maximise solar gain”.
The Mayor’s Office did not comment, saying: “The planning application was considered and agreed by a previous Deputy Mayor working for the previous Mayor.”
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Councillor Darren Merrill, Cabinet Member for Council Homes and Homelessness, said the council takes environmental sustainability “extremely seriously”.
He said: “The Aylesbury First Development Site was compliant with our environmental planning policies as they were at the time the application was considered in 2015.
We already dedicated land in the designs for a cycle hire space, and created a cycling ‘Quietway’ route linking the First Development Site from Burgess Park.
The designs also included a combined heat and power plant (CHP) which will reduce carbon emissions associated with the development by 32%.
He added that the designs and planning applications for the wider Aylesbury Estate build on this “legacy” of sustainability.
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