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4 July 2013	Proposals to rebuild the northern changing rooms and car park, 2013

Hackney Council has issued proposals for the replacement of the northern changing rooms, near Cow Bridge. The new building is intended to serve the new cricket pitches as well as the northern section of the football pitches. Hence its change of name to North Pavilion.

There is a feedback questionnaire about the proposal on the council website until 9 July.

HMUG has been shown 4 design options, of which the council prefers, and is developing, Option 2 (you can download the layout options under Architects Drawings below). In this, the present footprint becomes entirely carpark, with 70 spaces instead of the present 50. The pavilion is to the east of the poplar line, parallel to the trees. The north end of the building fans out to provide a terrace and social space facing towards the primary cricket pitch.

HMUG's main concerns are:

• the amount of private car parking
  
• adequate biodiversity and landscaping

Architect's drawings (download)

• Pre 2008 landscape
• 2008 Planning application
• Current site

• Zone constraints
• 4 layout options

Details of Option 2 proposal

• Overview (site plan)
• Internal layout study
• Site plan & roof study

All 8 drawings zipped for download

Background

This is the (presumably) final project in a series known as the Sports Development Strategy that was originated in 2006. The strategy was the subject of a public consultation in 2007 under the title 'Improving Hackney Marshes'.

Other projects have included the new Marshes centre (also called the Hub), the introduction of cricket pitches, and football pitches on Mabley Green. A project for an extra bridge by the Marshes Centre was dropped because of opposition by a number of organisations including HMUG. We don't know whether meadow and tree plantings in 2011 were funded under this programme.

The initial budget for the strategy programme was £3.5m and this became £17m. Funds have been contributed by the London Development Agency, Olympic Delivery Authority, Football Foundation, Sport England, England and Wales Cricket Board, London Marathon Trust, Rugby Football Union, City & Hackney primary Care Trust and FIFA, with £6.4m being contributed by the Council.

The budget for the north pavilion works is £4.2m.

A planning application was drafted in 2008 but we think it was never submitted. In late 2010 an architect was commissioned. HMUG had a preliminary informal site visit with an architect. We were copied in on some correspondence about biodiversity requirements in December 2010 to April 2011. After that we heard nothing more. In December 2012 the park development officer told us in passing that the project was to be revived. We were recently given a first briefing on the revived project by the LBH project officer, the architect and the landscaper. The council says it is aiming to apply to the Planning Inspectorate in July.

Until the building of the cricket pitches, there was a 200-space car park to the north of the current site, and the path ran in a straight line from Cow Bridge to Friends Bridge. The car park was surfaced in gravel. During the years when Cow Bridge was closed to motor traffic (2004-2013), it was becoming a brownfield habitat.

Between the conception of the Sports Strategy and 2011 the council commissioned a 'master plan' for the marshes from Camlin, a Cardiff-based consultancy. The master plan included a north pavilion.

To create the cricket pitches, the path was moved to its current position along the edge, and the big car park was grassed over, leaving just the 50 spaces in the current footprint. A line of several young and one mature planes in the car park was cut down. Also cut down were a number of Lombardy poplars along the north edge of the site, which used to continue the tree screen still present on the east (marsh) side.

In 2011-2013, Cow Bridge was rebuilt to enable motor traffic onto the marsh to resume.

Details

(If you want to look closely at the proposal maps, we suggest you download them from the links above so you can open them all for comparison.)

The obvious point about the proposal is that it places the building on what is now amenity grass. The council argues that:

• it's an improvement over the master plan, in that the building doesn't project across the marsh, and the car park is smaller than the pre-2008 provision
• the total footprint is smaller than the pre-2008 total, taking into account the old large car park.

The building is of conventional materials and design, as far as we can see, but there is intended to be a green roof. It is arguable that a green roof would provide better biodiversity than the amenity grass the building would replace. But to do this properly requires adequate soil depth, varying over the roof to provide conditions for a range of plants and invertebrates, including sunny mounds and pieces of dead wood for bees and beetles to breed in. This in turn requires a design which will bear the load.

At the moment there are worrying signs that the council is minded to cut corners here, and they seem to be contemplating a shallower roof than recommended by their own Biodiversity Officer. Green roofs installed on the Millfields waste station and the Marsh Centre have not done well. HMUG is pressing for an adequate specification this time around.

The site is on the boundary of the SINC (Metropolitan Site of Importance for Nature Conservation) which girdles the marshes. The building, car park and nets are laid out so they don't intrude on the SINC. The council says that it intends to plant around the building to extend the SINC. Again, SINC plantings the council commissioned in the past few years were not done well. Trees were laid out in a plantation grid unsuited to the marshes; valuable large saplings were planted too closely and a noticeable number have died, especially by the north meadow path.

So, as with the roof, HMUG is negotiating for the job to be done properly. During discussions it has been suggested that the council could commission the Community Tree Nursery to provide plants, and to organise community planting. But we have nothing in writing.

The car park raises the question of whether the marshes should be used for private car parking, or any vehicle parking at all. Since the project was first sketched out back in 2006/7, the council has committed itself to sustainable transport to its venues (in its 2010 Core Plan). There is a presumption in favour of siting venues where  public transport is good. So by building a venue on the marshes the council has posed itself an interesting problem. For example, wouldn't it be more sustainable and less intrusive to run an electric shuttle bus from the Marsh Centre car park?

The design of the car park seems an improvement on the tarmac of the Marsh Centre. The access road is permeable resin-bonded gravel. Other surfaces are filled mesh, covered with gravel for the parking areas and with grass-seeded soil for the service access route. Layout would be done by planting, not white lines. There are possibilities for brownfield habitat which is lacking on the marsh since the previous north car park became part of the cricket pitch. This would require no use of pesticides and we are trying to get a promise on that. The management plan for the marshes says they will start looking at less or no pesticide use in 2014; but sports fields are not a progressive sector in this regard.

Where does HMUG stand and what are we doing?

The group discussed this at the AGM on 9 June. The position taken was that while we're not sorry to see the replacement of the current eyesore, we are concerned about:

• the amount of private car parking
  
• adequate biodiversity and landscaping

A delegated group has met twice with the council project officer, building architect and landscaper. We've put those views and also tried to negotiate commitments on the lines described above.

We also put forward the possibility of a straw bale construction, which would produce a less-than-zero-carbon building. The council Core Plan calls for the council to start using sustainable building technologies including straw bale.

The process as we understand it is that the project officer will pass the proposals to a council planning officer for what is called validation. He is saying that he wants to do that in July. Next there is an application to the council Planning Sub-committee, which we are told will be September at the earliest. Finally the council applies to the Planning Inspectorate for common land consent (PINS): this may not be until early in 2014.

There is a worry that the council will make the right noises before getting planning agreement, and then cut corners afterwards, for reasons of money, convenience or simply habit.  We are trying to get over to the council that we must have cast-iron detail before they go to the Planning Sub-committee.

To keep up with developments please join our mailing list and to contribute your views please comment here or come to our meetings on the 3rd Wednesday of every month, 6.30 at the Tree Nursery (during summer).

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