Campaigners Sound Alarm over Next Phase of Friary Park

Claim developer is about to announce plans with increased height and density

Visualisation of scheme with earlier plans for Phase 3 on the right. Picture: Mount Anvil

July 11, 2024

This weekend the developers of the massive Friary Park scheme will be revealing details of its plans for the third phase of the project.

The completed project already is a visible presence on the local skyline and the outline designs for the final phase had suggested that the buildings would not be as tall as the ones already approved and built.

However, local campaign group, Cap The Towers is claiming there might be an unpleasant surprise when Mount Anvil and Peabody unveil their new design at the Friary Park Community Centre on Saturday 13 July from 11am - 4pm or on Monday 15 July from 6 - 8pm. Refreshments will be provided at the public exhibition as well as family friendly activities.

Up until now it had been assumed that Phase 3 of the development would see three new tower blocks built on the section of the estate closer to the A40. These buildings were to be 22, 18 and 14 storeys high. Currently the tallest tower in the development is set to be 24-storeys high.

Cap The Towers is claiming that, right from the origin of the scheme, the intention has always been to build taller towers for this stage as the viability of the overall scheme depends on it. This, the campaign group says, is despite the amount of amenity space around the scheme being well below the required levels already, an issue set to get more acute if the new buildings are approved.

Cap the Towers has been strongly critical of the way in which it alleges Ealing Council has allowed the construction of this development to proceed thus far, given the fact that the official viability studies carried out by the specialist company DS2 and the Government’s own viability assessors, DVS, have both declared that the development is ‘financially unviable’ which would mean granting approval would go against government advice.

Cap The Towers claims that the only way to ensure financial viability for the final stage is to build a number of flats to give a population much higher than the site can possibly sustain. According to the campaigners the projected population for the estate would require 43,000 square metres of amenity space but the plan only provides for less than a quarter of this number.

The Friary Park scheme is already dominating the local skyline. Picture: Cap The Towers

A spokesperson for Cap The Towers said, “This is dramatic evidence of extreme overdevelopment. Friary Park will be dangerously overcrowded if the developers Mount Anvil/Peabody get their way.

“Cap the Towers has always argued for more moderate and sustainable development at Friary Park, rather than the extreme heights and massive overpopulation which these developers have sought and Ealing Council has encouraged. But all the signs are that, far from scaling down, they are determined to scale up: higher towers; even more homes, notably for the global rich to hold as investment properties; even greater density of population. The detail of this intended final phase of the development, Phase 3 as they call it, will be revealed on 13th and 14th of July, but Cap the Towers has already uncovered clues of what is likely to be proposed. It is horrendous.”

The group claims that two images buried within the thousands of pages of documentation and first submitted to the council back in 2019, which show buildings significantly in excess of the height of the outline plans approved by the council, represent what has really been planned all along.

The images appear to show towers that significantly exceed the 22, 18 and 14 storeys buildings proposed earlier both in terms of height and bulk.

The first of the grey tower images of the three much expanded towers is from Friary Road as it swings into Acton on the slip road from the A40; the second is from the footbridge over the A40 further east.

The three much expanded towers from designs made in 2019 seen from Friary Road. Picture: Mount Anvil

View from the footbridge over the A40 further east of designs submitted in 2019. Picture: Mount Anvil

These computer-generated images were made in February 2019, three months before the initial planning application was approved by Ealing Council’s planning committee on 20 November, 2019 where these three towers were shown as much lower.

A closer view from the A40, showing the proposed proportions at Friary Park from 2019. Picture: Mount Anvil

Cap The Towers says, “In other words, this ‘final’ expansion of the Friary Park development has been planned by the developer and the Council from the very beginning. Was it that they knew that they could never have got away with it if they had proposed such excessive overdevelopment at the beginning, in 2019? So deviously, they kept their real intentions under wraps till the scheme was well on its way.

“These sinister grey tower images have never been shown to the councillors on the Planning Committee. How could they have approved towers of 22, 18 & 14 floors if they had known that the real intention was to build much higher? “

We contacted Mount Anvil to ask for a comment on the allegations from Cap The Towers but have yet to receive a response.

A visualisation of the height of proposals for Friary Park. Picture: Cap the Towers