Victorian Kingston waterworks site won't have offices built on it as residents beg for nature reserve

Plans to convert a 'derelict' building at an old Victorian waterworks in South London into offices have been rejected amid calls for the site to be turned into a nature reserve. Seething Wells filter beds, in Surbiton, were used to provide clean water to the capital before Thames Water decommissioned the 19th-century site in 1992.

Cascina Limited, which now owns the whole site, applied to Kingston Council to convert the old pumphouse for the filter beds on Portsmouth Road into offices with three car parking spaces. The site is Metropolitan Open Land (MOL) and a site of importance for nature conservation (SINC).

Planning documents argued the application would benefit the area by providing 'needed office accommodation' in an 'accessible location', preserve the old pumphouse and enhance the surrounding conservation area. Council officers recommended approval of the application after ruling it would 'preserve the openness' of the MOL, introduce 'active employment use to a redundant and derelict building' and had 'appropriate biodiversity safeguards'.

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But the council's planning committee unanimously rejected the application on April 25. Residents and councillors argued the application isolated the old pumphouse from the rest of the site and that it should instead be considered as part of a wider masterplan focussed on heritage and nature conservation.

The council committed last year to exploring different options for the site's future, including the possibility of turning it into a public nature reserve. The council is not the landowner so it can't designate the site as a local nature reserve itself.

Resident Tai Li Ling said the application did not follow council planning policy at the meeting on April 25. She said: "There’s no dire need for another office block and parking in the borough. Moreover, the addition of outdoor areas, parking, lighting and infrastructure will compromise the openness of the land and adversely affect biodiversity and the fragile open mosaic habitat."

Resident Phil Renton added: "As an alternative approach, we recommend an additional section 215 order is submitted to the owners to address specifically the eyesore and improve the visual impact that is the pumphouse in its current state of decline."

Regarding the application, Lib Dem councillor Liz Green also told the committee: "It will involve more people… wildlife on this site doesn't mix well with people… you also need to have safety measures. I know that the owners have recently been removing the water from the site, but it can have the potential of deep water which is not safe for people.

"So I think that you can't take it in isolation because they will have access to the remainder of the site and therefore it needs to be considered as a whole and what I think has not been demonstrated in this application is the impact on biodiversity on the whole site given additional people, movement, vehicles than [are] currently there."

Lib Dem councillor Andrew Wooldridge added: "In a lot of people's opinion, this approach overlooks the chance to include the project in a wider plan for the overall Seething Wells filter beds. We risk missing out on more beneficial uses for the wider community."

The committee also heard updates on ongoing discussions about the filter beds later in the meeting. Lib Dem councillor Roger Hayes said the council and community wants a 'holistic, long-term, lasting, sustainable solution to the filter beds' and for the site to 'become a heritage-led nature reserve'.

As part of this discussion, the committee approved a motion asking officers to investigate issuing Cascina Limited with a section 215 notice to deal with the poor state of the former pumphouse.

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