Red Lion Site Developments: Letter to the Ealing Gazette

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Red Lion pub
Photo: © David Hawgood

26 June 2013
The Editor, Ealing Gazette (by Email)

Dear sir

Malcolm Ede (Architects putting town into boxes – 21 June) has a fair point about the design of some new buildings in Greenford. At least the William Perkins High School will be clad in traditional brick but it is most regrettable that it is being built on Metropolitan Open Land (the London equivalent of green belt). We agree that the proposed replacement building for the former Red Lion in Greenford is one of the worst schemes of its type that we have seen in a town centre location. The bulk and massing of the flat-roof building would possibly be appropriate for a discount warehouse on an industrial estate, but is completely inappropriate for a prominent corner site in Greenford, surrounded for the most part by domestic scale buildings with pitched roofs.

The most serious criticism however relates to the internal layout of the building where most of the proposed flats on all floors are accessed via internal dead-end corridors without windows. These unpleasant passageways would have serious implications for the safety of residents because they could be trapped on any floor without access to an alternative means of escape if a fire were to break out in one of the flats near to the only staircase. Building Regulations state that the building should be designed so that in case of fire there is appropriate means of escape to a place of safety outside the building. For this reason alone the application should be refused.

Yours sincerely

(Dr) Robert Gurd
Chairman, Ealing Civic Society