Maccreanor Lavington and Pringle Richards Sharratt behind scheme to repurpose Ladywell Playhouse in Lewisham
Lewisham council has rescinded planning permission for proposals by Maccreanor Lavington and Pringle Richards Sharratt to convert a grade II-listed Victorian bath house into a cinema three years after the stalled scheme was approved.
The council has returned the application for the Ladywell Playtower building to the planning committee because of what it said was the “inability” of the scheme’s developer Guildmore to overcome financial challenges.
Ladywell Playtower is one of London’s earliest surviving public baths, built in a brick gothic revival style in 1884 to designs by architect Wilson, Son and Aldwinkle. The local landmark, located on Ladywell Road, is known for its distinctive round water tower and contains both first and second class swimming pool areas.
It was used as a community space following the closure of the baths in 1964 but has been vacant since 2004 with the first class pool hall now covered with graffiti. The site is on Historic England’s Buildings At Risk Register and has been identified by the Victorian Society as one of its top ten most “at risk” Victorian buildings in England.
Guildmore’s proposals, approved in 2022, would have converted the building into a four-screen cinema, with the largest screen sunk into the main pool tank, a second screen in the basement and two further screens on the first floor.
Internal and external areas of the building would have been fully restored, two elevations demolished and rebuilt with existing reused bricks, and its central courtyard area would have been covered over with a slated roof hung with glazed lanterns. A conical roof on the tower which was removed in 1908 would also have been reinstated.
Two new buildings would also have been built on the site, a five-storey yellow-brick block containing 23 homes and a three-storey red-brick block containing 10 homes.
The scheme has been stalled since its planning permission with Guildmore said to have been unresponsive to the council’s attempts to initiate talks on the section 106 agreement.
Council planning officers said: “Despite several attempts to initiate the proceedings the applicant was not responsive, so it was not possible to proceed with the legal agreement, and a considerable amount of time has now passed”.
Lewisham said the developer had experienced financial viability challenges which they have been unable to overcome despite support from the council to seek alternative funding sources.
“As a result, the applicant has not made any meaningful progress to complete the legal agreement,” the council said, adding that it was a concern that the building “continues to be in a very poor state of repair due to the lack of progress”.
The council is preparing to bring forward a new expression of interest in the process later this autumn which it said will seek to put the local community’s suggestions for future uses for the site “at the heart of our decision making”.
James-J Walsh, the council’s cabinet member for inclusive regeneration and planning, said: “The Council will not allow this local landmark to remain in limbo. We share residents’ frustrations and are acting decisively to break the deadlock. We are committed to working with the local community to identify new opportunities to restore the building.”
Guildmore said it had entered into the project with “real enthusiasm and a strong commitment to bringing this much-loved building back into community use”.
“Unfortunately, a combination of unprecedented external factors meant we were unable to proceed as originally planned”.
The developer blamed the impact of the covid pandemic and rising construction costs for the failure of the project. It also said the cinema operator it had partnered with was “no longer in a position to move forward” while the residential component of the scheme had been hit by a struggling housing market.
It added: “This was not a decision we took lightly. We recognise how important Ladywell Playtower is to Lewisham and remain supportive of the building being restored for the benefit of the community.”
Lewisham council formally refused permission for the development yesterday.
Pringle Richard Sharratt acted as executive architect, lead consultant and conservation architect on the scheme, with Maccreanor Lavington leading on the scheme’s residential buildings.
The project team also included DCLA as landscape architect, Alan Baxter on structures and civils, Avison Young on daylight, P3R on building services, Boyer on planning and Markides Associates on transport.
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