Wandsworth Council approved its own planning application for the Alton Estate last week. The meeting that produced that decision exposed exactly why it is a bad idea for the same organisation to be both the applicant and the judge.
The Planning Applications Committee voted on 12 March to grant permission for Block A (application 2025/4614): 55 affordable, family-sized council homes in a nine-storey building on the former Co-op site on Danebury Avenue, alongside a four-storey community hub housing a library, GP surgery, youth space, council offices and community hall. It is the first planning permission under the Alton Renewal Plan, which residents backed in a ballot last October, though nearly 60% did not vote.
What emerged during the session was a list of contradictions, unresolved legal problems, and at least one figure in the planning papers that does not stand up. Any of these, in an application from a private developer, would give a committee pause. This committee approved the application regardless.
The figure that doesn’t add up
Before the committee met, we had already reported that the council’s own papers contained a mismatch on the youth space. The officer’s report claimed the proposed youth provision would grow from 536 sq m to 780 sq m. The council’s own floor area tables showed the dedicated youth space in the new building at 317 sq m, a reduction on what it replaces. The council reaches 780 sq m by counting a community hall and bookable meeting rooms available to all users, not just young people. The Youth Advisory Panel, consulted during the design process, said the space “needs to be bigger.”
At committee, Councillor Jeffreys raised the discrepancy directly. Officers explained that 317 sq m is the usable youth floor space, while the larger figure includes ancillary accommodation. The committee accepted this explanation and moved on. The dedicated youth space approved on 12 March is 219 sq m smaller than the youth club it replaces. The council’s officer report described this as an uplift.
The legal question the committee cannot resolve
Leaseholders had also raised a right-to-light legal threat in the days before the vote. Councillor Govindia asked the committee’s external legal advisor, Duncan Moores, about it directly. Moores confirmed that right-to-light is a private law matter, outside the committee’s authority to determine. Critically, he told the committee that the council as developer must satisfy any such claims before the scheme can move forward.
The issue is unresolved. No timeline for resolution was given. The committee approved the application anyway.
The retail question nobody could answer
Multiple councillors pressed on what will replace the Co-op. Residents who supported the Alton Renewal Plan did so in part on the understanding that retail provision would follow. The former library building (Parcel B) has outline permission for flexible or retail use, but the details will be settled at reserved matters stage, with no further democratic oversight.
Committee chair Councillor Tony Belton acknowledged the weight of this. “I’m absolutely sure,” he said, “that it wouldn’t have got the approval of an overwhelming majority of the residents if there weren’t shopping facilities provided somewhere in the whole plan.” Officers could not commit to a supermarket or any specific retail outcome. That commitment does not appear in the planning permission.
GP continuity during construction
Councillor Jeffreys asked whether patients registered at the existing Roehampton surgery would have somewhere to go while the new facility is built. Officers said Condition 21 requires a GP practice delivery plan to be submitted, but no confirmed interim location was on the record at committee. Chair Belton indicated informally he had heard of an arrangement on Roehampton Lane, while making clear he could not confirm it. No formal interim GP provision was agreed.
The viability deficit
The scheme carries an approximate £12.6m deficit. Officers confirmed this falls within the viability-tested route applicable to schemes that demolish existing affordable housing. Councillor Humphries pressed on the risk of costs rising further as design details are resolved; officers acknowledged that the build cost plan at this stage uses BCIS indices rather than detailed figures.
What the council chose to say
The following day, the council issued a press release in which Cabinet Member for Housing Aydin Dikerdem said: “I know this is a big moment for the people who live and work here as this block has been an empty eyesore for too long,” he said. “Now we can get on with transforming this part of the estate by providing the whole Alton community with a fantastic new library, youth facilities and GP practice, alongside affordable council homes and green spaces.”
The press release makes no mention of the legal challenge, the retail uncertainty, the viability deficit, the absence of a confirmed interim GP arrangement, or the youth space figures. His claim that the council can now “get on with transforming” the estate sits against the legal advisor’s confirmation that the right-to-light issue must first be resolved.
This is the same cabinet member who last month told Cabinet his housing policy work had delivered results the planning inspector had in fact rejected.
What comes next — and whether it will
Block A is the first of up to 650 homes planned across the Alton Renewal Plan. Demolition of the existing buildings on Danebury Avenue is expected to follow the approval. Whether anything then gets built is a different question.
Wandsworth Council is in serious financial difficulty. The scheme carries an acknowledged £12.6m deficit, funded through the Housing Revenue Account, the same pot the council spent £1.9m on consultants to help it navigate. Construction timelines were not confirmed at committee because, in any meaningful sense, construction is not confirmed at all.
With local elections weeks away, the council now has a planning permission to point to. Whether Roehampton gets the homes, the library, the GP surgery or the youth space that permission describes is a question that will outlast the campaign.
The Alton Estate has been promised renewal before. The site has been the subject of construction activity since early this year, with preparatory works already under way. The estate’s 20 years of failure before the current plan gives residents every reason to ask not just whether the application has been approved, but whether what was approved will ever be built.
The planning application (2025/4614) is available on Wandsworth Council’s planning portal at planning.wandsworth.gov.uk.
