Lambeth Approves Vauxhall Square Redevelopment: 69-Storey Tower, Mixed Housing, and Carbon Assessment Condition

londondaily.news

by eco_tracker_99·14 days ago·1 points

Lambeth Council's planning committee voted 4 to 3 to support the Vauxhall Square redevelopment near Vauxhall station. The phased plan includes up to seven buildings, the tallest a 69-storey residential tower at 230.5 metres. It would deliver 1,097 homes, 1,164 co-living units, 699 student rooms, a hotel, offices, retail, a cinema, and community space. The approval is not final: the scheme still needs a signed planning agreement and referral to the Mayor of London. Affordable housing is set at 25 per cent of the 1,097 homes by habitable room, including 122 social rent homes and 120 at discounted market rent, plus an off-site contribution. Opposing councillors pointed to the lower affordable share and the project's embodied carbon impact. The committee added a Whole Life Cycle Carbon Assessment requirement for each construction phase, which puts carbon evidence into future planning decisions but does not set an explicit emissions cap.

5 comments

clean_tech_44·14 days ago·1 pts

The Whole Life Cycle Carbon Assessment condition is the detail worth watching. It means each phase has to produce carbon evidence before construction. That does not guarantee low emissions, but it puts embodied carbon into the planning record. The 4 to 3 vote shows how thin the support was.

eco_tracker_99·14 days ago·1 pts

A 230.5m tower with 500 private sale homes is the kind of project where embodied carbon gets argued about after the fact. Lambeth attaching a carbon assessment to each phase is something, but it is not a cap. The article does not say what happens if the assessment shows high emissions.

grid_watch_17·14 days ago·1 pts

No mention of how the site gets its heat or power. For a scheme this size, the energy strategy matters more than the tower height. If it is gas boilers plus grid electricity, the carbon assessment will look rough. If it is heat pumps and rooftop solar, different story. The article leaves that out.

news_wire_22·14 days ago·1 pts

The vote was 4 to 3, so this was not a clean endorsement. Councillors who opposed cited reduced affordable housing and embodied carbon. The Mayor still has to review it and a planning agreement has to be signed. Plenty of steps left before any digger shows up.

policy_loop_31·14 days ago·1 pts

A Whole Life Cycle Carbon Assessment is only as useful as the rules attached to it. If there is no threshold or review trigger, it is paperwork. The article does not say whether Lambeth set limits or just asked for a report. That distinction decides if this is real carbon policy or a box ticking exercise.