Fulham Riverside by Barratt Homes (Part 2)

Continued from Part 1.

Planning Application Details
Currently, there is already a Sainsbury supermarket on site.  The background to the supermarket element of the application stems from the desire of Sainsbusry's to improve its store and the Council's ambitions to regenerate and improve the Fulham Riverside area.

Under the plan, the car parking should be enclosed (currently it is an open carpark).  The supermarket will be at first floor level, above its customer car parking at ground level, providing a total of 460 spaces and 18 motorcycle spaces.

Retain Frontage of Fulham Wharf Warehouse
The Fulham Wharf Warehouse is a derelict warehouse, left abandoned for decades.  You can see some pictures of the insides of this warehouse on my community forum.  Do check it out here.

The frontage of the Fulham Wharf Warehouse is retained and references are taken from it in designing the new building. Taken from Google street view, you can see that work has started on the site.  This is the frontage of the warehouse that would be retained.

Soon to become frontage of a Sainsbury's

Looking down Townmead Road.

In particular, its 'saw tooth' roof is carried through into the new structure.  The roof projects slightly forward of the frontage in order to provide emphasis to its shape.  Beneath, the Sainsbury's frontage is fully glazed.

The Housing 
As part of the first phase, residential development is wrapped round the supermarket so that a new pedestrainised route linking Townmead Road with the river becomes a residential street and housing fronts onto the River Thames.  The buildings vary in height between four and seven storeys above the podium.

To provide variation in height and visual interest, the second building typology comprises two elegant slim towers, with one of 12 storeys and the other 17 storeys fronting onto the river.   These two towers are slender by virtue of the fact that they have only one or two apartments per floor, which makes them unique.

Phase 2 - Primarily Residential
Once the replacement supermarket has been completed, the existing Sainsbury's store will be demolished and a second phase of predominantly residential developments will be undertaken.

Residential town houses and apartments have been designed to provide frontages to both William Morris Way and the new pedestrainised street between Townmead Road and the river.  At the ground floor level, many of the homes have their own private garden.

Phase 2 Main Buildings
The main buildings comprises four, seven and nine storey buildings, with many facing into communal gardens and public open space, including an additional route through the site connecting William Morris Way and the river.

River Fronting Units
Fronting the river are dwellings of some four storeys of a design to match those in Phase 1.  The second phase with two further slim elegant towers of 12 storeys, stepping down to nine storeys as one moves towards the eastern boundary.  These towers have been kept to only one or two flats per floor in order to provide slim elegant structures that are not seen elsewhere along the river.

Artist Impression of Fulham Riverside Riverfront

The Jetty
The jetty is a large unused concrete structure that runs along approximately a third of the site's frontage onto the River Thames at its eastern end.  There are no connections between the jetty and the Thames Path. After public consultation, the proposal is to use the existing jetty for the creation of a large landscaped ecological area for wildlife.  The idea of achieving some public access was explored, but this was too difficult to achieve because of the need to get over the flood defence wall and onto the jetty.

Other Elements of the Development

Training Facility
On the ground floor of the retained Fulham Wharf Warehouse fronting Townmead Road, a training and educational use is proposed.  This training facility may be operated by an organization called "Explore Learning."  This company runs specialist training centres offering maths and English tuition for 5-14 year olds! (Tuition Centre!!)

Creche
There will be a creche at ground level, totalling some 152m2.

Gym 
A small gym comprising 128 m2 forms part of the scheme, being located on the podium above the vehicular entrance into the supermarket.

Restaurants/Cafes/Bars
Two of these are proposed either side of the new pedestrainised street on its southern end, comprising a 227m2 unit on the eastern side and a 504m2 unit on the western side.  The aim of these uses is to provide activity and points of interest along the river walk.

Public Consultation Outcome 
According to the planning documents, the public consultation outcome was very positive.  The Sainsbury is used by many local residents and they are very glad that they will get a new and improved supermarket. Further, they are happy that the derelict warehouse would be re-developed.  It contributes nothing to the area, but only gives problems like rough sleeping, anti-social activities and other nuisances.

Looks like this is one development that has widespread local support.

Do continue to Part 3 for more information on the location and transport links.

Happy Investing!