Green Light for Conversion of Great West House
263 new flats planned for landmark building
Great West House in Brentford. Picture: Maxwell Hamilton
August 23, 2024
Hounslow Council has given its approval for both towers at Great West House to be converted into residential use.
The owner, Great West House Ltd, submitted a request for a determination as to whether prior approval was needed on each building (GW1 and GW2) at 983 Great West Road this May. Then in July it requested certificates of lawfulness for a change of use on both buildings following a ‘failure to determine’ the earlier submission. This later application was withdrawn when council planners reached a decision on the original applications (PAC/2024/1397 and PAC/2024/1398) in which they ruled that prior approval was needed and was granted.
Another application for the conversion of the first eleven floors of GW2 into storage units made this April has also been withdrawn.
This means that GW1 is set to be converted into 153 new flats with a total floor space of 11,516sqm and GW2 will be converted into 110 flats with 7,008sqm of residential floorspace.
The acceleration of the decision increases the chances of Hounslow Council reaching its new housing starts target which was recently set by the incoming government.
Earlier this year, Hounslow Council announced that it was making an Article 4 direction that would restrict Permitted Development Rights (PDR) in areas in which it wanted to maintain a supply of office space including along the Great West Road. PDR allows the conversion of commercial buildings into residential without a requirement to get full planning permission. The changes will not take effect until next April .
Normally when buildings are converted to residential under permitted development rights, there is no affordable component.
Great West House is a 60-year-old development sitting on a 3.2 acre site. It currently provides approximately 14,400 sq m of office space.
Like Reading Articles Like This? Help Us Produce More This site remains committed to providing local community news and public interest journalism. Articles such as the one above are integral to what we do. We aim to feature as much as possible on local societies, charities based in the area, fundraising efforts by residents, community-based initiatives and even helping people find missing pets. We’ve always done that and won’t be changing, in fact we’d like to do more. However, the readership that these stories generates is often below that needed to cover the cost of producing them. Our financial resources are limited and the local media environment is intensely competitive so there is a constraint on what we can do. We are therefore asking our readers to consider offering financial support to these efforts. Any money given will help support community and public interest news and the expansion of our coverage in this area. A suggested monthly payment is £8 but we would be grateful for any amount for instance if you think this site offers the equivalent value of a subscription to a daily printed newspaper you may wish to consider £20 per month. If neither of these amounts is suitable for you then contact info@neighbournet.com and we can set up an alternative. All payments are made through a secure web site. One-off donations are also appreciated. Choose The Amount You Wish To Contribute. If you do support us in this way we’d be interested to hear what kind of articles you would like to see more of on the site – send your suggestions to the editor. For businesses we offer the chance to be a corporate sponsor of community content on the site. For £30 plus VAT per month you will be the designated sponsor of at least one article a month with your logo appearing if supplied. If there is a specific community group or initiative you’d like to support we can make sure your sponsorship is featured on related content for a one off payment of £50 plus VAT. All payments are made through a secure web site. |