KINGSTON AND NORTH KINGSTON NEIGHBOURHOOD

Conservation Areas Advisory Committee

PLANNING APPLICATION COMMENT FORM DATE: 8 April 2026

CA1

RBK ref: 26/00478/EIA Scoping

Address: Lever House 3 St James Road Kingston Upon Thames KT1 2BA Planning Officer: Joel Turner

Description of proposed works: Request for Environmental Impact Assessment Scoping Opinion under Regulation 15 of the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) for Lever House.

APPRAISAL

By full committee on …… 8 April 2026 …… with …… 5 …… members present

Issued on 8 Apr 2026

1. Positive support		2. No objection
3. Objection	X	4. Objection unless revised as below
5. No comment/neutral		6. Lack of detail
7. Decision already issued

Reason for objection:

Objection. We have always believed that Lever House is capable of adaptation like numerous other tall buildings in London, but this scoping report makes no mention of it. In our view it is essential that, before a PA is presented, the applicant commissions an independent & transparent retrofit assessment of the existing building, a whole-life carbon comparison of demolition vs retention & provides objective & compelling evidence that demolition is genuinely a last resort. This is necessary to comply with the existing NPPF & London Plan & incoming local plan. We have also identified a number of careless errors in the scoping report, eg United Reform (sic) Church & Surrey County Hall (grade 1 listed!) in the Built Heritage section, which may/ may not be indicative of wider deficiencies.