The site at 36 – 46 Albert Embankment currently comprises a petrol filling station and a modestly sized office building at Vantage House within the London Borough of Lambeth (the council) which will be determining this planning application. The Rose Public House does not form part of the Site.
There have been several attempts to redevelop the 36-46 Albert Embankment site since the early 2000s. The first application started as a flats scheme but was replaced with a smaller 600-room hotel when market demand waned.
Since then plans by Lambeth Council to cap the number of hotel rooms in the area have been abandoned allowing the developer to bring forward a more ambitious development.
Most recently the council permitted a scheme in December 2023 for the demolition of structures associated with the petrol filling station, decontamination/remediation, and redevelopment of the site to comprise the retention, refurbishment, and vertical extension to the Vintage House and development of two linked towers, in addition to basement levels, consisting of 872 hotel rooms.
The two linked towers proposed heights of G+26 and G+29 storeys. Both tower elements are defined as ‘tall buildings’ in accordance with the council’s criteria (above 45 metres above ground level in this location).
Following a change in site ownership, refreshed plans have been submitted on behalf of a subsidiary of the Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) developer Urbanest alongside Hotchkiss Limited. The architects who proposed the proposals for the previous consent have been retained for the revised scheme.
The current planning permission was granted subject to a condition that the development must be implemented within three years. The Planning Permission is therefore still ‘live’ and represents a material consideration that the applicant considers should be given considerable weight.
Principally the application proposes minor exterior changes to the existing planning consent, however, the proposals relate particularly to the change of the leading use of the site from the permitted hotel to student accommodation.
The applicant proposes 769 student accommodation units or 897 bedspaces which are equivalent to 308 conventional homes. 35% of the PBSA would be provided as affordable student accommodation likely to be nominated to UCL from whom there is significant demand. Those would be located across two connected towers North and South together with student amenity space with an associated cycle parking and ground floor space for a cafe on the southern tower.
4.1.9 of Policy H1 of the London Plan states that net non-self-contained accommodation for students should count towards meeting housing targets on the basis of a 2.5:1 ratio, with two and a half bedrooms/units being counted as a single home. Hence why the 769 students beds can be treated as delivering 308 homes towards LBL’s housing target.
The Economic Statement and Student Housing Need Assessment notes the London Strategic Housing Market Assessment reported that there is a need for 88,500 additional PBSA bed spaces between 2016 and 2041 in London, equivalent to 3,500 per year. However, from 2016/17 to 2023/24, London has delivered an average of only 2,060 bed spaces per year, meeting just 59% of its annual target. London’s delivery from 2016/17 to 2023/24 is 11,500 bed spaces short of where it should be against the annual target.
A report by CBRE (2024) corroborates this demand supply gap, estimating that between 100,000 and 105,000 students in London lack access to PBSA. Additionally, the research by CBRE (2024) has shown that HMO stock, a key fallback for students unable to access PBSA, has also declined by 23% over the last five years. This further constrains options for students and exacerbates competition in the PRS.
It is located within the the Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea Opportunity Area (VNEB), which is a strategic focus for development and regeneration within London. The Site has a Public Transport Accessibility Level (‘PTAL’) rating of 6b, the highest ranking and therefore is highly accessible by public transport.
At a Borough Level, only 1% of all households in LBL are PBSA households and of the 13 inner London boroughs, LBL has the 4th smallest proportion of residing students to residents, indicating the borough is not currently overconcentrated in terms of student population.
The application whilst it also seeks the refurbishement and upward extension of the adjcent Vantage House office building, no changes to the current planning permission are proposed when compared to the one more recently submitted to Lambeth Council.
