A special calling

Real lives
A group planning application to offer her neighbourhood a new lease of life has taken years in consultation but has provided invaluable experience, says Soraya Khan

We moved to Jesus Green in east London in 1989 when our eldest daughter was nine months old. The estate consisted of 321 houses in a series of two-storey, flat-fronted brick Victorian terraces, built in 1862 by the Jesus Hospital Estate charity, itself established in 1679 by James Ravenscroft. In 1972 house clearing created an attractive landscaped communal garden in the centre of the estate.

Historically these six-roomed, ‘two up two down’ homes had often housed multiple families, each family sharing a single room and an outside WC. However, incorporating bathrooms and kitchens effectively limited the houses to two bedrooms. A pattern emerged of families being forced reluctantly to move away as the council resolutely refused individual roof extension planning applications within the conservation area.

Going up
In the early 90s we designed a single, uniform roof extension to maintain visual consistency of the houses, providing about 23m2 of extra floor space. These highly insulated, lightweight extensions would be constructed off-site of sustainable laminated timber with a green roof for slow water run-off and solar panels. In May 2003, after discussion with the local residents group JHERA (Jesus Hospital Estate Residents’ Association), we offered to draw up a scheme for the whole estate. We felt it was an important urban concept and a unique opportunity to help the community we lived in.

A questionnaire to assess support for the idea was sent to residents in September 2003. These results, analysed by the Max Lock Centre at the University of Westminster, showed 75% in favour. Over the next couple of years we worked with local residents and volunteer co-consultants to produce a report in 2007 called ‘Sustainable Living for the JHERA Community’. This document illustrated the idea through text, photographs and plans, showing how it lay within the Mayor of London’s ‘London Plan’ May 2006 advocating higher density Victorian housing and ‘Living Roofs’.

Moving on
In 2007 we had supportive meetings with the Spitalfields Conservation group and Mayor of London’s office, although the residents’ meetings also contain a core of objectors. The democratic process of public presentation and discussion has been lengthy and a number of the original supporters have had to move away.

In July 2009 CMA Planning became involved and arranged for us to meet Tower Hamlets planning department at a formal pre-application meeting. They indicated that applications for at least six houses at a time, or preferably a complete street block, might be a way forward. The design would need to be identical for each house and the scheme had to have the majority support of the residents.

The estate was canvassed again in June 2010 and if there is enough support we will identify the first block of houses to submit for a joint planning application, hopefully by Christmas.

The practice has not been paid to date for its involvement in the project but the consultative experience has been invaluable. For the residents that ran out of time and had to move the consultation has taken too long. But success for the scheme would be an example of the strength and vision of community power.

Soraya Khan is a partner at Theis and Khan Architects