After a narrow vote in favour, planning consent has been awarded for this exciting project in New Malden, and T2S Architecture has been appointed to take the project forward and complete the technical drawings under a traditional JCT Contract. 

Planning consent was sought from The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames last week and we hope that work will begin on-site by November this year, with completion envisaged by December 2024.

The project is a conversion of a tired retail premises into a five-storey building with retail units on the ground floor, and nine residential apartments above. The brief is complicated slightly by the requirement to open the retail space before the apartments are completed, so we plan to remove the existing first floor, roofs, structure and slab and retain the existing external ground floor walls. This will allow construction to focus on the ground floor, and then move up to completing the upper floors while the retail unit can begin to operate independently.

The design for the extension has been developed in close collaboration with our client and the local authority, with many pre-application discussions to ensure the smoothest possible transit through the planning process. Great care has been taken to ensure the apartments receive the best possible natural light given their surroundings, with a rear courtyard to admit daylight to the central part of the building and both the East and West faces of the apartments.

High street and town centre living are key resources for urban regeneration, and this development on the High Street in New Malden is a good example of how we can boost the number of people living in urban areas, reduce car use, and invigorate local economies without demolishing and rebuilding, but instead capitalising on the energy and carbon cost already embedded in high streets and town centres all across the country.

When completed, the apartment will offer comfortable living that's only a couple of miles from the River Thames and Richmond Park, surrounded by local amenities and a very short walk to South West Mainline and trains into London every few minutes.