Residents have won a High Court battle against the London Borough of Hounslow after a judge quashed the council’s approval of the Hogarth Roundabout towers scheme, a part six, part ten storey tower block development beside Hogarth Roundabout in Chiswick.
Her Honour Judge Emma Kelly, sitting as a High Court judge, ruled in favour of the Old Chiswick Protection Society (OCPS), which brought the Judicial Review of the council’s decision to approve the redevelopment at 1 Burlington Lane, close to Chiswick House and the Old Chiswick conservation area.
The 28-page judgment ends with a single decisive line under the heading ‘Conclusion’: “The Claimant’s claim succeeds and the Decision will be quashed”.
How Hounslow councillors were misled
At the Judicial Review hearing on Tuesday 21 July, lawyers for the OCPS argued that the council’s officers had misled councillors on the Planning Committee who voted the development through.
Planning officers told the committee that a previous scheme for the site, refused by the council in 2023, was of “poor quality design” and would have offered “poor quality accommodation”. But officers failed to tell councillors that the developer had subsequently appealed against that refusal and won in 2024 — and that the planning inspector who heard the appeal considered the previous scheme to be of “high quality design” that would have offered “acceptable accommodation”.
The officers’ report recommended councillors accept the later proposal, and councillors were told they did not need to go into the details of the planning inspector’s findings on the previous application. The committee voted the scheme through 13-1, with Chiswick councillor John Todd — since retired — the only one to vote against it.
Judge Kelly was highly critical of the officers’ report: “The OR [officers’ report] misled the Committee as to the Inspector’s conclusions on living conditions and design quality, such that the Committee was given a misleading picture of the merits of the Fallback Scheme… The Committee therefore remained oblivious to the fact that the Inspector had rejected the officers’ judgments on the living conditions and design quality, still less did it know the basis for the Inspector’s decision on those topics”.
What the Hogarth Roundabout towers ruling means
OCPS secretary Patricia Langley told The Chiswick Calendar: “It is a very clear decision. We are delighted and relieved. It is the right decision. LBH’s decision was clearly wrong. The advice their lawyer gave councillors was wrong and the councillors therefore came to the wrong decision”.
The OCPS, which represents residents who live by the roundabout in Old Chiswick and down Chiswick Mall, had argued from the start that the most recent proposal for the site was too tall and would ruin the appearance of a historic area. The previous, seven-storey “fallback” scheme had been described by the planning inspector as “an improvement on the existing townscape” that would “enhance the character and appearance of the area, including the Chiswick House Conservation Area”.
The society decided to fight the decision after the Mayor of London’s office refused to intervene, launching a crowdfunder that raised £31,332. Its president, Russell Harris KC, is a planning KC.
It is important to be precise about what the ruling does: it quashes the permission for the Hogarth Roundabout towers. It is not a final ruling on any future scheme for the site. The case will now go back to the Planning Committee, while the planning permission for the seven-storey fallback scheme remains extant — though the developer that won that appeal never progressed with it. “We now have to start all over again”, Langley said, adding that residents hope the developers return with a scheme that does not harm the heritage of the conservation area. Meanwhile the existing five-storey building on the site continues to lie empty.
More London planning battles
The Chiswick row is far from the only development fight in the capital. Lewisham Council has just reset its Catford regeneration plan, dropping the demolition of Milford Towers, while Southwark Council unanimously refused a bid to cut affordable housing at the Elephant and Castle scheme. Heritage concerns have also driven long-running disputes elsewhere, as in the decade of planning battles over Addiscombe’s ‘Ecclefechan’ heritage landmark.
Reporting based on The Chiswick Calendar.
