Broadway Corner Building Set to Be Redeveloped
Adding extra floors and creating eight new town centre flats
The Dexters estate agents on corner of Fulham Road
April 29, 2024
The prominent Victorian building on the corner of Fulham and Harwood Roads is set to be redeveloped to add extra floors, creating eight new town centre flats.
The site at 567 - 569 Fulham Road, which currently houses estate agent Dexters on the ground floor, could also be covered by an advertising shroud for most of 2024.
A company called Artover Ltd has applied to H&F Council for permission to demolish and rebuild the rear of the building, facing Harwood Road. The planning application, which can be seen in full on the council website using the reference 2023/00113/FUL is currently being considered by the council’s planning department. It is as follows:
Demolition of rear part of no. 567-569 Fulham Road, and part of the facade fronting Harwood Road elevation, and demolition of the front facade of no. 5 Harwood Road, and erection of a four storey rear and side infill extension including re-building of the facade fronting Harwood Road elevation to create 8 self-contained residential flats in connection with the change of use of the upper floors from Class E to use Class C3.
A report supporting the application and justifying the change from commercial to residential use says that there has been no interest from businesses in renting space on the upper floors. The ground floor of 5 Harwood Road meanwhile was occupied by estate agent Chard but it has also remained empty since the agent moved to larger premises further west on Fulham Road earlier this year.
The planned changes viewed from Harwood Road
The view from Harwood Road as it is now
A second application has been submitted by a company called Street Vox for a consent to display an “ externally illuminated PVC mesh shroud advertisement onto the proposed scaffold fronting Fulham Road elevation measuring 8m (Height) x 3.5m (Width) for a temporary period between 1st July 2024 until 31st December 2024”.
This application, which is open for comments, can be seen in full using the reference 2024/00720/ADV.
A covering letter says that the shroud’s intention is to screen unsightly scaffolding and to present a more attractive façade to this prominent junction for the duration of the works.
The letter acknowledges that a previous application for a shroud was refused by the council earlier this year, due to the proposal’s height, size, and prominent location in the streetscene.
In response it says the proposals have been amended to reduce the plan to a single inset advert, set in a landscape format to lower its height and dominance and claims that reducing the area of advertising has the effect of increasing the benefit of the 1:1 printed image of the building under construction, thereby “tipping the balance towards the positive”.
The letter also states, “ It is intended to start works on site at the earliest opportunity, subject to all of the necessary consents being in place. This application for advertisement consent is submitted in anticipation of the building being scaffolded to undertake the works.”
Applications to install these shrouds, which include advertising space set within a replica of the building hidden behind, are becoming increasingly common, though the majority have been rejected by H&F Council.
An application to cover the adjacent Town Hall was submitted by then withdrawn two years ago, while an application to cover the former Elk Bar around the corner at 587 -591 Fulham Road is still under consideration by the council.
If the corner development and accompanying shroud get the green light, it will mean further upheaval at the centre of Fulham Broadway, along with the ongoing redevelopment of the neighbouring Town Hall, the refurbishment of the Broadway Bar and Grill, which is currently shuttered for “necessary maintenance” and the creation of a new JD Wetherspoon pub within the former ticket hall of Fulham Broadway Station.
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