Truman's Public Inquiry PM - Wednesday 15 October 2025, 2:00pm

Truman's Public Inquiry PM
Wednesday, 15th October 2025 at 2:00pm

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I haven't had time to read through them or anything, but I will do.

The second thing is I heard from my case officer

that the mayor would like to fix his place

in the third -party session next Tuesday to half past five,

just to let you know that that's fine by me.

Let's fix that with the mayor

and then we can work everything else around it.

I'm sure we'll still be going at that time, so that's fine.

The mayor's not mean it's too late.

Half past five.

Yeah.

That's the mayor of Tower Hamlets, not the mayor of London.

Let's just be clear.

Nothing else I have other than to hand over to Mr Wall,

but was there anything else?

Thank you. Just on fixing times,

I've been approached by Miss Malik Diba,

whom I don't see sitting there,

but she was hoping, together with her son,

and one or two others to address you, sir, on the morning of the 28th of October, so

the first day of the second week. Apparently she's unable to do other times.

Next book? No, it's next book one.

Oh, on the... Well, we can certainly pencil that in, yeah.

I was hoping she might be here to discuss that directly.

But, well, at some point, it needn't be now.

I'm happy to accommodate that.

Yeah.

All right.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you very much.

I hope my microphone is on.

Can I start then by introducing to the inquiry Mr. Ignace Frohnemann

from whom you should have a proof of evidence.

Before I do that, I'll just list out the documents that I expect

to go to with Mr. Frohnemann in chief.

There may be one or two others, but the intention is

to deal at least with these.

Mr. Frohnemann's proof, Mr. Dunn's proof,

Mr. Morris's proof, the HTVIA, which is CDD34,

ID5, which is the architectural presentation of yesterday,

CDC02, which is the data centre design and access statement,

CDC 17, which are a set of plans associated with that, and then

consultation responses from Historic England, the GLA, at CDD 02 and CDD 01,

and the officers report at CDD 03. Thank you, sir. So with that, Mr. Frohnemann, can

Can I confirm you are Ignis Frohnemann?

That's correct.

I think we can have our microphones on simultaneously so you can keep yours on unless that switches

mine off?

No, I'm just conscious that there was a request yesterday that the – I think the camera

gets confused if there's two microphones on at the same time.

Well, then we'll have to tag team.

Anyways, it's not a crisis.

That may affect how much of this I go through before seeking your agreement.

You're Ignis Frohnemann, your director at Cogent Heritage,

which is an independent heritage consultancy,

which you established in August 2019.

That's all correct.

In the nine years before that,

you were a director at Heritage Collective UK Limited,

and before that, an associate director at CJMS.

And during that time, you've worked on a wide range

of projects affecting the historic environment

throughout the UK.

That's all correct.

And you say you set out in detail your qualifications

and experience in the introductory section

of your main proof.

In essence, you hold a degree in architecture.

You're an associate member of the Chartered Institute

for Archaeologists and a member of the Institute

of Historic Building Conservation.

Is that right?

That's all correct.

You've almost 25 years of experience

specialising in the historic environment,

ranging from a,

well, addressing a wide range of matters set out at 1 .3.

I don't think I need to go into all of those.

You say at the end of that paragraph

you've undertaken numerous impact assessments

where you've considered the impacts of new development

on the historic environment

dealing with physical impact setting and townscape.

Are all of those features of this case?

Yes, they are.

I'm not giving townscapes specific evidence,

but I do talk about the historic townscape of the conservation area.

You say at 1 .4 that you've given expert evidence at appeals,

both for and against proposals,

and that includes on six occasions where you've acted on behalf of this council,

the London Borough of Tower Hamlets,

including a case where the council supported a development proposal, a case

within the Brit Lane and Fournier Street conservation area and another where

officers recommended approval of the proposals. Does it follow that you

are well acquainted from previous experience with the Brit Lane and

Fournier Street conservation area? I am, yes. Have you undertaken specific work in

in relation to these appeals to improve your acquaintance with that so far as the specific

elements of the proposals are concerned?

Yes, I undertook site visits when I took on the instruction for being the Council's expert

witness and of course I read through the background information and so on.

So yes, I did initial work, and the last case I did

was some years ago, so of course I re -familiarised myself

with the context and the relevant documents.

Thank you.

Just at the end of 1 .4, you say you were involved

in some cases on behalf of this council,

including where you disagreed with Historic England.

Why have you highlighted that point within this introduction?

I say that because I don't agree with everything

that East Warwick England has said in relation

to their consultation response to the application and the way

in which they've considered it.

And I think that there are perhaps some relevance

in just noting that I've had the same,

was not quite the same, it was, I would say,

more accentuated in the previous case,

some real differences in that case

between myself and Historic England.

All right, and you can confirm that the facts

stated within your proof are true

to the best of your knowledge and belief

and that you understand and have discharged your duties

as an expert at this inquiry.

That's correct, I can confirm that.

All right, well let's turn then,

if we may, to your summary and conclusion section, which is five.

Section five of your proof.

I'm conscious there are a number of members of the public here.

So with your leave, I will ask Mr. Frohman to read parts of it,

not all of it, and then ask additional questions that arise

out of some of the content.

Thank you.

So 5 .2. If you'd start reading from 5 .2, please, Mr. Frohman.

My involvement in the appeal started in July 2025 when I was asked to provide a quote for

acting as the Council's Heritage Witness at the Inquiry.

I structured my quote in two stages.

The first stage was to review the applications and provide my initial feedback on them in

relation to heritage matters.

The second stage, subject to the findings of the first, was to act as the Council's

Heritage Witness.

I can just say that this is the approach I take with all the inquiries where I haven't

been involved in the case before and where I've sort of come fresh at it.

You then offered initial feedback.

Does that – can you explain what you mean by the initial feedback?

Does it differ from your eventual view?

No.

This was just my feedback following Stage 1.

So in other words, the two sages are there so that I'm not forced into giving expert

evidence for a case that I feel I can't support.

So in other words, if my initial feedback was I didn't agree that they would be harmed

to the character that appears in the conservation area, for example, then I couldn't really

take it to stage two and that would have been my initial advice and that would have been

the end of my involvement.

So that's what I mean with the initial advice.

That was me saying to the council, this is what I think.

Okay, and let's just hear what, in relation to the four schemes,

your initial advice was, please.

5 .2, starting at Roman 1.

So for the Grey Eagle Appeal Scheme, which is the data centre,

my view was that the scheme would cause less than substantial harm

to the significance of the conservation area

because of the height -massing use and inactive frontages

of the proposed building.

In relation to Ely's Yard, I say that the scale of the building could be considered

harmful but that there would also be a minor benefit in the connectivity that would be

created between Ely's Yard and Grey Eagle Street.

The overall impact, the sort of net balance if you like, of this scheme on the significance

of the conservation areas, therefore neutral.

Can I just ask, when you say a minor benefit, you're talking in heritage terms there?

That's correct, yes.

I'm only considering heritage, I'm not considering anything else.

And have you been at pains to identify benefits, heritage benefits, where you see them to arise

in the proposals?

Yes, I don't only give evidence on behalf of local authorities and of course the vast

behalf of developers and I'm conscious that there is a tendency I think on

local authority conservation officers or witnesses sometimes to sort of overlook

benefits, heritage specific benefits, so I do try and identify those where I

think there is a real heritage benefit so I can take that into account as well.

Thank you Mr. Frohnemann. Let's move to Roman III, the Truman East

appeal scheme? The scheme would cause less than substantial harm to the

significance of the conservation area and in terms of the listed building

consent application for the boiler house again it's a balance so there would be

some heritage benefits to the listed building but also some harm to the

significance of the listed building and overall I consider that to be neutral.

Thank you and the council's made its position in relation to the listed

building appeal clear in opening. I move now, if I may, to the summary of

significance of the conservation area but before we delve into that, can I

understand from you please Mr. Frohnemann, what is the approach that you take

starting from first principles and what do you say is the approach that should

be taken in a robust and transparent heritage assessment? Well it's a

It's a simple three -stage process.

I say simple, but it's important.

It's important that it's a systematic approach.

The three stages are, first,

you need to identify the significance of,

in this case, the conservation area,

second stage is you then need to identify

the contribution of that part of the conservation area

that would be affected by the proposed development,

and the third part of it is then to assess the impact.

So these are sort of a sequence of steps which leads you to a robust assessment.

And just on the returning to that sort of even -handed point of benefits and harms, could

the contribution of that part be good or bad?

There's three answers.

it could be good, it could be neutral or it could be bad. So you can have three

different scenarios. Do those same three answers apply to impact? Could

the impact be beneficial, detrimental or neutral? Exactly that, yes. Thank you for

that. Now you said that this is important, you said there's a simple three -stage

process. You need to be systematic but it's important. Why is it so important?

The reason it's important is if you don't properly understand the significance of the

conservation area, then you're not going to be in a position to assess the impact on it

that will be brought about by the proposed development. So it's critical that you go

through that first step.

The second part is, I think it's useful to think of it in relation to a particular area

building in a conservation area and if you are going to be redeveloping a building in a conservation area

Obviously we're dealing with a site and I'll come on to that but if you're dealing with a building you need to understand from the

Outset is this building a positive contributor?

Is it neutral in its contribution or does it detract because those three answers might give you different?

well if you

depending on how you assess that, that might affect how you assess the impacts of the development.

So you need to understand really not just the significance of the conservation area,

but also the contribution of those bits that you're looking at.

In this case, we're looking at a site that contains buildings and structures.

I say it's a site because there are not only buildings, but there are also spaces on the site.

So there's a spatial dimension to it.

All right, thank you.

Let's go back to your summary where you

summarise the significance of the conservation area.

You've told us how one goes about that exercise.

What happened in this particular case?

Could you start reading at 5 .3?

The exceptional group of well -preserved 18th century houses

around Founia Street, including Christchurch Spitalfield,

is a key aspect of the significance of the conservation area.

However, it is a varied conservation area with a diverse character

that takes in an evolved downscape.

When I say evolved, that means it's a townscape that has evolved over centuries really.

This includes historic developments of various types and ages,

including the 20th century brewery buildings and infrastructure.

Overall, the conservation area is characterised by a relatively fine grain and low buildings,

much of it domestic in scale, but with some larger buildings, including the larger buildings

of the brewery complex and other industrial buildings, as well as large scale commercial

buildings, mostly on commercial road.

Just so that it's clear, what do you mean by fine grain in that sentence?

When I talk about grain, I talk about the perception of the elements that make up the

conservation area.

And I know that there's a sort of common way of expressing grain by way of looking at a

map that shows the footprints of individual buildings.

But the way in which I look at grain is it's not simply two -dimensional.

For example, you can have a terrace of houses, and on a map you might read that as a single block,

but when you see it in three dimensions you quite clearly see the individual constituent element,

so that sort of breaks down the grain.

So the way in which I refer to grain is not simply a sort of two -dimensional concept,

but it's also what you see in three dimensions.

All right.

5 .5, the legacy of the brewing industry.

The legacy of the brewing industry in the Truman's estate is a key part of the conservation

area.

The former brewery takes in developments over the centuries, including the yards and more

modern robust relatively large -scale industrial buildings in the area to the west of Brick Lane,

bounded by Quaker Street, Grey Eagle Street and Hanbury Street.

Can you say over the centuries? How many centuries are we talking about here?

Well the brewery itself was established in 1666 as far as I know, although I'm not sure

that there's a building from 1666, but there's been a presence, a sort of time

depth if you like, and a historic association from that time. So that takes

you to about 360 years, but that's sort of counting it up to 2025 and the

brewery closed as I understand it in 1989, but we've still got the

physical legacy of the brewery in the buildings that are still there. So that

That's what gives you a sense of the time depth of it.

And how important has the brewery been locally,

regionally, nationally, internationally?

Starting with locally, if you look at the conservation area,

which is what I'm looking at, the brewery

has really shaped the conservation area very much

into what we see today.

So it's had a, I would say, a defining influence on the character and appearance of the conservation

area.

It was an important brewery, one of the largest in the country, the largest in the country,

and I've seen reference to it having been the largest in the world.

I'm not sure if that is actually correct, but it sort of gives you a sense of how important

this industrial complex was at one time.

All right, thank you for that.

Halfway through 5 .5, Brick Lane is something of a spine.

Brick Lane is something of a spine that carries through the conservation area.

Of course, the conservation area's name derives in part from it

and contains the more historic brewery buildings.

Although there are some examples of more modern brewery buildings,

including the 20th century bridge over Brick Lane,

north of Whitsier Street,

and modern brewery buildings along the west side of the street.

The conservation area also includes other areas of townscape

to the east and west of Brick Lane.

These take in 19th century housing and churches,

as well as brewery buildings and yards,

and commercial developments,

including some larger scale buildings on Commercial Street.

The architectural interest of the conservation area derives from areas of reasonably coherent

character.

For example, the 18th century development around Fernier Street, the generally 19th

century development along Brick Lane, pockets of 19th century development elsewhere, the

commercial developments along Commercial Road, most of which is 19th century but also some

20th century, and the industrial brewery buildings,

and those range in age from the 18th century

until the 20th century.

Some of the large modern industrial building

of the Truman Brewery are individually of little interest,

although as a group, together with the spaces between them,

they impart a distinctive character

to the conservation area.

Some of these buildings contain some of the more vibrant

uses at the heart of the conservation area.

Mr. Fronman, can I stop you there?

I want to ask you about the spaces between them.

How important are they in this particular context?

It is quite important and it's sort of striking.

I think you've got Brick Lane running, like I said, as a spine through the conservation

area.

You've got brewery buildings on both sides of Brick Lane.

But if you look at those two sides of Brick Lane, the scale of the buildings and the spaces

between them, there's a clear difference between what you see on the west side of Brick

Lane, where you've got, I suppose, Draywalk is the most famous, you've got Ely's Yard,

large scale buildings quite close together to each other.

But then you've also got on the east side of Brick Lane a different character.

And it's not just different on the brewery side where the appeal side formed part of

a sort of industrial yard behind the Brick Lane frontage.

But there's also the context there is different, certainly in terms of what is included in

the conservation area.

So there you have Allen Gardens, which used to be housing,

but which is now an open space.

And yeah, you've got the finer grain

of mostly domestic development on the terraces

to the south of the main site.

So in terms of the buildings and spaces, they're not the same

in different parts of the conservation area,

And they're very different on the two sides of Brick Lane.

The west side is much more dense and urban.

And the east side is much more open.

And I know that there's a lot of reference

to historic dense development on the main appeal site.

And I'm sure we'll talk extensively about that.

All I would say for now is that there's not

history of particularly large buildings on that side of the site. There were some

historically and there is one now the five -storey block H of the brewery but

generally speaking it's still very much legible as a sort of yard space which is

different from what you see on the west side of Brick Lane. Thank you. Moving on

to 5 .9 please. Some of the large modern industrial buildings of the Truman

or the former Truman Brewery, are individually of little interest, although as a group, together

with the relations between them, they impart a distinctive character to the conservation

area. Some of these buildings contain some of the more vibrant uses at the heart of the

conservation area. The historic interest and significance of the Brick Lane Conservation

Area essentially embraces the area's unique history and its sense of place. This takes

in the well -preserved early Georgian quarter around Fynia Street and Christchurch, the

former brewery and the various 19th and 20th century developments, along with some 21st

century developments. The organic development of the area is evident in the richness of

the multi -layered townscape, but also where they survive in a variety of the supporting

residual elements of the industrial developments behind the street frontages.

Although in places tucked away or hidden from view, the industrial developments

behind the street frontages still help to define the townscape and give the

conservation area an authenticity and a unique character and

sense of place that might not be obvious or appreciable in street scenes.

There is also a layer of interest imparted by the richness of uses and the resulting bustling activity,

vibrancy and vitality that is generally experienced throughout parts of the Brick Lane conservation area.

In particular the area around Spitalfields Market, Hanbury Street, Draywalk and Brick Lane.

Other parts of the conservation area are quieter.

The area also has a good deal of interest resulting from its role in hosting successive immigrant populations

from the Huguenots to the Bangladeshi community.

Thank you, Mr. Frohnemann.

I now want to move you to the specific contributions of each site.

And for that purpose, I think you will need to turn up the HTVIA, which is CDD 34, particularly

pages 21 to 24, and have to hand also those images that appear in your proof between pages

pages 44 to 47. I think those should assist you in your explanation. Do you want to just

start with 513 to 515 and then those images will assist us with the passages that follow.

I'm happy for you to take it as you see fit but it will be helpful for you to explain

by reference to some of the older maps, how you have identified...

Yes, if I can just ask you to also turn up,

and this is something which is in various different documents,

but I am going to take you, sir, to ID5,

so the architect's presentation from yesterday,

And I don't know whether you've got that as a hard copy or digitally.

On the digital copy, what I want to take you to say is the aerial photo that's on PDF

page 89, the actual numbering of the document itself is different in hard copy.

At least I think it's PDF 89.

I stand corrected, but it's an aerial photo.

Let's start with 513 then.

Let's introduce this evidence with those passage paragraphs

in the summary and move on to the images.

So in terms of the Grey Eagle site, the existing building was built as a cold store as part

of the brewery expansion of circa 1970.

Like the other contemporary brewery buildings of that date, it is architecturally robust

and functional, somewhat austere, being stripped down to the bare essentials.

And if you want to have a look at that, so there is a photo in my proof.

I'm not sure.

Well, we can have a look at that.

You'll find that on page 16 of my proof.

I'm just going, carrying on then.

As a former brewery building of its time, it reflects the functional requirements of

the former brewery.

It shares a design language and material palette with the contemporary brewery buildings of

this phase of expansion.

And so we find these contemporary brewery buildings on both sides of Brick Lane.

we find them on Dray Walk and we find them in a physically attached building

that's on the opposite of Grey Eagle Street. So it is of the same height as

the former brewery building to the east, that's the one on the other side of

Grey Eagle Street which is now a data centre with which it is

linked by the overhead bridge. It can be seen alongside this building from Grey

page 18 of my proof where you can see the building from Elie's yard and on the right -hand

side you can see the data centre building as well.

Because of these factors, I consider the building makes a small positive contribution to the

industrial character or the industrial architecture of the conservation area as part of an important

component of the conservation area.

However, the building is definitely roofless and in a very poor state of repair and I'm

so you would have seen that.

And we've heard what was said about that in openings.

With broken or missing window panes,

I should also mention that the ground floor windows,

and I think there were five of those, they've been bricked up.

Essentially, all that's left of it is a shell,

and because of its present state of dereliction,

the building detracts somewhat from the conservation area.

In the same way that any derelict building in the same state would,

even if it were a positive contribution for other reasons.

So what of the impact of the scheme,

the Grey Eagle Street Appeal Scheme?

Well, that's, I think it's perhaps useful if you turn up page 19 of my proof,

and that's a sort of series of aerial photos, or two aerial photos,

in which you can just see a sort of very basic modelling of the building, of the massing.

And you can see there how it sits within a small block.

And it sort of sits within a small street block within a larger context.

So within that street block it sits within.

The new building is quite, well it's the tallest building in that block

And it is quite a step up if you look at the adjacent telephone exchange building,

which is to the south of it.

And that is on the left -hand side of the top image and on the sort

of towards the bottom of the bottom image.

If you turn over the page to page 20, you can there see the sort

of the sheer scale juxtaposition between the data centre

and the telephone exchange building.

And it's on the left -hand side of that image,

or top left, where you see the sort of parapet, if you like,

of the exchange building.

And then you can see the sort of data centre,

how that sort of sits above it.

I should mention, in this image, you

can also see the way in which the new building at the ground

floor level would project forward of the building line.

And that's a building line that you

see in the adjacent telephone exchange building,

as well as the new residential block, which

is further to the north.

So there is an established building line.

I know it's not historically where

the houses which stood in this area before the coal

store was built.

That's not the alignment of those houses.

But there is now an established alignment of buildings

along Grego Street there.

Also on that image, Mr. Frohnemann, we had explained to us yesterday during the

architect's presentation the design feature that we see on the on the flank of the building there,

picking up a semi -circle at Christchurch Spitalfields. Do you see that?

I see that, I mean, in order to look at that you have to look away from Christ's Church.

I mean, Christ's Church is behind you as you look at the building here.

But I think it's so abstract and so removed from the Church that I really struggle to

see how anybody would make that connexion between the sort

of large, completely blank metal box on top of a brick plinth

and Christchurch with its very fine detailing.

I'm not sure that there's a real synergy between one

and the other.

I can't imagine that anybody would sort of pick it up

and think, oh, yes, that must be in reference to Christ's Church.

So I don't think that's effective.

OK.

Let's keep going with the impact of the Grey Eagle Street appeal

scheme then.

Well, what you see on that image,

just saying with that image for the moment,

is that there is no life that the building sort of gives

towards the street scene.

And that sort of accentuates the scale as well.

It's a common architectural device

to use things like openings to provide animation,

but also break down the scale and massing,

or the perceived scale and massing of a building.

Now, because of the use of this building, there is none of that.

And so what you're left with is that I think that the blankness of the facades accentuate

this scale.

And so it's a sort of a feedback loop between the scale being bigger than anything else

in the street block and then being accentuated by the fact that there's no animation and

very little to sort of break them down.

I can see the sort of horizontal banding.

There is some stepping back in the massing, but I don't think that you would read this

building as anything other than a bulky building which doesn't seem to respond very well to

its context.

At the ground floor, there's no, well, there's very little animation, but we'll come onto

that.

to page 21.

There you can see that there has been, well,

you can see on that the sort of stepping back of the massing,

which also, it seems sort of slightly odd and arbitrary

in a sense because there's a big step between the blint

and the first tier of the metal cladding.

There's then a very sort of small step,

and then there's a sort of bigger step in the top level.

There's also, there's a sort of a differentiation in terms

of the height of those tiers it seems,

certainly with the top level.

So it's not completely clear how, you know, it doesn't seem

to be so completely rational.

If you turn the page then to page 22.

There you can see the panels that are that have been created in the in the brick base

if you call it that.

I am aware that Mr Morris says that these will activate the building.

I mean, my opinion is that you show life and what these panels will do is they will be

curated street art, I suppose.

But these are just large brick panels in the building.

They are recessed, so there's a bit of shadow.

but I don't think that there's any sort of sense that the building is activated.

Even the existing building had some windows on the upper floors,

and that was an industrial cold school building.

This building has nothing.

You can then see

on the next page, page 23.

There are there are sort of two entrances

is from the design response document that was submitted to the Council.

And I think at this point it might be useful to turn up the, again, ID 5.

And if you have it digitally, sir, it's page, I think it's page 180 of the document.

And that should give you an image of the entrance.

Yes, we were taken to this yesterday, weren't we?

Yes.

Yes, well, it was part of the discussion.

Now, I had a, there were a couple of other documents

that I wanted to show while we're here.

So if we look at CDC02,

so this is the design and access statement

for the scheme before it was revised.

So this was as it was submitted and the scheme was then revised in order to create more,

shall we say, active frontage in italics.

So if you've got the document, just indicate and I can tell you which page.

CDC02. Right, page 97. So the only reason why I wanted to take you here was you can

As you can see there, if you look at the,

it's the ground floor plan.

Towards the bottom, you can see where the entrance was,

and there was a big entrance lobby.

And then just above the entrance lobby

was the security office.

That was a windowless room, which the architects obviously thought was an appropriate location

for this building.

And I think it's fair to conclude that this office is not an outward looking kind of office

use.

I imagine that this is sort of security monitoring, perhaps looking at lots of screens.

I don't know that.

But it's certainly not part of the programme of the architecture which was designed to

phase outwards.

The architects were quite happy to put it back in the middle of the floor plate.

Now that was revised.

And so the security office is now what you see when you look on page 180 of ID 5.

And on the left -hand side, there's a sort of opaque door with a person in front of it.

That's the main entrance.

And right to that, you see the security offers, which I think, well, when I look at that,

I don't think that that's something which will add activation or animation to the street.

It looks pretty dead to me, and I think that reflects what we just saw in terms of the

plan.

And I just want to also just go to CD 17, CDC 17.

And that's a suite of documents.

And what I'm after is the revised drawings split one.

And for some reason, it's now not opening on my computer.

Let me see.

There we go.

Seems to be.

There we go.

So the first page, well, yeah, I think it's, yeah.

So that's the first page, and that's the ground floor plan

as it is now proposed.

And so while you're looking at that,

I just want to sort of point out

what you see when you're looking at ID five.

So you see an opaque door,

and then through the opaque door,

you see a person who seems to be standing at a reception desk.

I'm not sure if that's what it is, but that seems to be what you're looking at.

Now, if you look at the drawing,

the C -17, the ground floor plan,

what you can see there, sir, is that you've got a set of doors

and they lead you through to a corridor,

and then there's another door,

and that leads you further into the building.

So what you would see through that opaque door

is a corridor and a door at the end of it.

What is the relevance of all of that, Mr. Frohnemann?

That's just simply to illustrate that

the drawings were revised in order,

I think, to create more animation and life on the street.

But I don't think when you look at what it is that's being provided there,

that that would really provide any real animation or life to the street.

And so what you've got is a

a windowless building with

a single entrance that leads to a corridor.

A security office that the architects were happy to make a windowless room

initially and nothing else that activates anything.

It could be, in some ways, you could always

say it could be an electric substation to some extent,

although you might not find an entrance door to that.

But it's effectively a dead building.

And so that just sort of shows what little animation, what

little life it would provide to the street.

And this is a street that already suffers from very limited activity,

not least because there's a data centre on the opposite side

behind a tall brick wall, which is very long.

And so the effect, I think, is to compound that

rather than to bring a sort of something more positive.

So I think what this does is just perpetuates the lack of activity that's already a blight

on Grey Eagle Street.

Mr. Frohman, I think by reference to those images you have now taken us through the paragraphs

up to 524 in your summary.

Do you want to just scan an eye over there to see whether there are any points that you

still wish to make before we turn on to the Truman East site. Looking at 518 to

524. So the the only the only other thing I should I should say there's

I turn to, well, if you've got my proofs that open, page 24.

And you will have seen, sir, that I sort of criticise

the windows that you can see.

So there wasn't an attempt to sort of echo

the windows of the domestic building

that's to the west of this new building.

And so to create a series of fake windows

Now, of course those windows aren't going to be active and they're no substitute for

active windows.

But my other criticism there is that not only does it sort of seem quite illogical and assess

that they – that spans over the big steel door, but what you find here is you sort of

of confusion of languages because you've got a building

which sort of sets itself up to be very much industrial.

And then on Calvin Street, the building sort of seems

to want to be a residential building.

And I just find that a very odd thing to do.

I think if you're designing a building which is industrial,

well, I think you should stick to that

and make it industrial rather than to try and then sort of make it quasi -domestic by

incorporating some fake features.

Thank you, Mr. Frohman.

Shall we turn on to the Truman East site, starting with its contribution and using where

possible the images in the environmental statement, HDVIA, and those that you present in your

proof?

So 525, the main site.

So the main site was historically occupied by housing.

And I think we've looked at some of those.

Some of those were all shown yesterday in the architect's presentation.

But by the 1830s, that was mostly swept away by the yard that was associated

with the stables and cooperage of the brewery.

The Coopridge, we still have the Coopridge building.

I'm sorry, can I ask, it's very difficult to keep up

if people's devices keep going off.

I find it very distracting, so if you can put them

to silent please, I'd appreciate it, thank you.

So, historically it was housing, and then the big change,

one of the sort of big imprints on the conservation area,

I suppose, as it is today, was how the brewery was then built

and expanded on along the west side of Brick Lane.

And by the 1830s, the stable block,

which is now the boiler, or the former boiler house,

was built there.

And I think it's useful at this stage just

to sort of look at what we've got

in terms of the evidence of what there was historically.

So if you turn up page 21 of the HTVIA.

Page 21 of 303.

HTVIA, it's 34.

I gave up source reference.

CDA34. Apologies, sir. My mistake.

I can't read my own handwriting.

And then page 21 of 303.

Do you have that, sir?

Yeah, I think you have it.

Is it to your right there, sir?

Is the document on your desk the CHT view?

That looks like it underneath.

Good old paper.

Thank you, sir.

I was going to say, if you're looking at it on a screen, and I've got mine printed out

on an A4.

I think yours is a bit bigger

and probably a bit more legible.

So with the, with figure 4 .10, the OS map of 1877,

this is the earliest map that we've got of the main site.

And so what you had there is you can sort of see

the stable block being labelled as stable.

and then behind the stable, and you might be able to read that.

So I hope so, and I think you kind of have to zoom

in to the extent that you can if you have it digitally.

Behind you, you can see a trough,

and you can see a cistern.

So I presume those would have been necessary to feed

and water the over 200 horses that were being kept

at that time within the sable block.

What are the dotted lines that we see?

So behind that then you see on Buxton Street at that time it was Spencer, Spencer Street.

You see the building labelled Coopridge.

And you can see that some of the outlines are solid lines.

And you can see that some of the outlines are dotted lines.

Now, the dotted lines, sir, those are open -sided buildings.

So they didn't have walls, they were open.

And you see that on the left -hand side of the cooperage.

And then you've got the sort of cooperage forming a courtyard, if you like, sort of

upturned C -shape, and one of those structures is an open -sided building.

And then if you sort of go further to the west,

you've got the other cooperage, which is on Spittel Street.

And you can see again, a deep footprint there.

And it has a sort of courtyard behind it.

And that courtyard, as well as the buildings

around that courtyard, those are all dotted lines.

Now, those dotted lines means they were

open -sided structures, and you can see that

all of those sort of gave on to a sort of an open courtyard.

The reason I flagged the dotted lines is that those,

and the sort of open -sided structures,

those would have been single -storey buildings.

So that sort of gives you a sense already

of the sort of scale of the buildings.

I should also say, well, there are a couple of things

that I need to point out as well.

The cooperage along the north, which is the one on what is now Buxton Street,

which was then Spencer Street, the remnants of that cooperage is the current block N.

Do you mean Spicer Street?

Sorry, Spicer.

Yeah, yeah.

The remnants of that block is, of that building is block N. The other thing that I need to point

out is that on the northeast corner, and this has been referred to in a few documents, it

won't come as news to you, you can see the terraced houses.

And you can see towards the south of the site that the red line overlaps part of the sort

of vat house of the brewery, which is partly inside and partly outside of the red line.

And then behind that were the smithy.

Again, the smithy, I would have thought,

would have been a fairly low structure,

probably not much more than, well, a storey or two.

So that will give you a sense of the site in 1877, of course.

If you then look at the next map, 4 .11,

the O's map of 1893 to 96,

you can again see a similar arrangement of buildings

But you see the sort of creep of the open -sided structures,

the sort of dotted line structures within that yard.

And you can see that the part of it

that was immediately behind the cooperage on Spital Street,

that's exactly the same as what you see on the,

almost exactly the same as what you see on the 1877 OES map,

but it sort of got a little bit bigger.

And it's interesting then, so if you compare

that with a near contemporary map, which

is the Gode map at figure 413, which

is in the centre at the bottom.

And there, sir, you can see those open -sided structures

being almost, well, you don't really see them,

because all they show is really the sort of columns

and the dotted roof outline.

What's also interesting about the Gode map

is that it gives you the storey heights of the buildings which were there.

So you can see that within the yard you had one - and two -storey buildings.

The terraced houses that were at the north -east corner of the site

was two - to three -storey in height.

So when you look at these things,

it sort of gives you a real sense of what you had historically on the site.

and you can really get a sense that it would have been

a sort of a yard area behind this sort of more

high status buildings and more elaborately

express buildings on Brick Lane,

the sort of higher status, you know,

the sort of stables where they,

sort of classical formal frontage

and turning the corner onto Buxton Street.

But then behind that you sort of have the very,

the sort of the business end of the brewery in a sense

where you had the cooperages and the stables yard

and so on, and a bit of housing still.

If you then turn the page over, then you can see,

actually quite interesting, this is on page 22.

At the top you see a 1926 plan, and you can sort of see,

you can see the sheds there, again, open -sided.

And they very hopefully on the right hand side you can see a drawing of them.

So you can really sort of see what they were.

They were sort of single storey sheds with pitched roofs.

And indeed you can see that at the bottom on that photo.

So you can really get a sense of the scale.

You can just on the right hand side, if you look at it,

you can see the remnant of the old coop ridge.

Well, I say the remnant.

At that time it still had its pitched roof.

But you can see that on the left -hand side of the photo,

that's Block N as the remnant of that building.

But that photo, I think, is quite evocative

in showing the nature of the development

and the nature of the site at that time.

So here we are into the early 21st century.

And we can see on page 23 of the HTVIA, you've got a sort of view that looks into the yard

from the back of Cooper Street and Middlefield Street.

So you see those sheds, you see the barrels and the yard, and at the back you can see

what is now the boiler house.

You see the chimney and you see the sort of hopper.

And at the bottom you can kind of see what goes on,

what went on in those sheds.

This sort of gives you a real picture of the nature

of that site, the scale of the development.

There's a lot of talk about density,

the density of the development.

You can see that, it's all well documented.

The final one, sir.

Well, actually, I think I'm just going to depart very slightly then, and just if we

go to page, I think it's 36 of my proof, 30 -something anyway.

Yes, it's page 36 of my proof.

Let me know if you've got that, sir.

So here we are in 1948, just after the war.

I should say, sir, that I – there was another photo of 1945.

It wasn't such a clear photo and I didn't include it in my proof, but it sort of showed

essentially the same arrangement.

I can make that available to the inquiry, so if that's going to be useful to you, I

only included this one because it all shows things a bit clearer.

It might be useful at this juncture, sir, to also have the architect's presentation

ID5.

Ideally, if you have that in a hard copy.

But if you don't, page 89 of the PDF.

It's not a big point.

I think you can do that by memory or you can do that by making notes.

When you look at that image, and it occurs in different documents, there might be others,

but anyway, on the left -hand side, bottom left -hand side of that image, you can still

see just about some of the housing on Spital Street that's still in place.

So that gives you a kind of date.

It's an undated aerial photograph, but that tells me that it's pre -1945,

because 1945 there's an aerial photo that shows the housing gone.

So this must be just before then, maybe a few years or a year or so.

And it kind of shows, it gives you a record of the site at that time.

So the housing sort of went by 1945.

That's a bit of a...

If you then return to page 36 of my proof in the 1948 aerial photo.

Again you can see the yard and it's not very different from what we saw in the other aerial

photo or the other photos, not just aerial photos, but the ones taken from street level

or from eye level where you can sort of see the scale of the buildings and their distribution.

So you sort of see a similar distribution of buildings.

It's interesting if you look at the shadows of the buildings,

you can kind of gage how tall they were.

So yeah, so you can see that.

But what you can see here is that by this time,

that northeast corner of the brewery site,

that was no longer housing.

And you can sort of see barrels in there.

You can see that that had become part of the brewery by that time.

And then just something else to note, just to the north, so you can just about see, to

the north of the brewery site, and there's still some housing on it.

you can see those sort of temporary prefab blocks

just at the top of the image centre.

But Allen Gardens was still...

Well, it wasn't Allen Gardens then.

It was still partially developed.

And just a sort of note on that, sir.

Allen Gardens was still recorded as being developed

by the time of the 1964 Ordnance Survey map.

So I don't know exactly when Allen Gardens became gardens,

but that's what seemed to have happened after 1964.

Just briefly, sir, final point on this.

If we go back to page 24 of the HDVIA,

so CDA34.

So page 24, and you can see there at the sort of that top right image.

And towards the top right of that image,

at the northeast corner, there's the word open.

And then sort of diagonally to the southwest of that,

you see a building with a rectangular footprint,

But one of each corner is cut off.

He's got a chamfered corner.

That's Block L, and that building still

stands on the side.

So that was there by 1956.

This is before Allen Gardens became Allen Gardens.

And that was a sort of cask unloading building,

or cask handling building.

And you can you can still see again

It's sort of dotted but you can still see that the cost washing sheds

Which would have been those sort of open sided shades sort of towards the middle of their side

And they say just to just to complete the picture

If we go back to my proof, page 37, you can then see that some of these buildings, some

of their sort of open -sided sheds have been removed and there's a sort of change in footprint,

so a sort of slightly bigger yard.

This is 1980, so the brewery is still very much in operation.

And you can there see Allyn Gardens.

It doesn't seem to be completely Allyn Gardens because you can still see the old roads to

the north of it, but it must have been around that time that it became what is now Allyn

Gardens.

And then just the sort of final image, which is on page 38.

And I included that one because that's a sort of snapshot,

if you like, of the brewery just before it closed.

Now, the OS map is dated 1988.

And as these things are done,

it would have been surveyed slightly before

that, I'd imagine.

And so that really sort of gives you a snapshot.

That's what you had on the site at the time

that the brewery stopped operating.

And you can see, sir, that that's not very far

from what you've got today on the site

in terms of buildings and so on.

So it's become by then very much more

of a sort of open yard.

And I should say that all of this probably coincided with when the brewery stopped using

the sort of old barrels and horses and cars. I think that was sort of in the 1960s. I've

got in my mind 1964, but I'm not 100 percent sure about that date. But it was around about

that sort of time. So it would probably follow that some of the older

buildings may have been demolished after that time because they they've become

so slightly redundant with the new sort of operations of the brewery and the

expansion of the brewery then for all that investment about six million worth

in 1970. Mr. Frohman, having now given us a flavour of the the sort of research

that you undertook, could you turn back to your sections on the contribution of

the Truman East site from 525 and pick out any points that you've not yet made but wanted

to make.

The main site was historically occupied by housing, which by the 1830s was mostly swept

away by the yard that was associated with the stables and cooperages of the brewery.

So we had the one on Buxton Street and the one on Spital Street.

Only a segment of housing remained at the northeast corner until World War II, but that

had gone by 1948.

Actually, I've got the 1945 aerial photo,

so you can make a correction there.

The stables yard, later the Coopridge yard,

when the stables were replaced with a boiler house,

would have been occupied by yard spaces and low rise buildings.

And we've seen those.

We've got lots of photos of them.

We know where they were.

Of which blocks N, that is the old brick Coopridge,

the remnants of the Coopridge on Buxton Street.

And K is the Koo bridge on Spitalfield.

And Block L is the one with the Chamford corner.

And actually it's interesting, so when you go on site,

have a look at the brick blimp of that building.

You can see the bricks are,

they're not recent bricks, they're quite old.

So Block L was present by 1957, by yeah, 1956, sorry.

Now, in terms of the townscape morphology or hierarchy,

the former stables, now Boiler House,

presented a respectable and imposing facade to Brick Lane.

It turned the corner onto Buxton Street in the same way,

so also that sort of formal frontage,

obviously designed to impress,

but beyond that was the low estate

as low rise rear yard and cooperage.

Although there have clearly been considerable changes

in the area, this can still be seen today.

And I think at this point, I just want to take you

to some photos of my proof.

So I mentioned there Quaker Street.

Yeah, I mentioned these, or Buxton Street.

So if you turn up page 41 of my proof.

You there have two images.

The first is from Quaker Street.

And you're looking at the northernmost corner

of the old stables, later the Boiler House.

And you can see, sir, how it turns the corner

onto Buxton Street.

So you can sort of see that formal, imposing composition,

obviously designed to be a building that's quite impressive.

And it then sort of turns the corner.

And you can see on the top image, immediately behind it,

the scale just drops down.

And the image on the bottom, photo, photo eight,

you there sort of go a little bit closer, you know,

onto Buxton Street, and you're just at the end of the sort

of the formal composition, if you like.

And there you start to get a sense that behind it you've got the yard.

Now obviously there would have been a cooperage building there with a pitched roof, I think

sort of possibly two storeys.

So it might have been slightly different.

There's a scale at the moment you've only got the wall left.

But there's very much still a sense of the main building, imposing frontage, high status

on Brick Lane, yard behind it.

And if you turn the page 42, you've

then got a couple of photos that just

goes on in that sequence.

So you then go to what is now the entrance to the yard

behind the boiler house.

And the bottom photo, photo 10.

There you sort of look back towards the old boil hours, the old stables.

And again, when you look at that image, it's not a sort of high status collection of buildings.

They're quite robust and not everything that you see in that image is old,

but you very much get that sense of a sort of real gritty industrial site.

low rise, low status behind the hierarchically more important block on

Brick Lane. And just another sort of observation on that bottom photo,

photo 10, you can see there the chimney which is obviously the sort of landmark

feature of the old boiler house. But what you can see there is a real sort of

connexion. You see the back of the building and you see the yard behind

So you can kind of relate the one to the other.

You sort of see the building and the yard.

And they're spatially and visually connected.

If you turn over on page 43, again, you

get that sense that the yard belongs to the building.

They're not sort of detached from each other.

You've got the one and you've got the other.

and they sort of belong together.

On that photo, you see on the right -hand side block L,

which is the one with the Chamfered Corner,

which was there by 1956.

And just on the next page,

you sort of see a few aerial photos

just sort of showing the spatial nature of the yard.

I just find them useful to sort of explain

in spatial qualities in a single visual image.

And I should say, sir, if you just turn over the page

on page 45.

So on page 45, the top image I think is useful

in showing the nature of the surroundings of the site

so you kind of get a sense,

because you're sort of looking along the west side of Brick Lane.

You've got Allen Gardens in the foreground, and then you've got this sort of site in the

middle ground, and then you've got the rest of Brick Lane sort of stretching out towards

the south in the background.

What's useful there, I think, is to show you the sort of the scale, the nature of the townscape

there.

And you can see, sir, there aren't really any large, particularly large buildings, the

exception being the sort of 1970s block, which is block H,

I think, which you sort of see towards the distance there.

But that's outside of the site.

But that's the only sort of larger building within that.

But aside from that, very much you

can sort of still get a sense of that historic yard.

Those are the things I wanted to point out

on in terms of the photos.

Go back to your summary proof now and pick up from there.

So the yard is enclosed by a boundary wall and buildings along Buxton Street, part of

which is the residual former Coolbridge building on Buxton Street and Spital Street Block K.

The yard and the buildings enclosed within it are not currently publicly accessible.

However, that does not negate the contribution to the conservation area.

the significance of the buildings and the spaces do not depend on whether there is public access to it.

The site is a hard industrial landscape and the remaining buildings are robust industrial

structures. It is perhaps easy to dismiss this as a detracting area and people have done that.

I can see that and one that could be beneficially redeveloped but that would be to ignore the true

value of the site and his role in terms of the former Truman's

Brewery complex, which is, of course, a key component

of the conservation area.

The site is evocative of the functional yard

and low -scale authentic industrial buildings

of the Brewery complex.

The yard and the buildings would historically

have been and still are hierarchically subservient

to the grandiose public face of the Brewery on Brick Lane

and the former stables or boiler house Block O,

as it returns from Brick Lane onto Buxton Street.

It illustrates how the brewery functioned

and how the townscape was historically arranged.

It is, moreover, the only such example in the conservation era.

So there is no other example of a site like this,

which historically has been always open, relatively open and low -rise,

and associated with a brewery in that way.

The yard and the low -rise buildings on it

and the way in which this represents the historic morphology of the conservation area,

in my view make an important contribution to the conservation area.

The brewery is a key part of the conservation area

and this is obviously a large part of the brewery.

You can see how that fits in with the evolution of the brewery.

That's the conservation area appraisal.

The large chimney stack of the Boiler House is a local landmark in the conservation area

and the former coop which along Spittles Fleet is a characterful former brewery building.

At the rear it has an interesting squat little chimney stack that adds to its charm and interest.

It's probably worth just having a quick look at that.

And the photo of that is age 47 of my proof.

So you can there see it and you see it there

together with block L.

It is a good quality historic brewery building

that has rightly been identified

as a non -designated heritage asset

and it clearly contributes positively

to the conservation area.

I can briefly go on to the site of blog J. That won't take too long.

very long. I'm not sure I'm going to take you to photos of it necessarily. I'm

happy to, but I think I'm just going to push on through. The site of Block J was

historically occupied by three -storey shops and dwellings on Whitsier Street,

and you can see that when you look at the the goat map. We don't have to go

through that again. Where was I? To the south were four -storey shops and dwellings,

but also the premise of a carrier company.

So that's all stabling.

Much of the buildings on the site were destroyed by World War II bomb damage.

The houses through the north remained after the war for a while.

But they were eventually demolished.

The current warehouse building, which has been converted to a shop,

was built between 1961, between the 1961 and 1969 Ordnance Survey maps.

It's not clear to me when the site was acquired by the brewery

or whether the existing building was built as part of the brewery's expansion.

There is an image in Mr Morrison's proof, which it may be we're just very briefly going

to that sort of seems to show that it was part of the brewery.

I can't remember the date.

I just want to go that go there quickly.

So it's Mr Morris' proof, page 231 is the reference I've got, and I'm just going to

You have that, sir?

Well, sir, I can just give you the reference.

It's not really necessary for me to take you there.

I can tell you what it says.

Page 231 of Mr. Morris's proof.

There are three maps, the bottom right -hand map,

bottom left -hand map, sorry.

That's a 1931, well, it says it's a 1931 brochure.

So I'll give you a copy on paper.

And you can see there, sir, you can see the Coopridge Yard

at the top right.

And then at the bottom, not completely the site of Block J,

but I think they still remain some houses

to the north of the street there.

But you can see that there's a garage.

and so that would have been part of the brewery site, it looks like, by 1931.

So just sort of interesting that, obviously,

when those sheds were first put up in the 1960s,

they must have been part of the brewery.

However...

The building is an example of an industrial post -war structure

of no apparent architectural interest.

It has been altered as part of his conversion to a shop.

It could perhaps easily be mistaken

for a purpose -built retail shed,

although the slender brick stack at the rear,

so if you look at it,

if you look at a building from Spital Street,

you can sort of see the brick stack behind it,

yellow brick stack, alludes to a former industrial use.

Without knowing whether the building formed

part of Truman's expansion,

it's not possible for me to say

whether it has a layer of historic interest in that regard.

Well, I kind of now know that it does,

but I do say, however, unlike the other modern brewery buildings

on Grey Eagle Street and Dre Walk and the Truman East site,

it has a somewhat detached relationship with the remaining brewery buildings.

Combined with the signage, plant and alterations to the building,

it's difficult for me to attribute any meaningful positive contribution

to the conservation area and instead the poor quality of the building

in its present state detracts from it.

The site terminates a street block that is otherwise made up of fine grain,

in modest scale, largely residential properties

that are typical of the conservation area.

These vary in height between a few single storey structures

and a mix of two to four storey buildings.

Some of the four storey buildings appear to have been

former industrial buildings.

In terms of the continuity of the scale, grain,

and character of the street block,

that's the street block defined by Hanbury,

Woodseer, and Spittles Street.

The existing building relates poorly to these

and there's an opportunity for beneficially replacing the existing building with a development that could better relate to the scale, grain and character of the street block

and enhance the conservation area.

If I then just jump on to the impact assessment,

And I am conscious of time, and I will sort of whiz through that a little bit.

I don't want to sort of not cover things, but I am sort of conscious.

I've been talking for quite a while.

Yeah, Mr. Fennelly, let's go straight to the impact on the Truman East appeals scheme,

if we can, and finish with that.

Right.

So page 52 and 53 of my proof.

Again, I start with the modelling

or the block models of the buildings.

One of the things I should say is

I refer to the buildings as eight storeys,

and that's when I talked about block two, block 3B,

and also block 3A and block 3B.

Block 3B steps down a bit towards the rear

because of the roof profile, but generally eight storeys.

And you can see the plant enclosures

on the aerial view, but that's all

behind a parapet that goes straight up vertically

from the facade.

So you don't read that as a reset storey or anything.

You read that as very much as an additional storey.

So they're seven -storey buildings,

but they read as eight -storey buildings.

And you can see that again when you look at page 53.

Page 55 and 56, there are similar photos of that sort of brick lane looking into the site.

So looking east from brick lane to the area behind the vat house.

And on page 55 you can sort of see very much a semblance of a yard.

I mean, there you've got the sort of the 1970s,

the only large building that's on the site at the moment on the right -hand side,

and then on the left -hand side you can sort of still get a real sense of a yard.

If you turn over on page 56, you obviously then...

It's interesting to look and see the sort of scale difference

between the block that you see on the right -hand side on that image.

And if you then turn back to that page, the photo on page 55, you can sort of get a sense

of the scale of that building when you see it in that view.

And there are then obviously the photos from Allen Gardens.

And you can kind of see, so I'm just looking on page 58 of my proof.

And actually, it might be just as well to look at that in the HDVIA.

So page 111, you get a good, nice sort of picture of that.

A few times you'll be familiar with that.

I suppose the sort of key impact here is that whole sense of a modest yard and sort of low

scale and that sense of hierarchy is completely upturned by the buildings which you see and

experience as you go around the site.

They are more than twice the height of the frontage of the site of the frontage of the

boiler house on Brick Lane.

So not simply a sort of equivalence without building, but substantially taller and larger

than it.

So that whole sort of sense of subservience is upturned, if you like.

So I would recommend that you look at the model that's just there behind you.

I think that sort of gives a real good sense of how the blocks sit in their context.

I found that model really useful, and you don't have to do that now, sir, but obviously

I think it's important that you do that.

I sort of immediately jumped to the appearance of block 3A and B

from Alland Gardens and the sort of jumping scale.

But there is, of course, also the demolition

of the old Coopridge building and boundary wall on Buxton Street,

which, in my view, positively contributes to the character

and appearance of the conservation area.

It's a residual element of the brewery complex and it's authentic, although it's been altered.

For sure it's not in a great condition, it's lost its roof, so it's a sort of remnant,

but it's got character if you look at it and if you get up close to it.

There's also Block L, which I would say has a very slight positive contribution because

it was there since the 1950s and part of that authentic brewery operation.

I don't think it's necessary to keep that building in a new redevelopment

and there's no real objection to its loss,

but I think what it does is it gives you a sense of what was there before

and the sort of industrial character and the scale of what was there before.

I think in that sense, its contribution is really linked to that.

And, yeah, I think, you know, the development, it's interesting, I think.

So if you look at the view 35.

Mr. Foneman, before you move on, you've taken us to the view from Allen Gardens on 111 of

the HDVIA.

In questions to Mr. Burrell earlier today, Mr. Russell referred to the iterative process

or the consultations and pre -app discussions that went on.

Has this part of the scheme changed over time, the elevations that we see here,

the number of storeys?

I understand that the pre -application was initially submitted for, I think it's

sort of six or seven storeys. I mean in terms of the the broad scale and

appearance of those buildings, they've obviously sort of undergone refinement,

but they very much, I think broadly similar to what was there in the

of initial pre -app from what I can see.

Have the number of storeys increased?

Yes, the number, I think it was initially, like I said,

I can't remember now offhand exactly how many storeys there

were, the pre -app, I think it was six or seven, and it sort

of, it then went up a bit on the second, well,

the designer review submission, and it was then sort of brought

down to the current height, I think,

by the second pre -application.

So they sort of, it was a little bit of movement up and down,

but roughly the same, so not a sort

of great deal of change really.

All right.

Can we try and finish then?

Just go back to your summary, please.

Yes, I'm also reading from 538.

I do not generally take issue with the architectural quality or design of the proposed buildings

themselves insofar as that relates to heritage matters.

Aside from where I highlight specific design concerns,

I can see that there has been considerable care and thought

in the design of the buildings that I consider to be harmful,

e .g. blocks 3A and B and block J.

The architecture generally and the materials and the attention

to detailing of these buildings looks to me to be of a high standard.

The scheme would bring about some heritage -specific benefits.

I've seen reference to the provision of heritage and interpretive signage

as part of the development, subject to the detail,

usefulness and quality of this. It's possible that a very small benefit could

be attributed to this. There'd be repairs to the fabric of the Coopridge building

on Spital Street block K and the steel staircase affixes of South elevation

would be removed. It's a modern steel staircase which would be an enhancement.

The railings above the parapet would also be removed and the grills would be

taken off the windows on Spital Street. This would again attract some albeit

very limited benefit. The building appears to be in use and in a reasonable state of

repair. And I would just say there's been some comments made about the sort of grittiness

of the site and the sort of industrial character of it. And I think, you know, to some extent

the building reflects that in its current state. So I think sort of cleaning it up and

sort of, if you can use the term, gentrifying it is perhaps not completely a benefit because

I think that sort of removes some of the patina of age that he's acquired over the years.

The proposal would provide public access across the site and to a list of form of stables

or boil hours.

Although given the transformational change to the site, I do not consider this would

enable the significance of the conservation area to be appreciated.

So in other words, what I mean there is that the site contributes in its existing state

as a sort of a remnant of the industrial function

and use of the site and how it sort of,

how the brewery evolved over time.

And actually the site never had large buildings on it,

so it's always been a sort of low rise place

with yards and sort of low buildings.

And you would have some yards and passages

between buildings and that's okay,

but the buildings themselves are so vastly different

from anything that existed before,

that I don't think that that sort of will give you

any real sense of what it was historically

and how it related to, for example,

the boil -outs on Brick Lane.

So I don't see that that public access

is going to sort of reveal the thing that kind of,

in a way, makes the site distinguishable.

The existing buildings to be demolished

are architecturally largely undistinguished,

although the remnant of the former Coolbridge building

along the north. On Buxton Street retains some 19th century character and represents

part of the development of the brewery in its heyday. The boundary wall that encloses

the yard is characteristic of the brewery. The former cast handling building, block L,

is a post -war addition but it was present by 1956 and there is a degree of authenticity

in this structure. All of these structures contribute to some degree to the significance

of the conservation area, albeit the contribution is relatively limited given the relatively

the modest nature of the structures and the scale of the conservation area.

So in other words, this site is only a fairly small component

of the overall conservation area,

so the contribution is always going to be proportionately quite small.

The loss of these structures would cause some low levels

of less than substantial harm to the significance of the conservation area.

Block 2 would not be widely visible from the surrounding area,

being masked by intervening buildings existing and proposed,

including blocks 3A and B.

An exception to this is the view east into the site from Brick Lane,

which we looked at earlier.

I consider the addition of the large -scale block 2 in this view

would have the same harmful effect.

In other words, that's erosion of the open yard character.

On the morphology and hierarchy of the conservation area,

telescope is what I attribute to blocks 3A and B.

The scale and massing of blocks 3A and B in particular,

albeit also noting the effect of Block 2 and the view from Brick Lane,

would erode the historic character of the brewery

and disrupt the established townscape hierarchy and morphology

of the conservation area.

The scale, mass and height of the development

would go beyond creating an equivalence

with the prevailing building heights and massing of the historic buildings

that the yard would have served,

so i .e. the buildings on Brick Lane.

It would completely upend this established scale

and townscape order or hierarchy.

This impact of the appeal scheme on the hierarchy and morphology of the site

and the way in which it was part of the brewery complex can be understood would be severe.

The hierarchy and morphology of the site would be completely reversed or overturned.

The appeal scheme would become a dominant feature when seen from Allen Gardens and Buxton Street.

In views from Quaker Street to the west, the appeal scheme would visually overwhelm the former stables or boil -outs.

and you can see that from view 34 in the HTVIA.

In stark contrast were the existing subservient enclosed yard.

The scheme would block some views of the Truman's chimney stack,

although I do not consider every view of the stack to be sacrosanct

or inviolable and I have not ascribed harm accordingly.

In views from the north, northeast,

Blocks A and 3B would be juxtaposed as a large -scale development alongside the stack, and it can

be considered to harmfully erode its dominance to an extent with the scale, solidity and

mass of the intervening development in the foreground or middle ground.

Although such harm would be quite minor in my view, it's difficult for me to meaningfully

relate blocks 3A and B to anything in the conservation area aside from, in the general

or sense the use of brick.

It's also difficult for me to see how these buildings

meaningfully reflect the industrial legacy of the site

or of the Truman Brewery more widely.

Instead, they present a rather stark

and homogenous appearance in some views.

I can see two specific design references

to the brewery in blocks 3A and B,

albeit in my view both are unsuccessful and contrived.

So that's the bridges and that's the sawtooth roof.

The first is the bridges, however, in contrast with the restrained solidity of the actual bridges they reference,

these are glazed structures in stark contrast with the single bridges

that typically connect the original brewery buildings across the streets.

There are no less than 11 such bridges spanning between blocks 3A and B.

The preponderance of these bridges make them a highly exaggerated reference

to the point that it becomes more of a caricature than a simple reference.

The sawtooth roof of Block 3B appears to me to be a somewhat lazy architectural cliche.

The active frontages, new passageway and pavement widening that are all proposed on Buxton Street

have been seen as desirable for other reasons, but in heritage terms they go against the grain and nature of the historically enclosed yard.

This is again harmful rather than beneficial in heritage terms.

The same can be said of the greening and play area proposed within the development,

which is wholly uncharacteristic.

I'd say characteristic, it should be uncharacteristic.

That's a key area there.

And of the industrial yard.

The former Coolbridge building on Spittles Street would have a shopfront inserted at the rear

and fitted with a steel terrace at the first floor,

which would have a steel staircase attached to it.

This seems to me to be harmful and out of keeping with the character of the building,

as with the way in which the stack at the rear would be dominated by Block 3B,

in spite of the scooped derris's in that location.

In light of these harms, it's my view that this part of the Truman East Appeal Scheme

would cause considerable harm to this part of the conservation area,

and it would be experienced to varying extents from Quaker Street and Brick Lane.

The fact that this would obliterate the only remaining yard of its kind in the

conservation area makes this all the more damaging. Given the scale of the

conservation area however, I would describe a moderate degree

of less than substantial harm due to this part of the appeal scheme.

Thank you. So far as block J is concerned you identify either benefits or matters

with which you don't take issue at 554 and 555. Starting at 556 though if you'd

My principal issue with Block J is the seven -storey end block on Spittel Street,

mainly in terms of its scale, but to a degree also the design,

which does not seem to reflect anything recognisable about the street block that it terminates.

Instead it seems to speak to the modern blocks of flats to the east beyond the conservation area.

The seven -storey part of Block J would harm the significance of the conservation area

as an over -scaled and incongruous addition to the modestly scaled and fine -grained residential street block it forms part of,

and the way in which it relates to the blocks of modern flats outside the conservation area

rather than the street block it forms part of inside the conservation area.

The harm I've identified is less than substantial within the meaning of the MPPF

at the lower end of the spectrum of that category.

Thank you. You then essentially summarise the summary between 559 to 562.

If you could just move to 563 to finish up on this, please.

By my assessment, the heritage -specific benefits are very limited

and do not come anywhere near compensating for or outweighing the harms I have identified.

Although the harms I have identified attract considerable importance and weight in terms

of the NPBF, I would describe a moderate degree of less than substantial harm due

to this part of the appeal scheme.

As before, that's not a reflection of the harm being limited, but rather a reflection

of the overall scale and significance of the conservation area.

Thank you Mr. Foneman. Lastly, I think we've dealt with the documents that we listed at the outset.

We've not gone to Mr. Dunn's proof. I don't propose to do it now in the interest of time,

nor do I propose to take you to those documents, the Historic England consultation response,

the GLA stage one response or the officer's report, but I'll simply ask you this.

Do your views differ from those expressed in those documents?

If so, how and to what degree?

My views differ to varying extents to what is said in those documents.

And so it's not possible to give a sort of single straightforward answer to that.

It depends on which document.

And even those where there's disagreement or where I disagree with those documents,

I don't necessarily disagree with everything that's said in them.

There are some things which I agree with and some things which I don't agree with.

And so it's quite a complex picture.

One of the things that struck me when I looked at those documents is I think the analysis

that sort of underpins the judgments that are made.

So in other words, I talked right at the beginning

of my assessment of my evidence in chief

about the three stage process.

And so what I sometimes find difficult

with those documents is whether the significance

of the conservation area is clearly

and correctly articulated,

whether there is then a clearly articulated assessment

assessment of the contribution of the various sites to the conservation area.

And that, I think, sort of affects the judgments that are made.

And so that's probably the sort of the overriding issue.

So I think what I'm asking you to do is to look at the face of my evidence,

look at my own analysis and judge my evidence on the basis of that analysis

and not on the basis of what others have said.

Last question for you, Mr. Frohman,

before your tended for cross -examination questions.

The appellant's architects at various points

in their written evidence have described the scheme

as heritage -led.

What do you understand by that term,

and do you regard this scheme to be one

which has been heritage -led?

When I think of heritage -led, I think,

I sort of imagine heritage as being the guiding light,

or the overriding principle

that permeates through everything.

It's the kind of touchstone, so at every stage,

if you're making decisions about the development,

you sort of first go and think,

what does the heritage tell us to do?

So for example, if you're demolishing a building,

you might ask first, what does the heritage tell us to do?

if you're thinking about the scale of the development

that you're putting on the site, where

does the heritage lead you?

What does heritage tell you to do?

So in a sense, to just use a very simple analogy,

if there's a horse and cart, the heritage is the horse,

and the cart is the development.

And it's always being sort of pulled along

by heritage considerations.

That's how I would describe or define heritage -led.

In this case, it's very difficult for me to really see,

and I'm mindful of the reasons why we hear,

the reasons for refusal, which is about

historic character, scale and massing

on the Truman East Side specifically.

And when I look at historic character, scale and massing

of the proposed development, it's very difficult for me

to recognise in that, that it's sort of being guided

and really drawn by what you see in terms of

what the site used to do and how it related to the area

and the buildings along Brick Lane.

So in that sense, no, I don't see this as heritage led.

Mr. Fronowin, thank you very much.

Those are all the questions in chief.

If you stay there, there may be questions for you

from others.

Thank you both.

Mr. Harris, I'm going to suggest we have a break, and then we'll resume at, let's say,

quarter to four.

Do you have an idea how long you might be?

I'm relaxed about that, Mr. Froman.

Mr. Walke, everybody else?

Yeah.

Good with me.

Let's break until quarter to four then, and then we'll try and complete this evening.

OK, good. Until quarter to four, then. Thank you.

Eli's Yard.

You don't pursue any type of heritage case in relation to Eli's Yard, correct?

That's great, Ms Harris.

Thank you.

And what that means is because Eli's yard is in the conservation area and because Eli's

yard is part of the conservation area, the inspector can record that you are satisfied

that that part of the development preserves or conserves at the very least the significance

of the conservation area.

Correct?

That's correct and you will have noted that that was an on -balance conclusion.

In other words, I thought that the height was not quite appropriate but there was another

benefit in creating a link and so on the whole I consider that to be neutral.

So you've done in effect what we've come to call an internal balance.

I think you called it that first, sir, probably, at the Bell Foundry.

But the point of that is, if the development has conserved the asset,

then great weight should be given to the assets conservation

in line with paragraph 212 of the NPPF, shouldn't it?

Well, great weight should be given to the...

That's exactly what it says.

I don't think that it means that if you've got a development that is neutral or preserves

the current and appearance conservation area, that that then is a weighty matter to be placed

into the planning balance.

I think that's, it's rather more neutral.

No, but the point is, if you achieve conservation as part of a potential impact, then the guidance

says in terms, great weight should be given to that, doesn't it?

Yes great weight should be given to that, but it's not a beneficial outcome, it's a

neutral outcome.

Well I've heard what you've said, but we've heard also what the words of the policy say,

and I'm going now to the words of the statute and the words that the courts have said, the

way in which the statute should be applied.

if the inspector concludes in relation to Eli's yard that compared to its

existing position which is an empty vacant car lot physically that Eli's

yard proposal is in fact an enhancement to the conservation area that's the

premise upon which I asked the question if the inspector concludes that Eli's

yard is an enhancement to the conservation area and its significance, then that should

be given considerable weight and importance, shouldn't it?

Yes, that's correct.

Thank you.

Paragraph 110 next, please, which deals with the listed building, statutory listed building.

So the inspectors got to apply the statutory listing tests, statutory tests, same point,

you identify no harm there, therefore that listed building and its setting is conserved

in the terms of both the policy and the statute, correct?

It's correct in relation to the physical impacts of the listed building.

What you'll see in the footnote there says...

I thought that there was a footnote where I said something different,

and I just want to cheque that.

Yeah, so footnote one is on page four.

Now, I make a point there so that the setting of the listed building is not in the council's reason for refusal,

and so I'm not making a point on that.

But you, sir, you'll be aware of your duty in terms of considering the setting of the listed building.

And what I say there is that, well, I will summarise that in as much as it's difficult

for me to see how, if, sir, you find harm to the conservation area due to the development

behind the listed building, it's difficult for me to see how you would find that the

setting of the listed building is preserved.

Yeah, but then you've done the same sort of internal balance that we get from the inspectors'

case.

and now from the Court of Appeal, which says it's often the best way to do things

because it allows you to identify the holistic experience of impact,

and you've concluded no harm.

No, I've not concluded no harm on the setting of the listed building.

I've concluded no harm on the extension to the listed building.

So the listed building consent application.

Right. So in terms of the listed building, I just need to get exactly where we are here

to make my submissions.

that the statutory test is to preserve the listed building and its setting, yes?

You raise no heritage impact based on the impact of the proposal on the

heritage and its setting either because there isn't any or because you've done

the internal balance and you've ended up neutral. No, that's not correct.

What I say is that in terms of the physical impacts of the listed building

due to the extension to it,

which I sort of see as an extension to the building,

so that's sort of part of the Lisser building,

that's covered by the Lisser building consent application.

I don't find that there is harm on the net

in relation to that.

What I haven't done is to sort of include in that

the development in the yard,

which is the bit in the conservation area

which I find harmful,

and what I'm saying is that I think for the same reasons

that I find harm to the conservation area,

I think that there would be harm

to the setting of the listed building,

but that's not part of the council's case.

No, but it's not part of your analysis either, is it?

Look to 110.

At paragraph 110, you deal with it very, very clearly.

I understand the proposals would facilitate the benefit use

of the building and secure funding for the maintenance

of the chimney stack, and I have therefore again concluded

that the overall effect of this application would be neutral.

Yes?

No, Mr. Harris, because you have to read

that paragraph in the whole.

And if you see what I say right at the beginning of that paragraph, the first words there,

in terms of the listed building consent application.

Now, the listed building consent application is not the application that covers the development

in the yard.

That's the application that concerns the extension to the listed building.

So that's what I'm talking about there.

Where else, anywhere else in your proof or your Rule 6 or in any other document, including

and we're learning friends opening,

is there suggested that there is any residual harm

to the boiler house that the inspector needs

to take into account as part of his consideration

of the evidence?

Where?

No way, I didn't cover that because that's not part

of the council's reason for refusal

and so I didn't want to bring in something

which isn't part of the council's reason for refusal.

All I'm doing, I'm so sorry.

All I'm doing is I'm flagging to the inspector there

that I haven't done that in my view,

they would be armed to the setting of the Lisser building

for the same reasons as the conservation area

and I leave it there.

Yes, all right.

Well, we'll come back to that if we may,

particularly in relation to the importance

and significance of the courtyard,

which we'll look at in some great detail.

So do you remember just a few seconds ago,

you said it wasn't part of the reason for refusal,

so I haven't gone into it.

Remember that?

I do.

Block two block two is no part of the council's case is it it's not in the reason for refusal

It's not in the rule six. We'll learn a friend didn't refer to it in opening

Well, no if you look at the reason for refusal for the Truman East site

It says that there's harm due to the scale

massing an impact on historic character in particular,

due to blocks 3A and blocks 3B,

but in particular it does not exclude everything else.

It sort of says that that's the focus of it,

but, and that, if you look at my assessment,

you can see that the focus of my assessment

is blocks 3A and B,

but that's not to exclude everything else.

All right, so in terms of block two,

is it part of the council's case

that Block 2 should found part of the reason for refusal?

Yes, and the inspectors got detailed evidence on that.

Like I said, I don't have to repeat myself,

and I'm not going to, but in particular,

it doesn't mean exclusive to everything else.

It just means that that's the particular focus.

Okay, all right, that's really interesting, please.

Can we go to the fourth point,

which goes to a very fundamental point

about what weight can be given to your evidence,

now that we've heard it all.

Can we look at paragraph 111, please?

You explain there that it was on the basis of your analysis

that you agreed to appear as the heritage witness

at the inquiry, do you see that?

I do.

And then you explain, as I've seen you explain

in other proofs, how you generally approach analysis.

You say, I've reached my own opinions

and have come to my own conclusions, a point you reiterated right towards the end of your

evidence in chief.

I've acted on behalf of local authorities, as with previous appeals, I've acted on behalf

of local authorities.

I have not discussed the appeal schemes with council conservation officers or sought their

views in preparing my evidence.

Well, fair enough.

Then this, I have not analysed or referred to the council's conservation officers' responses

to the applications.

And that's right.

There's nothing in your proof about that at all, is there?

Yes.

Is that right?

There's nothing in your proof at all about that?

You heard my answer.

The answer was yes.

And then I made a qualification.

So what I want to say there is, to be absolutely clear,

because I can see this as being forensically analysed,

you might want to, or what I would say,

that insert the words after the word

in response to the applications in my proof.

So in other words.

I'm happy for you to say that,

but let's look at the words please.

It then goes on to say,

I am aware of various other consulty responses,

including those from Historic England,

the Greater London Authority,

Historic Buildings and Places,

the Spitalfield Trust, et cetera.

I have not analysed those in my evidence,

which instead reflects my own analysis.

See that?

I see that and that exactly in my evidence.

So what you see there is in my evidence,

that's the words that I wanted to add to,

behind applications in the sentence above it.

So what I'm saying there is that you won't find me

in my evidence analysing and discussing these other parties

because my evidence is my own evidence.

But the point is, I'm so sorry Mr. Harris,

you know the format. That's what I'm saying there, sir.

Yep. But the issue is that the inspectors got to understand what way to give to your

evidence. So, for example, Historic England is the government's leading advisor on the

built environment. And you've chosen deliberately not to set it out in your proof or in any

that I can properly challenge.

I say you read that and you look for any reference

to any of those bodies or those judgments in your proof.

And it's not there, and it's not there because

you made the judgement in absence of those

and you've chosen not to set out in any testable way

why it is you disagree with them.

Now, in this case, Historic England very, very carefully

and deliberately choose to raise no objection, don't they?

I think that there was a question at the beginning which you said that I deliberately didn't

include a response in my evidence and that's yes, if you read that paragraph 112, that's

what I say there.

And the second question is that Historic England didn't raise any significant objections to

this application, and the answer to that is yes again.

And so you will have seen that I have explained

in my introduction that I have come across that before

where I've disagreed with Historic England's position

because of the analysis that they've done,

and that was found to be correct.

So I understand that they are standing in the process

I understand that there are the governments advised on the historic environment.

I understand that there's weight to be given to historic England's response.

But that doesn't mean that historic England always gets it right or that a letter that

bears the header of historic England is irreplaceable and that there is nothing that can be said

against it and it has to be taken at least fairly.

to cross you here because you're not answering my question.

The specific question, which you partially answered

but incorrectly, was historic England raised no objection

here.

They go out of their way in the formula

that historic England have to say,

notwithstanding all that we've said, we raise no objection.

Not no significant objection, but no objection.

Am I right on that?

I think the wording, as I remember it,

and we can look at the letter, is we have no significant,

we do not wish to raise significant concerns.

I think that's the wording that they used.

We'd better look at it then.

It's such a shame.

You see, let me just put it this way.

We've got a very experienced inspector who often sides

with Historic England, but often sets out reasons why he doesn't.

So custom house.

So Edith Gaskell House, for example.

But the inspector always makes the point

that it's Historic England, they have a specific role,

and if I am going to go against them, I explain why.

And then he does.

So what I'm suggesting to you in this case,

and we look at the exact wording,

is that Historic England have chose to raise no objection.

You can look in your proof as to whether you agree

with that or not, but you will find nothing.

So there's nothing that the inspector

has got to benchmark against that.

And I'll say now that if anything

comes in reexamination in relation to this,

which I can't test, I'll be very upset indeed.

And I know my learning friend has not thought

of advocating that would do that.

But should we look at the document then, please?

Five.

I'm so sorry, Mr. Harris, you asked a question

and you didn't give me a chance to respond to that.

I think you said that.

Yeah, CDD2, please.

So you asked the question, but you don't want me to answer that.

CDD2, please.

I have that in front of me.

Yeah. And you'll have read this a lot, will you?

Presumably you didn't read it before you wrote your proof,

because you chose not to analyse it.

No, I didn't say that I wasn't aware of it or that I didn't read it.

I said that I didn't analyse it in my evidence.

It is one of the first things that I read.

Good. Then you remember that the recommendation says,

Historic England has no objection to the applications.

That's their final word under the heading recommendation.

Do you see that?

I can see that, yes.

So answer the question, is it right that Historic England

chose to raise no objection in the circumstances of this case?

Absolutely correct.

Thank you.

I don't know why it took us so long to get there.

We also know that for the main site,

the one that we're talking about predominantly at the minute, officers, conservation officers,

officers as a whole and the whole officer, CAIDA, for the local authority that you are

now representing recommended approval, didn't they?

That is correct.

Sir, I think it's important that you also note, and you will have noticed that in any

I'm sure I don't need to tell you this,

but the conservation officer's response to the application

was not one that there was no harm.

The conservation officer have also identified

a moderate level of harm to the conservation area

in the officer's report that he's then revised

to a low to moderate level of harm.

But the moderate level of harm,

that accords with my own assessment.

Yes, but again, you've given us no benchmark, no analysis to allow the inspector to judge

where you sit in relation to those, notwithstanding the fact that you're actually representing

the same local authority.

I disagree with you.

The benchmark that you have, sir, is a detailed proof of evidence.

I set out my full analysis.

It's quite detailed.

You can see exactly where I'm coming from in terms of the significance of the conservation area,

the contribution that the site makes to that, and the impact assessment.

It's all there.

So you can benchmark that against both the Council's conservation officer and Historic England

and the Greater London Authority's response to the application.

So you have that to benchmark.

All right.

Let's move on to the substance of the cross -examination in terms of the merits.

I'll come back to what the inspector should make about that very strange approach in closing.

Building A first, please.

Now we've got to be really careful here, haven't we?

You're the heritage witness, aren't you?

Yes, you got that right, Ms Harris.

Good.

And your starting point, or your concluding point, whichever way you want to look at it,

is that you have identified from Building A less

than substantial harm at the lower end

of the less than substantial harm category.

That's your paragraph 3 .27, correct?

Correct.

Thank you.

So we've got on one side of the room lower end

of less than substantial harm

against which public benefits then fall to be considered

in the heritage balance, correct?

Yes, that's correct.

And so I think at this point I just want to, I suppose, put a flag up for you, sir.

And again, I'm sure this is something that you –

– but you'll be aware of the importance and weight that can be given, the strong statutory

presumption against development that causes harm to the conservation area.

And I will just say a couple of other points, and these are important.

Is this an answer to my question though, Mr. Fronkleman?

Because otherwise we are going to go on well beyond an hour and a half.

The question was the starting point is low end of less than substantial harm to the conservation year 3 -27.

And Mr. Harris, if you just make a note when I give an answer, the first answer that I gave was yes.

I said yes. I don't know if you wrote that down, but that was my answer, yes.

So I wrote it down and I wrote it down carefully and then I heard something that wasn't an

answer to the question and this isn't a second examination in chief.

Do you see?

There's the point.

Mr. Harris, there is an important point that I want to make to the Inspector in relation

Yeah, but it's not here.

You're here to answer my questions, not to make important points.

And this is in relation to the harm.

So first of all, I want to make it clear to the Inspector why it is that I got to a low

level of harm.

It doesn't need to be a very long explanation.

and that is just the fact that the site is not a very big site in the conservation area.

It is a very big conservation area, so proportionally it's only a very small component that's being

affected and so that's where you get the low level of harm from.

And so there is, I will just again try to be very brief on this point.

I've personally been involved in a case where I represented a local authority on an allocated

site in a conservation area for the development of 228 houses and 118 bedroom hotel.

The inspector in that case found low to mid -level of less than substantial harm to the conservation

area, but the appeal was dismissed.

So I just want to sort of put a marker down that even low levels of less than substantial

harm can lead to the dismissal of a fairly large appeal scheme.

All right.

I don't really think you need to give this inspector a lecture

on those matters with the greatest of respect.

I don't take it as a lecture.

I understand.

Let's look at where we get to then because we've got

on this side of the room Mr. Dunn saying

that there's an overall benefit in heritage terms

as a result of the proposal.

So if you like, there's the compass of the difference

between us in heritage terms.

Yes?

Correct.

Good. Thank you.

And because we're dealing with an act and with the cases that have followed on from

the act, there's a requirement to pay special attention to the desirability to preserve

or enhance the character or appearance of a conservation area, isn't there?

Correct.

And the case law from the highest court is that in order for that test to be met, an

or a conservation area should be left unharmed, correct?

That's correct.

If a proposal causes no harm

or an improvement to character and appearance,

then the statutory test is met, isn't it?

Correct. Good.

And the starting point for the heritage analysis

is the existing condition of the asset or the part of the asset that you are looking at? Correct?

I would say not necessarily condition but contribution.

Thank you, that's very good. Thank you.

In your proof, eventually, you conclude that the existing building on site A creates and

constitutes harm.

It's a harmful essence in the conservation area, don't you?

That is correct, sir, and you will see where I say that, but I say it's only a shell.

And I make the point, sir, that that's not intrinsically because of the building is a

detractor, but that would be the case for any building in that condition.

Let's see how we go with that then.

essentially all that is left of it is a shell.

Those are your words. Is that correct?

Yes, that is correct.

It has no beneficial use. Is that correct?

That's correct.

You've heard evidence that there's no prospect now

of it having a beneficial use. Is that correct?

That's correct. That's the evidence that I've heard.

Yes.

You?

You indicate in paragraph 36, for the life of me, I don't know why, that the inspector

may want to consider, although we have no evidence, that whether the present state of

the building is due to deliberate neglect.

Footnote.

Is my learned friend, Mr. Wald, correct when he says that's not part of the counsel's case?

The words, you can take those words that I've written there in my proof of evidence at face value, sir.

I'm saying that I don't have evidence one way or the other to say that it's deliberately neglected.

I cannot say I don't have the evidence, so that's what I'm saying.

Yes. Do you accept that the building was in that state or close to it when it was purchased by the present occupiers 30 -odd years ago?

I don't know. I don't have any evidence of that. I've seen no evidence to that effect.

Thank you. The building generates no activity apart from the occasional coming and going of a car parking in its forecourt. Correct?

Yes, I think that's correct.

Building as it is has no intrinsic heritage value.

It's not a shell. It's not a folly.

It's not an eye catcher.

The fabric isn't of intrinsic importance, is it?

Well, I think that that's where we sort of start to depart a little bit, because what I say is that

if you look at it, it's physically linked to a building that's part of the

Truman Brewery estate. So there's a physical link. There's also a visual link in terms of

when you look at the building's design, utilitarian and robust, though that may be,

that links with the adjacent Truman Brewery building.

And so in that sense, you can make a connexion

between the two, not just visual,

but there's a physical connexion.

And so you can then start to understand it

as part of the brewery, and I think that that's,

that's a positive aspect.

And I also talk about the massing of the building

where it sort of sits quite comfortably

within that little street block.

So those are the positive attributes of the building.

Any redevelopment of that brownfield site

would now require its demolition, wouldn't it?

Yes, that's the evidence that I've heard.

Thank you.

And therefore, it would be an opportunity site

in the terms of the NPPF, so far as the conservation

area is concerned.

One of those sites, as we see shortly,

is likely in mind when the conservation area appraisal

identifies the brewery site as a site where there are significant opportunities for enhancement

of the conservation area's character and appearance.

This is one, isn't it?

This is a site that, yes, I mean, if an existing building cannot be retained, then this is

a, it's an opportunity for a building that would positively contribute to the character

and appearance of the conservation area.

I agree with that.

Thank you.

And how would you characterise the level of harm?

You've said it's harmful in its present condition, derelict.

Essentially, all that's left is a shell,

not capable of any redevelopment, no activity,

et cetera, in the conservation area.

How would you characterise that level of harm?

A very low level of harm because it's derelict.

I mean, what you can't see from street level

is that he doesn't have a roof.

So when you look at it at a street level,

You just see a building which the windows have been broken

and the windows have been bricked up at the ground level.

Well, that's a judgement, isn't it?

People will have to make,

the inspector will have to make a judgement than that.

But in order to cause harm.

I'm so sorry, Mr. Harris.

I mean, you know the format

and I'm not going to interrupt you when you ask a question.

So please interrupt me when I give an answer.

Did you have anything else to say on that, Mr. Froman?

I don't anticipate that there was.

No.

If I just sort of pick up my thought train,

yeah, I said a very low level of harm

because of its dereliction.

But I've previously noted in the previous question

that those attributes, which I consider to be positive,

even in its derelict state.

Yeah.

So there we got a level of harm.

That's a matter of judgement, clearly.

So here's the question.

In order for the proposal before the inquiry to cause harm in a heritage sense,

bearing in mind the statutory test, it has to be, have an impact on the character appearance

of the conservation area that's worse than the existing harmful position.

That's how the statute works, isn't it?

Exactly. It has to be worse for what's there at the moment.

Thank you very much.

Now, at paragraph 3 .8 of your proof, you indicate that the proposal is well designed.

Yes, in terms of the materials that have been used, and generally, I think it's, you know,

if you think about, you know, you can see that an architect designed this building and,

you know, try, I suppose, to put it colloquially, to make the best of a bad case where you're

designing a building which has got almost zero activity and engagement.

Thank you.

I'm not going to rise to that because I'm wanting to understand heritage here.

If, if, if the inspector takes the view in heritage terms that this proposal results

in an enhancement to the character and appearance of the conservation area

as a conservation area, then he is to give that considerable weight and importance

in favour of the grant, isn't he?

Yes. Thank you.

Townscape matters are matters for others, not for the heritage witness, correct?

That's correct.

And in terms of townscape, if and insofar as there is any townscape harm as opposed to heritage harm,

it doesn't get the special weight, considerable weight and importance, that heritage harm garners, does it?

No, it doesn't, although it's difficult to see really how you would end up with

townscape harm and no heritage harm.

How about Eli's Yard?

That's where we started.

Eli's Yard, we're told by your townscape witness, is a horrible piece of work, that

there are impacts throughout the conservation area, he says,

that are harmful and are inimical to the

townscape, yet you find no harm.

There's one example straight off the bat.

Yes, no, I'm aware of that.

And I've given my view on the heritage balance.

I haven't completely said that there's zero harm,

but on balance, I think that there's a benefit

in creating that passage, that link to Grey Eagle Street.

And so I think the reason why I say that is

because Grey Eagle Street is in such a state really.

I mean, you would have seen it yourself.

And I think anything that brings life and activity

to Grey Eagle Street,

I think that that is important to the character

and appearance of the conservation area.

And I think if something like that were to come about,

then you may not find it such a good idea

to put something as dead as a data centre on the Grey Eagle Street side?

I don't want to go over that.

The question for the Inspector in heritage terms is whether this well -designed building,

which gives a use which is much needed, is better than what is there.

That's the test.

We come on to townscape matters with another witness tomorrow.

So the question for you, and I think you answered it, but I'll lead in the context of you going

on and doing something else to make sure.

Townscape matters don't carry the special weight that is

afforded heritage matters, for the reasons you've just

explained to the Inspector in what I incorrectly

called the lecture.

Townscape matters don't carry that special weight, do they?

No, they don't.

I think I started my previous answer with the answer

directly to your question, no.

But you have it again.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Can we go, please, now to the main site, please?

Yes, we can.

And can we pick up the NPPF?

And can we go to paragraph 219, please?

I may not have the NPPF I normally do, but it's a new computer and I'm not sure I've

transferred it, so you're going to have to give me the core document reference for it.

Can I give me a shout when you're ready? It's paragraph 219, sir.

Is a core document ref, Mr. Harris, please?

I'm always loathe to give a core document because the inspectors are very keen for it

Not to be. I'm not sure. I've got my own copy.

I'm quite familiar with the wording. If you read that out to me.

Local planning authority should look for opportunities for new development

within conservation areas and within the setting of heritage assets

to enhance or better reveal their significance.

You're familiar with that, aren't you?

I recognise those words, yes.

Good, yeah. That's paragraph 219.

219. And the SPG, the conservation area appraisal, sorry, conservation area appraisal, also identifies,

does it not, the brewery as an area where there is likely to be opportunities and potential

for enhancement? I think so, but I, if you can just take me to the reference, I'd be

It is CDE 09.

There's a heading, opportunities and potential for enhancement.

And then there is a heading, Truman's Brewery Site.

This site will be the subject of a development brief

and should be appropriately redeveloped in a way

that respects the character of the existing historic buildings.

Yes?

Yes, respects the character.

Just bear with me a minute.

It identifies Truman's Brewery site as a place in the conservation area appraisal where there might be,

underlined as many times as you like, potential for enhancement. Yes?

Yes, but it doesn't just stop there. It says enhancement in a way that respects the character of the conservation area.

And we'll look to see what Historic England said about that shortly.

Where do you think the opportunities and potential for enhancement might be there identified?

Because you don't -that's a paragraph you don't draw to the inspector's attention.

Opportunities for enhancement.

Yes.

Yes, I, there has recently been, so this document is dated 2009, so there's recently been on

Dre Walk a building that accommodates data centre use, and it's a building which used

to be completely blank in its facade.

There's a photo of it in my proof, I can take you there.

And that's been sort of redeveloped.

It's been extended, it's been lots of windows

have been inserted into the building.

So that's an example of an opportunity

where I think that building has been redeveloped

in a way that enhances the conservation area.

Yep, is that it, do you think?

Other opportunities?

I think that there is an opportunity

on the main Truman East site to enhance the conservation area.

I certainly think that if you were to apply heritage -led in the way that I explained it

in my evidence in chief, then certainly the Council is not taking issue with the footprint

of the proposed development.

So there's no issue with that.

There's no issue in principle with summary development on that site.

the issues really with the scale, character and massing of what's being proposed.

Got you. Let me just make a harried note.

No issue with the footprint.

I got that right, did I?

Yes, you got that right.

And I think that it was interesting to see Mr Yeoman's presentation yesterday

and I think a lot of thought and care has obviously gone into

how the development is arranged and what would happen at the pedestrian level.

There are some things which I take issue with and I've identified those.

But I think generally I'm not saying that this is a site that should be preserved in

aspect.

No, no, no.

But what I am saying is that I think this development is a fundamental and radical change

to the existing and historic character of the site and I think that's where the harm

is from.

We'll come to that.

And I've got your sort of hierarchy point in mind here.

But no issue with the footprint.

It's a lot of thought and care.

I've looked very carefully through the conservation area

appraisal.

And I can't see anything about the yard needing protection

or the hierarchy presented by the yard nearing attention

or anything related to the yard at all.

In fact, the word yard and the concept of the yard isn't there, is it?

No, you're quite right, it isn't there.

And, sir, you'll see where I discuss the appraisal.

And no doubt, sir, you'll have seen many of these appraisals in your time.

I make the point that this is a very short document.

It's not the only one.

There are a range of these documents that were produced around about the same time.

It's from the cover page until the management guidelines.

It is 15 pages.

The cover is one page.

There's one page that's taken up by the map

of the conservation area.

It's not one of those detailed conservation area appraisals

that you often find.

It doesn't have, for example,

the sort of street by street analysis

or the identification of positive and neutral

and negative contributors,

or maps with key views and all of those sort of things

that you would normally expect

a more detailed conservation area appraisal to contain.

So it's very, let's call it high level really.

It doesn't really drill into the details.

So yes, you don't find that,

but I think that's a factor of the level of detail

that you see in the document.

Yeah, if it was such a integral fundamental part

of the conservation area,

you'd expect at least a mention, wouldn't you?

The fact that it is not mentioned at all

surely means that perhaps it's not

as important as the 40 minutes we spent looking through it

this afternoon.

I don't know.

But you'd expect, if it was of central importance in the way

that you identified, to see it at least mentioned

as an integral non -fragmented historic piece of fabric

or something of that nature?

To some extent, maybe, yes, you would expect that.

Although, I would say that the conservation area is quite,

I mean, it's clear that the brewery is an important part

of the conservation area.

And this is, what I think is a relatively large

part of the brewery and it's right adjacent

to one of the more significant aspects of the brewery,

i .e. the bricklaying frontage.

And so I think that is an omission

in the conservationary appraisal.

All right.

Well, it might or might not be, because Historic England were

clearly considering this part of the site

when they wrote their response, weren't they?

The one that you didn't analyse that we discussed earlier,

CDD02.

Yes, I mean, I've seen the Historic England response.

And so I invite you to have a look at the level.

I'm going to have a look at it.

I'm just asking you at the minute.

Just bear with me.

The question was, and the question deserves an answer,

and I'm asking for one.

Mr. Harris, I started with an answer.

Yes, but then you went on.

I think my answer was yes.

Did you record that?

Good.

Thank you.

Can we look at it, please?

CDD02, Mr. Unruh.

I'm so sorry.

So it's going to be difficult. It

I'll just point you to a little bit more detail, and I'm being interrupted.

Carry on.

Mr Harris, hang on a minute.

Let's see.

So what I was saying, sir, is that you don't, you know, you can have a look at, and I'm

sure we're going to, I think Ms Harris indeed was going to take me to the historic England

response.

All I would say is have a look at the depth and detail of the analysis.

Again, just reminding you of those three steps of looking at what is the significance of

the conservation area, what is the contribution of the site, because those things help you

to calibrate and determine the impact.

I'm not going to go any further about what Historic England said or didn't say.

I will just point out, sir, that you can see the level of the analysis and what they say,

and you can see the level of my analysis and what I say.

So what I'm asking you to do is to judge me on my analysis.

Yeah, good.

All right, shall we go to CDD2, please?

I have that.

Thank you.

They are talking about the same part of the site that you spent a lot of time explaining

to the inspector earlier on today.

It's the area associated with the Boiler House, etc.

Can we go to the summary first, please?

I have that.

Just before we do, what the inspectors got before him

is the evidence of Mr. Dunn that the present state

of the yard is sprawling, undefined, and unhistoric.

I'm going to ask you questions about that later on.

I'm just setting the programme for the question.

We've got the position of officers, which again, I'm

going to ask you about later, that the yard is now

very different from its historic context.

And then we've got this position from historic England.

And I'm going to take you compendiously

to three bits of analysis.

And then I'm going to ask you a question.

So if we look at the summary, what Historic England say is that the master plan seeks

to sensitively refurbish and extend the Grade 2 listed Truman Brewery boiler house

and introduce a substantial mixed use development which would unite

and enliven this current fragmented part of Brick Lane and Fournier Street Conservation Area.

I'll pause there.

I'm going on to the next limb of the question.

Over the page, again dealing with the same essential significance

that you took the inspector through,

the rest of the main plot has a fragmented industrial character.

I'm so sorry, Mr. Harris.

If you take me to a part of the document, if you can just explain

to me which paragraph, I think we're on the second page,

but if you just make it clear to me where you're reading from.

Yes. The rest.

Thank you.

Yeah, exactly.

Paragraph 6.

Of particular note is the former cooperage.

It's of a fragmented industrial character containing a large

central car park and mix of buildings.

Of particular note is the former cooperage,

which features an imposing symmetrical brick frontage,

etc. We note that the cooperage has been identified

as a non -designated heritage asset

and recognised as contributing positively to the conservation area.

And we share this view.

Two more paragraphs to go, please.

The third paragraph on the next page

relates to what they say is an important part of the context,

namely the Chumman Chimney, and they say it would retain

its landmark presence in the relevant views.

And the last one.

which is on the same page as the recommendation of no objection,

so it's the last but one page.

What they say about this area is that it's of poor townscape value

with very limited public access

and that the proposals present opportunities to enliven this part

of the conservation area and improve public access

with high quality buildings and public realm that draw influence from its heritage context.

We therefore consider that there are opportunities presented to enhance the conservation area's

character supporting the heritage policies of the NPPF, particularly paragraph 2 .1 .12,

which is where we started.

Now, I'm going to put this really, really carefully because I don't want or invite,

and neither does the question, the whole analysis

of the various maps that we looked at

with which analysis we disagree.

But if the inspector agrees with Historic England,

and as it turns out, with elected members,

with officers, not elected members,

if the inspector agrees that this is a fragmented,

lower quality, poor townscape value,

and represents an opportunity for enhancement,

and if he agrees that the proposal provides

that enhancement, that's a very significant

and weighty benefit to the proposal, isn't it?

Yes, that's on the premise that the inspector...

I'm going to ask you that premise.

You will record as it yes, and then I'll say it,

that's on the premise that the inspector agreed

with everything you said and that the inspector disagreed

with everything that I've said.

So yes, I can answer the question on that basis.

But I don't, I obviously don't agree with everything

that Historic England has said.

Well, I did premise that in the question.

But actually, you're not too far out,

are you, in certain circumstances.

If one looks at the way you analyse this,

and put it in your terms, if you like,

rather than mine.

If you go to paragraph 528,

you give us a clue as to where the truth might be.

The site is a hard industrial landscape.

We agree with that, don't we?

Yes, I agree with everything that I say

in that part of my group.

You don't have to ask me questions about.

and the remaining buildings are robust industrial structures,

it's perhaps easy to dismiss this as a detracting area

and one that could be beneficially redeveloped.

Now, just assume for the minute

that that is the conclusion that the inspector reaches.

That is the fundamental difference

between this side of the room

and the middle of the room over there, isn't it?

No, that's not.

I think the fundamental difference is not that it's a site that can't take any redevelopment.

I think that if you look at the reason for refusal, it's about the scale, it's about

the character, and it's about the massing.

Those are the things that were flagged in the reason for refusal, and I think those

These are the things which I find to be objectionable.

What I will do, sir, is I just want to very briefly take you to CDE09.

That's the Conservation Area Character Appraisal.

And if you have that, sir, page 13.

The under the heading land use, the third paragraph.

The rest of the area is mainly residential in character

but includes light industry, whereas retail, art galleries,

museums, health centres and educational buildings.

What it highlights there is that light industry is one of the aspects

that's, you know, is a characteristic use.

And if you then go to page 24 of the same document,

second paragraph down, last sentence of that paragraph.

So it's sort of three lines from the bottom.

Light industrial uses and other small businesses

remain an important part of the character of the area,

particularly while they highlight the rag tray.

but I think that light industrial is not necessarily to be seen as something which is detracting.

Yeah, okay. I'm not sure where that fits in, but I'm coming back to your point.

It would perhaps be easy to dismiss this as a detracting area and one that could be beneficially redeveloped.

Now, I wasn't expecting the answer I got because what you said was,

well, I'm not suggesting that there should be no development,

and I'm not suggesting that it can't be beneficially developed.

And the reason it can't be said that that shouldn't be the case is because at least

part of it is a detracting area.

I'm reading into what you say.

So look at the way the paragraph is phrased, please.

This is perhaps easy to dismiss as a detracting area and one that could be beneficially redeveloped,

but that would be to ignore the true value of the site.

So you're saying the site shouldn't be beneficially redeveloped?

No, what I'm saying is that the site shouldn't necessarily be regarded

as a detracting area because of its industrial qualities.

OK. All right.

Well, the inspector, I think, has got the essence of that.

I can move on.

Now, of course, there is an extant planning permission, isn't there,

which would remove almost all of the buildings apart from the heritage buildings

and take up a large part of the courtyard that you're now telling us is not a detracting area

and not an area which, in the words of Historic England, is fragmented and appropriate for redevelopment.

Peter Centre.

Yes, I'm aware of that application. You can see the footprint of that in various documents.

I think it's in the ID5 presentation,

and so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that.

I would just say that you can have a look at the footprint of that,

the coverage of that in the site, and you can compare that with anything else.

Was the loss of the yard in this sort of hierarchical way

something that was raised against the development of that planning permission

which has now been implemented by the local authority

or the conservation officers or Historic England?

No, I'm not aware that it was. I've seen, in fact, very, very little analysis of that

application in heritage terms. So it's, you know, it's, there's almost, there's almost

nothing.

It's almost what?

There is almost no analysis of how that development would impact the conservation area. So it's

It's a very difficult one to see where officers came from when they decided that was an appropriate

development because we see very little analysis.

Well, we can have a look at it actually, can't we?

It's in Mr Yeoman's proof of evidence.

Give me the page reference.

Say again.

61.

I've got 53.

61.

Thank you.

Yes, there we are.

We can see the building.

We all form a judgement as to its qualities and approach.

Bear with me, Mr. Ariz.

I'm just getting it up.

Yep.

Sorry, you did mention the page, but I—

Sixty -one.

Sorry, it was my fault.

Fifty -one.

I didn't have it immediately.

Sixty -one.

Do you have that there, sir?

Yeah.

I have that.

That part of the yard most closely associated with the heritage buildings seems to have

been built over entirely by a data centre granted planning permission by this local

authority.

I'm not so sure that you say that part of the yard most associated with the heritage asset.

I don't know what you're referring to, whether you're talking about the boiler house on Brick Lane.

But I don't think that that data centre went any closer to the boiler house than Block 3A would.

But I think there's an overlay somewhere.

I think that that can be sort of objectively looked at.

All right.

Well, let's objectively look at that.

But the point you've got.

And the other thing about the yard is if we look at it holistically, as Historic England

did, Mr Yeoman's proof, for example, at page, I've got it, 39.

On page 39 I've got a series of maps.

That's it, yep, series of maps.

And we see, you've looked at certain maps, the inspector can look at them all, we're

going to look at these. Because it is a living business, at any stage, the buildings on the

site and therefore the yard are actually a moveable feast, aren't they? So let's start

for example at 1890, there's quite a big yard there, then at 1894 a lot more buildings fill

the yard. Then we've got the war and bomb damage. Then we've got a yard that is a certain

size in 1951. And then we've got the yard as it is. And so the inspector can make his

own judgement, epcanti. What Mr. Dunn says is that that yard historically is more sprawling

and undefined than it used to be,

but we can see it changing across the years, can't we?

They're just snapshots.

Yes, that is correct in terms of the footprint.

So if you look at the footprints of the buildings

that have sort of moved around over the years.

So what I sort of pointed out in my evidence in chief

is that there's no, I mean, I know that Mr. Dunne

is that the yard was historically densely developed.

And so you can sort of see that when you look at the footprints

of the buildings which were on the yard.

But there has never been, or there's no evidence

that I've seen that there's been substantial buildings

on that yard.

It's always been a sort of a low rise subservient work a day

yard behind the buildings on Brick Lane.

And it's always been, it's always had that character.

So the footprints have changed over the years and the plot coverage have changed over the years.

And you will recall that I said earlier that the Council is not taking issue with plot coverage.

It's the scale and massing and character of the development that is the reason for refusal.

Good. Thank you very much.

That very neatly brings me to CDF05.

which is the Brick Lane and Pedley Street capacity analysis for this local authority.

When you wrote your proof, had you seen this?

Yes, I have seen it.

If you just bear with me a moment, I just want to get it up on screen.

When you wrote your proof, had you seen it?

Well, I...

It's not mentioned at all.

No, I haven't mentioned it.

I didn't see a reason to mention it.

Well, that's a bit of a shock.

You see, this hierarchy point, which you alone take and hasn't been taken by historic England,

is you tell us about height, bulk and mass, particularly when seen from island gardens

and environs, isn't it?

Yes, that's correct.

And I think at this juncture, sir, what I will say is I will tell you why I didn't reference

this document.

And so that you can see when you go, if you turn up page four, and that's as paginated

as in the PDF document.

And you'll see, sir, on that page, the second paragraph, there's three bullet points.

The purpose of the study is to test and uncover aspects that might affect the determination

of sites for allocation, develop high -level guidance on design for development on the

sites and provide indicative site capacities for the potential sites. Indicative capacities

for the potential sites. So this is not saying that these are sites that have been assessed

in detail and on the basis of that assessment certain massing and capacities have been identified

identified and that that's supported by a robust analysis.

I mean, if you look at the second paragraph on the top, the first paragraph on the top

where it says choice of sites.

I'm so sorry.

I'm telling the inspector why it is that I didn't consider this to be relevant.

So I just want to sort of go through that couple of points and then I'll be done.

Choice of sites.

The sites identified and tested in this study were sites identified through the draught Spitalfields

and Banglatau SPD, well that's been quashed.

Sites currently in pre -application consultation with the council

and sites identified in previous planning policies

and potential infill sites.

So this is not a document that's based on a detailed analysis

of the character and appearance of the conservation area

or the contribution of those sites to the conservation area.

It is just, it is what it says there.

It's really looking at potential.

And if you look, sir, if you then go to,

let me just find this, page 10,

there is a section, and you can see that, sir,

on page 10, and you can see there,

it talks about conservation area and listed buildings.

Now, what you see there, sir, is you've got three paragraphs

that talk about the conservation area.

The first just says,

the

The brick lane and Pili Street site allocation comprised of the brick lane and furniture conservation area and you've got two paragraphs

Which are a very very high level then just summarises what the conservation your appraisal says

So this is not an assessment that gets to grapple with the significance of conservation

This is not it is no assessment whatsoever of the contribution of any of these sites

to the conservation area.

For that reason, yes, you can take me to it and I've seen it.

I've seen the massing that you can see in these capacity studies.

But that has not been informed by the significance of the conservation area.

It's not been tested in terms of what do the sites contribute,

what sort of... If you look at them in detail,

what does that detail tell you about the nature of the capacity of those sites?

So there you have it.

Good. I mean, I'm glad you carried on because I couldn't have drafted a better answer than

the one you gave. Because, of course, what has happened in this case, as you know, is

that the planning authority are relying on this document as one of the bases for a reason

for refusal that say this scheme should be turned away because it could have X hundred

number of houses on it. It should be residential -led and this is what you're losing, Inspector.

Now, we'll come to that later, but one of the things for the inspector to understand

in this case, and I'm amazed there's nothing about it in your proof, is looking at the

schemes as they are identified, options one and options two, they would by themselves

fit entirely completely into your contravention of hierarchy point, wouldn't they?

Yes, that's correct. I think that that's, you know, I will make no, I can't descend

from that. I think that's correct. Do you draw that to...

I'm so sorry, I'm so busy. You get your chance. The only thing that I would want to make,

and I'm just very conscious, I don't want to strain to something which is not my expertise,

but the only thing I would point out to you, sir, is that you may find that the Council

attaches different weight to residential development than they do to officers, for example.

But that's the only sort of point that I will make and I don't want to strain to other people.

Well, you just did. But I am now going to ask you about your expertise.

And I'm going to ask you, given the case that you're advancing here on behalf of the Council,

and given that the Council is saying to the Inspector, there's an alternative, sir.

There's an alternative, a housing alternative here, which will give you oodles of housing.

I want to know your opinion as to whether the sorts of analysis that we've got in front

of us here are in your judgement acceptable and deliverable.

It's just a matter of consistency.

Sir, this witness has made very clear that he's giving evidence related to heritage.

I think that is a question that steps quite widely outside that ambit of specialism.

Well, I'll ask you, no, that's really unfair.

Looking at, just look please at the Allen Gardens view.

Which option are we looking at?

In this documentary, yes.

It's page 25, and there's a figure 1 -15.

Now, what the witness does, in heritage terms, Mr. Ward,

is say that our proposal is unacceptable

because it turns the hierarchy on its head

and because it is overbearing on Allen Gardens.

That is a heritage concern he raises

and I am wondering whether that is a heritage concern

that he says applies to this scheme

which is being put forward by the local authorities

as having moderate weight even though it's not even part

of the emerging plan just yet.

So I want to know.

I'm very happy to let the witness answer that.

This is not a scheme that this witness has assessed in heritage terms.

That's my point. That's rather my point.

It's part of the evidence base.

It's relied upon the planner who is saying this is an alternative that the inspector should look at.

And my learning friend is calling a witness who says it's going to come forward,

and then a witness who says it shouldn't.

But is what Mr. Frohman is saying, that if you had a residential scheme of that scale and bulk,

on that particular site, then the balance might be a little different.

It might be, but that's not his evidence.

Now I'm taking Malone and Friend's point.

He's a heritage witness, and he's explained very carefully

this novel experience about hierarchy being turned on its head,

when its local authority are doing exactly that in heritage terms.

But you might still, if that scheme

or this scheme had the same scale and bulk but was housing,

I think what Mr. Fromer is saying is

that the local planning authority might take a different

view of how the balance works.

It might have the same harmful effect,

but they might attach more weight to housing

over and above commercial.

It would be interesting to see that when we speak

to the planning witness.

who also just closes a Nelsonian eye to this.

And I'd be asking you, sir, as I am in relation to this witness,

to pay very careful attention to evidence

that is manufactured on the hoof as opposed

to considered and delivered.

This is a point that should have been dealt with in the proof,

as should have been the distinguishing factors

with historic England, et cetera, and it hasn't.

And so I'm perfectly entitled to ask the question.

I think I've got my answer.

I'm sorry, I'll just make the observation.

I couldn't see any reference to the SBD and Mr. Dunn's proof.

Sorry, not the SBD, the capacity study.

Good.

That's very interesting.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Block J next, please.

And it's a similar refrain.

you identify the existing site's contribution as clearly harmful, don't you?

Cash and carry. I do. Yes. You can turn out of this building and see it almost

immediately. In scale -r terms, it's scale -arly inconsistent with anything

about it, isn't it? Yes, that's correct. Each individual building and the spaces

around it lack quality and have no heritage significance, correct?

Yes.

Thank you.

It is one of those areas where there is a clear opportunity to enhance, correct?

Yes, that's correct with the qualification that not just anything will enhance.

So you've got to look very carefully at the nature of the development that you're putting on that.

So in the same way that the existing buildings detract because of the scalar quality,

you would have to look very careful at the development that goes in its place to look at the same sort of attributes

and also in terms of how the design relates to the street block that it forms part of.

Were you here when Mr. Hanley described the architectural party of that?

I was here yesterday.

I heard Mr. Henley.

I will say this.

I think it's generally a well -designed building.

I have a lot of respect for Mr. Henley's practise, and I think he delivers good architecture.

What I take issue with is that when you look at this building from the east,

you see a building that doesn't relate to the conservation area or the street block that it,

there's a lot of mentioning of completing the street block.

So it doesn't relate to the street block that it completes.

And by this I mean the block at the very end, at the eastern end of the site.

Indeed, I have said, sir, that I think that there is some good that this development does

in terms of what it does on the parts which – certainly on the southern part, which

is not the sort of seven -storey block at the end.

Yeah, I've heard that.

But what you haven't done is what you told the inspector you should do here.

You should ask yourself the question, what is the impact on the asset?

And ask yourself the question, not does it do everything it should do or is it perfect,

but is it better than that which is there or does it cause more harm or less harm than that?

I looked carefully at your analysis, Paragraph 455, 456, 457,

and you identify what you say is wrong with the building,

but you never go back to say whether that's better or worse

than that which is there.

And the inspector's got to do that, hasn't he?

Yes, the inspector's got to do that,

and the inspector can look at what

I've said about the contribution of the existing building,

and the inspector can look at what

I said about the proposed building.

And I mean, my conclusion is

that the proposed building would be more harmful

than was there on the site at the moment.

Okay. Well, now I've heard that,

and we fundamentally disagree with that.

It's the same set of questions, really.

Are you approaching this with an appropriate, rational,

and fair assessment of the existing harm?

How would you characterise the existing harm in heritage terms,

in heritage terms, to the cash and carry buildings and the hard standing.

How would you characterise that?

I would characterise it as a very low level of hard.

I would say this in doing so, what you will find,

and you can just turn left when you exit this building

and you'll find that building as you sort of see it on approach.

It's not a small building, but it's a low building.

So in terms of the impact it has, the sort of visual impact,

it's not a building that's, yeah, it's not a pretty

building, and I've said that it's a detracting building.

But it's not a building that sort of really stands out.

I think so if you look at page 82 of my proof, you can see,

you can see, I mean, in fact, it may be just as well to go and

look at the source of that image.

So that's page 171, I think, of the TVIA, the HTVIA.

And if we just go there and look at that,

you can see the existing, and you can see the proposed.

And I think what I'm saying is that the existing building,

detracting though it may be, is not

something which is so assertive visually

as the building that you see on that image as proposed,

and which is going to have a real,

considerable visual impact.

And so for that reason, I'm saying that

there's a greater impact in terms of that new building

than there is in relation to the existing building.

Thank you.

Now, just some counterfactuals to that.

If the inspector believes that there's no harm,

then we go back to the position that there's a

preservation and great weight should be given to the preservation.

If he believes there's enhancement, same question as previously,

then he gives that considerable weight and importance

because it's an enhancement to the conservation area, yes?

Correct.

Right.

And you put this level of harm that you identify,

this assertion that this building produced by this architect

is actually harming the conservation area compared to the sheds

at the very low end of less than substantial.

I would have to look at the exact wording.

I will take it if that's what you say.

I think I said low, but if you say that it's very low,

I just want to double cheque that.

I'm happy with low, given the weight

that the inspector is being asked to put on housing

by the local authority in any event.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Froman, thank you for your patience.

Thank you, sir, for yours.

Thank you.

I do enjoy a robust exchange of views between advocates

and witnesses, as you know, Mr. Froman, we've met before.

Mr. Wall, do you have anything in re -examine?

Not much, not much, but yes, please.

I think we probably dealt with this, Mr. Fronterman,

but just so that there's absolute clarity about it,

you were asked a series of questions

about the capacity study.

You have made clear that you're providing heritage

expertise to the council.

Does the council, as far as you understand it,

rely on the capacity study

for purposes of heritage matters?

I'm not aware that he does, no.

You were asked about the data centre that is already there.

In the context of a part of the conservation area

on which the council had already permitted a data centre.

No, sorry, it's the data centre that's been granted permission and implemented, not the

data centre that's already there.

It's not there.

Sorry, that has been granted and implemented.

That's it.

Yeah, thank you.

In heritage terms, is there any cumulative effect of multiple data centres?

I would have to say yes.

I mean, if you look, sir, again at the Historic England

response, I may not be able to lay my finger exactly

on the correct part of it.

But they talk about the vitality of the conservation area.

And they talk about adding to that as a positive thing.

And all I would say is that what data centres do is they drain vitality or they certainly

remove the prospect of vitality and life in the conservation area.

So the more data centres you have in the conservation area, the more lifeless the area becomes.

And so, yes, there is a cumulative impact.

if you have more of them, then you have less vitality in the conservation areas or the

poorer for that.

Thank you Mr. Frohnemann.

You were taken to 528 of your summary and the first two sentences were read to you.

At first not the remainder but then eventually a bit of the remainder.

Do you want to find your way back to that?

And this was in the context of whether or not you agreed.

Mr. Russell was suggesting that there's not so much

difference between you and the Historic England consultation

response to the 7th of October, 2024.

Do you remember that exchange?

Yes, I do.

And I'm not going to ask you for an analysis

of the Historic England letter.

You've given your evidence as to why you've not

conducted that. If the inspector is interested, no doubt he will ask you for

that himself. But I will ask you this. Mr. Harris asked you whether those first two

sentences showed that you were in agreement, effectively, with the

characterization by Historic England of the site as a fragmented part of the

and Fournier Street Conservation Area.

Now, what do we learn from the sentences

that follow on from those first two at 5 .28?

The only question you were asked in relation

to that immediate sentence was whether you were suggesting

that beneficial redevelopment was not desirable.

But I want to understand from you

whether we learn anything about the closeness of positions between you and Historic England

based on those sentences within 528 that you were not asked to read from?

Well, there is agreement between myself and Historic England,

is that both myself and Historic England find harm to the conservation area

in relation to the proposal for redevelopment of the site

because of the loss of the remaining existing industrial buildings

and the walls around the site.

So I think that they recognise too that those are positively contributing parts of the conservation area.

Although the analysis that underpins that is quite thin.

But I think I agree with the historic England about that.

I say more about the hierarchy and the historically low rise

nature of the site than the historic England does.

But I don't read into that paragraph

a sort of in principle knee jerk reaction

against any development on the site.

but what I am identifying there is that the site was historically

hierarchically subservient and that it's always been low rise.

And that's part of what gives it its contribution

to the conservation area.

And so I think when you're looking at impacts,

and again, I've said this before,

but I want to just emphasise that again,

the council's reason for refusal is not on the basis of the footprint of the

proposed development, the proposed development on the site, it's not on the

basis of the fact that there is redevelopment of the site, it's about the

scale, the massing and the character. Those are the reasons for refusal, those

are the things which the council take issue with and I identify there

the things that make a positive contribution to the conservation area.

I wasn't counting the minutes, but it was suggested that between the two of us we took up 40 minutes

describing

this aspect of the conservation area

Let's say for sake of argument that we did take that amount of inquiry time

how important a part of

Assessing the contribution of the Truman East site to the conservation area

do you think all of that is or was?

It's critically important.

We are at a public inquiry,

and this is the point at which the inspector

is going to make a decision one way or the other

about whether the site should be redeveloped

in the way that's being proposed.

I think, sir, it's very important

that you have the full evidence,

that you fully understand the historic nature

of the site, why it is that I'm saying

that the development is inappropriate in scale

and in terms of the historic character of the site and so on.

So this is the final chance.

There is no other opportunity for you to look at that.

This is the time to interrogate that

and to interrogate that in detail.

So yes, I'm sorry if I was taking a lot of time on that,

but I'm not sorry because you need to understand that, sir,

because you need to make a decision.

and it's very important that you have the right information in front of you when you do that.

I wouldn't disagree with any of that.

Thank you, sir. And last point for you, Mr. Frohnemann, in re -examination.

You were taken to your paragraph 3 .6. I wonder if you could make your way back to it.

And it was suggested to you that you were inviting the Inspector to consider the state of dereliction.

I remember that.

Do you remember that?

Could you just remind yourself what you said at 3 .6?

I don't think it's necessary to read it out loud, but could you just take a moment to

read to yourself what you said at 3 .6 and then answer this question.

Are you inviting the inspector to consider paragraph 209 of the MPPF?

What are you doing at paragraph 3 .6?

What I'm doing at paragraph 3 .6 is I'm saying, I don't know.

And what I would say is that this is a matter that has been drawn to the appellant's attention

as part of the application.

They would have had a chance to present the evidence to say, well, this is not deliberate

neglect.

They had an opportunity to really to say what it is that the state of the building was at

the time that they acquired it.

I have not seen any evidence.

There's no evidence on that matter.

I can't say one way or the other.

That's all I'm saying there.

Mr. Frohnemann, thank you very much.

I think that concludes, well, subject to any questions

the inspector may have on disagreements

with Historic England or any other matter,

and that may conclude your evidence.

No, I'm tempted to take you,

to ask you about something in historic England's representation, if I may, if you'll just bear with me.

I have to find it now, of course.

Yeah, I've got it. I've got the

the document in front of me.

Yeah, it's on the penultimate page.

Oh, I got that right, sorry.

Forgive me.

Yeah, it is the penultimate page.

It's the second paragraph.

And it's what it says right at the end.

We do not wish to raise significant concerns

about the scale and massing as proposed.

What do you read into that?

And I'm quite happy, Mr. Harris,

if you want to take your witnesses to this point.

No significant concerns.

Does that mean they have concerns,

but they don't regard them as significant?

How do you read that?

I'd just be interested.

When I read that, it seems to me that there

is a level of discomfort.

But historically, I mean, it's interesting, the wording.

no significant concern.

So that's not saying no concerns,

they inserted the word significant in that sentence.

So that's, it's not saying that they're completely

comfortable with it.

It's sort of just saying they're not going to object.

The second thing that I will say, sir,

and I don't want to stray and I don't want to,

yeah, I don't want to go off -piste,

but you'll see that I've made reference to another case

where I've done a public inquiry

on behalf of Tower Hamlets,

where Historic England did not object to an application,

and where the inspector there found on the basis

of my analysis, which was much more detailed than theirs,

that they were heritage -harmed to the World Heritage Site,

Grade 1 listed buildings within it,

and the Grade 1 Creative Star, Lister Tower Bridge.

And those are, it's surprising, it's sort of,

you would expect Historic England

would get it right on things like that.

The reason I'm bringing that up is in that case,

there was a letter that the letter from them didn't object,

didn't identify any harm, but it said the same.

It said, Historic England does not wish to raise

any significant concerns about that development.

And it's just so striking that it strikes me that they used exactly the same words.

Now, I'm not saying that, you know, you should look at that and that that should influence

you, but that is something which it strikes me because the wording is exactly the same.

I don't think we can take that any further, but thank you, Mr Froman.

and they're not here to explain

or answer a question about that,

so I can't ask them,

so I'll ask other people what they think that means.

I mean, just to be clear,

my concern's probably not the right word to use,

but my feeling about that is that any harm

to a listed building, it's setting, a conservation area,

attracts considerable importance and weight,

so you can't say there's no significant harm,

so we're relatively comfortable with it.

You have to attach that kind of weight to any harm.

So when I see language like that,

I just worry a little bit about what I'm supposed to take from it.

Is there some harm, but you're not concerned about it?

Well, that doesn't work, because it's not Historic England's role

to weigh those harms against public benefits.

That's for somebody else.

That's not for historic England.

And I just worry sometimes that perhaps that's what's going on.

I don't know.

I share the concern.

I mean, when I read that, I don't think, I mean, it doesn't,

you know, you read that and you think they're not giving it a

sort of clean bill of health, if you like.

But they just don't want to object.

And so, you know, you have to read between the lines,

like you say.

So I think it is a sort of discomfort,

and it is sort of saying, well, there's some harm,

but we don't want to interfere with this,

and go and determine this yourself, local authorities,

in a sense, perhaps, washing their hands of it.

But the only other observation I will make

is in that other case I referenced,

the author of the letter was the same.

It's the same person, same language.

Yeah.

There he is.

We'll be burning.

So we better leave that.

We'll move on.

I don't think there's anything else I need to ask Mr. Froman.

So thank you very much, as ever.

Thank you, sir.

Tomorrow we're starting with Mr. Forshaw.

Is that right, Ms. Curtis?

I merely ask, but would it be worth starting a little earlier

tomorrow?

What's the feeling about that?

I don't think Mr. Forshaw will take as long as the Council's witness in the afternoon,

so I think it partly depends how long that witness, because I think they're both scheduled

to be on tomorrow.

It's almost common practise now at inquiries to start at least at 9 .30, and there's no

good reason not to. Most people were – I know my learning friend would say there's

to do outside the inquiry, but there's always stuff to do outside the inquiry.

And 10 o 'clock is, there's a lot that can be done in that half an hour.

Mr. Wald.

So I know the practises vary. When the timetable is tight, 9 .30 starts are quite common. I think

we're well on target to complete the indicative witnesses for tomorrow and perhaps do better.

I did have a word with my learned friend, Ms. Curtis, about approximate timings.

So I think that there's no real risk of us failing to make the progress that is indicated in the timetable.

But if we can do it fairly and appropriately, we should aim to better that, as I think we all agree.

Yeah, I mean, I'm in your hands, sir.

Within our team, there are people who are travelling in, it will take a bit of time to get here.

and we'll need to discuss matters upon arrival.

That's the only point I make.

If it's your view that a 9 .30 start is necessary,

we will of course do whatever is necessary to achieve that.

Well look, let's do it at 10 o 'clock tomorrow.

But I'm just hoping you're right

that everything fits in neatly.

That's all I'd say.

Because, well, no, let's put it no further than that.

We'll start at 10 o 'clock tomorrow and hopefully finish with it.

I mean, we're only at quarter past five, so I can hardly really complain.

Come on.

Until 10 o 'clock tomorrow.

Thank you.

Thanks, sir.

Thanks, everyone.

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Truman's Public Inquiry PM - Wednesday 15 October 2025, 2:00pm - Tower Hamlets Council webcasts

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Truman's Public Inquiry PM
Wednesday, 15th October 2025 at 2:00pm