A demolition notice has been sent in by contractors on behalf of Quintain, the owners of the Dorset House site, to demolish all buildings on the site except for the three nearest the corner of Latimer Road and London Road. The demolition work is scheduled to take place week beginning 8 June. This came as a complete surprise to local residents.

This means that Dorset House itself is set to be demolished, along with 1A Latimer Road, and the newer buildings to the rear of the site facing Latimer Grange.

Residents are perplexed about how the owners can simply announce demolition when the City Council has previously recommended the retention of the old buildings as being of local interest. In fact, five years ago, David and Stephen Tall called for extra protection for the House and the buildings were put on what’s called ‘the Local List’. But that’s not the same as a nationally listed building and the site is not within a Conservation Area. In legal terms, when there are no other safeguards, an owner has a right to demolish their own property. That means that the Planning Department, to everyone’s frustration, can’t just stop the demolition happening.

There are, though, other aspects to the issue. We have also found out that there are various trees on the site that have preservation orders on them, and we have requested the planning enforcement officer to contact the demolition project manager to make this clear to him

There are also parts of the site which would not be a loss, in particular the newer buildings at the back of the site. We know that Latimer Grange residents are keen that the demolition of those buildings takes place as soon as possible, to stop the chance of anti-social behaviour on the site. We are setting up a meeting between them and the project manager to discuss issues around dust, noise, parking, access and egress, and, most importantly, security.