Monthly Borough News October 2025 – our online newsletter
The What If? Installation at the Penny School Gallery in Kingston College in September was by any measure a great success. Beyond doubt the most ambitious and complicated project by Kingston Society it was the clearest indication yet that the idea of an Urban Room has local support and we are encouraged to continue working towards that.
The installation was an exploration of the ‘What ifs? that might concern a whole range of citizens, businesses and other groups, but the inclusion of a live consultation about making changes to the area around the undercroft at John Lewis to decrease anti-social behaviour, make it feel safer and help towards ‘activating’ it. This was a good example of an urban room in action and was of great interest to the visitors. Further down there is a full report of the event.
This month’s talk – The Architecture of Telephone Exchanges – may sit under the heading ‘niche and nerdy’, but it is really about urban memory. Those solid little fortresses of cables and switches were once the beating heart of our communications. Kingston itself had such a place: the (former) telephone exchange on Ashdown Road, built in 1908 and now Grade II listed. These buildings were driven by wires, machinery and efficiency, their façades shaped by civic pride or planning compromise depending on where they stood. Practical to the core, they are now quietly romantic in their obsolescence — and still humming with the ghosts of conversations once carried across their lines. Our guide to this hidden history will be Lisa Kinch, an ARB-registered architect and urban designer currently undertaking a PhD at Lancaster University.
Wednesday 15th October 7:30 pm at the Judge Lecture Hall, Tiffin School, Kingston upon Thames KT2 6RL
1. PLANNING and RELATED ISSUES
These planning matters have caught our eye:
1.1 Kingston Market Place and Market House revised proposals. Just to recap: Key elements of the proposal include:
- Installation of new market stalls to modernise trading facilities.
- Relocation of the Shrubsole Memorial by Francis John Williamson (1833-1920) to enable pop-up stalls.
- Refurbishment of the Market House to accommodate a new Class E restaurant/café use.
- Creation of an external seating area to support the restaurant and market activities.
- Provision of new underground storage facilities to improve operational efficiency
Following undisclosed feedback Between the Bridges has revealed its revised proposals. We have already said we understand and welcome the ambition to revitalise the Ancient Market but continue to believe the consultation fell short, particularly in transparency and lack of proper engagement and the revised scheme falls far short of creating the best solution for the Market House and Place. (not Market Square as referenced on the architects drawings below)
However, we continue to believe that the consultation fell short in terms of transparency and genuine engagement. The revised scheme, while offering some improvements, does not yet feel like the best solution for the Market House and Market Place.
Our concerns include the process itself. We question whether it was right for the council to allow a commercial sub-contractor, primarily focused on managing the market, to also lead on the regeneration proposals. A project of this importance surely deserves fuller involvement from local architects, the wider community, and Kingston University’s students, whose creativity and energy could add great value.
We also wonder whether a café/bar across two floors is the most appropriate use of such a significant heritage building, especially given the large number of food and drink outlets already in the Market Place and surrounding streets.
Similarly, while the addition of new kiosks could enhance trading, the proposed designs raise concerns. Their scale and form risk obscuring views of the Market House, and their layouts appear less practical than the existing stalls. In their idealised presentation they should acknowledge the reality that traders extend their stalls significantly beyond their boundaries
The proposals also involve relocating the Shrubsole Memorial to allow for pop-up stalls, though it remains unclear who these stalls are intended for or whether they would be dismantled when not in use. Questions also remain about the future of the popular pavement fountain.
In short, many of the community’s questions remain unanswered, and the communication around the project still lacks clarity.
Kingston Society member and architect Stephen Coates has produced alternative ideas to illustrate that other approaches are possible. These are not intended as definitive solutions, but they do show that a broader and more open conversation could produce outcomes better suited to the importance of the Market House and Market Place.
1.2. Warren House Hotel and Conference Centre. The following text is taken entirely from the consultation website.
“Warren House is an important Victorian Grade II asset, situated in the historic grounds of the Coombe Estate and surrounded by 6 acres of beautiful landscaped gardens.
The story of Warren House begins in 1865.The property was built for London banker Hugh Hammersley on land that was once part of a larger estate belonging to the Duke of Cambridge. The initial purchase of this land was notable for its location, bordering the famous Coombe Nursery owned by the renowned horticulturists, Veitch & Sons.
The house continued to serve as a private residence until 1954, when it was acquired by ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) and was used as a training and conference centre. In the 1980s significant parts of the land were sold by ICI for housing, and the income was used to extend parts of the hotel, such as the London Room and the swimming pool. This period marked a shift from private luxury to corporate function, a role it maintained until the year 2000. Warren House was then acquired with the express intent of developing it into a luxury hotel, wedding and conference venue.
Many of the recent housing developments surrounding the original house are situated on land that is part of the original property and were sold off in the period from 1954 to 2000.In 2020, the hotel was acquired by Sun Hotels (part of the Samko Group).
Under new ownership since 2020, some exciting proposals have been prepared to undertake the most significant renovation and extension of this historic asset since it became a conference centre in 1954.
Warren House has been loss-making for the past 25 years. Whilst the capacity of the conference centre, wedding venue and restaurant can accommodate over 400 people, there are only 46 bedrooms. For the hotel to survive, there is a need for an additional 77 bedrooms. This will mean the hotel has a total of 123 bedrooms. More bedrooms have the added benefit for local residents of fewer visitors and cars leaving the grounds late at night.
The current proposal has been in development for two years. During that time, we have tested a variety of options, including both the location of extensions and the architectural style that will be subservient to the existing buildings. We have tested these schemes with both heritage experts, the Council’s planning officers and the Design Review Panel. The proposals we have now are the product of that work.”
Our initial response is that this is an appropriately scaled and sensitively considered proposal respecting the original heritage asset whilst expanding the commercial offering.
1.3 New London Plan. The Mayor of London has launched an Easy Read version of its consultation on the new London Plan, running until 2 November 2025. The simplified format is designed to make the planning issues: housing, growth, jobs, environment, accessible to more Londoners. The GLA is clear that feedback from the Easy Read format will be given equal weight to responses submitted through the main channel. The hope is that more Londoners will feel able to contribute to shaping the policies that affect every aspect of life in the city—from housing supply to green spaces. You can download the Easy read version here
This consultation sets out the main challenges and possible approaches, in brief summary below:.
- Housing: London is expected to deliver 88,000 new homes each year, far above current building levels. The Plan explores how this might be achieved, including reviewing the use of brownfield sites, increasing density, and considering limited release of “grey belt” land.
- Affordability and social housing: Stronger emphasis on social rent and accessibility across all tenures, plus clearer rules for estate regeneration to protect social housing stock.
- Economy and land use: A more strategic London-wide approach to industrial and logistics land, alongside careful planning for new data centres and tall building clusters.
- Infrastructure: Growth will depend on major investment in transport, digital connectivity, utilities, and climate resilience.
- Streamlining policy: The Plan aims to reduce duplication with national policy, simplify viability rules, and focus on London’s strategic priorities.
- Trade-offs: The consultation acknowledges difficult choices—between growth and protection of the Green Belt, between high standards and economic viability, and between local autonomy and citywide needs.
The document is not yet a plan but an invitation to comment on priorities and trade-offs before a draft London Plan is produced in 2026.
1.4 Kingston Council is preparing to publish the new Local Plan Kingston Council is moving towards the next crucial stage of its Local Plan. A council meeting is scheduled for 22ndOctober where the redrafted (Regulation 18 Plan) will be presented and debated. The agenda has not yet been released, but it is expected to include the updated draft, shaped by changes in the National Planning Policy Framework, responses to earlier consultations, input from planning officers, and the council’s own policy priorities.
According to the council’s Local Development Scheme, the plan is intended to move to Regulation 19 consultation during late 2025 (but this is now expected to be early to mid 2026 with submission later in 2026 and adoption targeted for 2027. For residents and community groups, this is the last major opportunity to comment to the Council before the plan is examined by a government-appointed inspector. Residents and community groups will however be able to submit comments and objections to the Reg 19 version to the Inspector who will consider them at an Examination in Public.
For Kingston, the new Local Plan will be decisive. It sets housing targets, identifies growth areas, defines protections for heritage and green spaces, and outlines how the borough will respond to climate change. The Kingston Society will be watching closely and preparing a full response once the draft is published.
1.5 Hook Park housing plan Proposed Chessington housing plan draws fire at packed public meeting. On 26 September, more than 200 local residents filled Kingston Rugby Club to voice their concerns over developer Poppymill’s “Hook Park” proposal, a scheme for up to 2,000 new homes on land north of Clayton Road in Chessington.
The site covers around 50 acres, including parts of The Dell and the Chessington Equestrian Centre. While a small section is classed as previously developed land, much of it remains designated Green Belt under Kingston’s 2022 draft Local Plan.
Speakers stressed that the campaign is not opposed to development in principle, but raised major worries about scale, timing and infrastructure. Traffic congestion, particularly around the Hook interchange and Clayton Road, was highlighted as a serious issue. Residents also pointed to the strain on local services such as schools, health care and public transport. Another flashpoint is the status of the land itself: developers argue it is degraded and no longer viable Green Belt, but critics say decades of neglect and more than 150 enforcement notices are evidence of regulatory failure, not justification for reclassification.
Local councillor Sue Ansari acknowledged the depth of community concern and confirmed that any future application would need to address those anxieties.
Organisers warned that a planning submission and revisions to the Local Plan could soon follow. They urged residents to stay engaged, to be ready for consultation stages, and to make their voices heard.
2. AROUND THE SOCIETY • AROUND THE BOROUGH
Walking into the Penny School Gallery this September, visitors found themselves in something closer to a civic thought-experiment than a conventional exhibition. What If?, the Kingston Society’s week-long installation was less about objects than about questions: what if we treated every place as a possibility, and what if Kingston had a shared space for those conversations?
What If? Exhibition – The programme at a glance
- The Future Urban Room: A place for connecting the dots and empowering residents to be part of placemaking
- Kingston Heritage: Stories from our past and how they continue to shape us
- Kingston Art and Design: Drawings and reflections on Kingston’s urban fabric
- Kingston Architects: Selection of projects from local architects, big and small
- Kingston University: Work from students shaping the borough’s identity
The installation unfolded in zones. Student projects from Kingston University re-imagined structures and spaces, while local architects offered speculative scenarios and artists responded in striking ways. Hannah Baker’s contribution, drawing on her rewilding work with Forest School UK, reminded us that the ecological imagination must sit alongside the architectural one.
Among the most discussed displays were the public art boards, which argued for a borough-wide policy to ensure artworks are planned, protected and integrated into Kingston’s cultural identity. The film wall proved an unexpected anchor. Six cinéma-vérité shorts, of Kingston’s past daily lives edited into a continuous loop alongside a whizz through of the borough’s historic, commercial and architectural heritage and modern development, held visitors for long stretches and made the case that place and memory remain inseparable.
The installation was also an event. A private view, attended by the Mayor of Kingston, Councillor Noel Hadjimichael, set the tone, with warm praise for the Society’s role in linking people and place. Three guided walks, organised with the Kingston Ramblers, extended the experience beyond the gallery walls.
Visitor numbers surpassed expectations at more than 250, while online engagement reached nearly 4,000 Instagram views
Seen as a whole, What If? was more than an exhibition. It was Kingston’s Urban Room in action – a space where the conversations became the most valuable result.
To mark the 25th anniversary of the Society’s publication Public Art in a Market Town, one of the zones of the What If? display at the Penny School Gallery asked “What if Kingston had a public art policy?” There was also a guided Kingston Public Art Trail, and a lunchtime panel discussion exploring the role of public art in Kingston. We were very fortunate to have Professor Fran Lloyd of Kingston University to chair it. She was one of the authors of Public Sculpture of Outer South and West London (2011).
Panellists included three artists: Diana Puntar, who currently has Chimera, an Alternative Kingston Heritage Trail on show in Kingston, and Gary Scholes and Ali Clarke, who are soon to have their sculpture, Flow, installed as part of the new Unilever Buildings. Alongside them were David Falkner (Kingston University), Director of the Stanley Picker Gallery and Dorich House, and Scott Furlong, Corporate Head of Culture and Programme Director for Kingston 2025 (Kingston Council).
After an introduction from Professor Lloyd setting out the context for public art in Kingston, Diana, Gary and Ali gave illustrated talks about their projects which provided many fascinating insights into their approach to public art and the inspiration for their work. David talked about how the Stanley Picker Gallery relates to public art, using contemporary sculpture the Gallery has commissioned as a means to extend the Gallery’s reach. Scott talked about his relationship with public art both as a resident and Council officer. Especially the forthcoming Cultural Strategy, and how he wanted public art to be part of the Strategy. He also outlined some of the constraints for public art, and some of the pitfalls that successful public art needs to avoid.
The panel discussion concluded with a Q&A session that covered graffiti, street art, and Council involvement (if any) in such initiatives as the anthropomorphic animals currently displayed in Clarence Street and elsewhere. The discussion was important in providing valuable support for the need for Kingston to have a public art policy when the new Cultural Strategy is developed in 2026.
2.3 Walks and talks – The installation spilled into the streets with three popular guided walks:
Walk: Public trail – Art in the open – Participants toured around 20 outdoor artworks across Kingston’s town centre, from sculptures to murals. The trail revealed how each piece tells a story about the place, from historic landmarks to recent commissions, ending at the Stanley Picker Gallery.
Walk: Historic Kingston – footsteps through time – Marking 1,100 years since King Athelstan’s coronation, this walk traced Kingston’s layered history. At each stop, stories of medieval trade, civic pride and modern change showed how the town has been shaped across centuries.
Walk: Coombe Conduit – the palace pipeline. A chance to visit the Coombe Conduit gave participants access to one of the surviving Tudor waterworks that once supplied Hampton Court Palace. The walk followed the hidden pipeline route, opening a window onto Kingston’s role in sustaining royal life and concluded by providing free access to the Hampton Court Palace Gardens.
3. UPCOMING EVENTS
3.1 Public meeting October 15th 7.30 Tiffin School Telephone exchanges They may be among the most overlooked buildings in our towns and cities, but telephone exchanges once stood at the cutting edge of communications technology. From grand civic edifices to discreet modular blocks, their architecture traces the story of Britain’s twentieth-century infrastructure, government policy, and changing urban landscapes.
In this illustrated talk, researcher and architect Lisa Kinch will open up the hidden history of these buildings. Drawing on her work with BT Archives and Historic England, she will show how telephone exchanges shaped communities, embodied state ambitions, and now face uncertain futures as many are demolished, sold, or adapted for new uses. This promises to be a fascinating journey into a part of our built environment we usually pass by without a second glance.
Lisa Kinch is an ARB-registered architect and urban designer currently undertaking a PhD at Lancaster University. Her research explores the history of post-war telephone exchange buildings and the relationship between ‘official architecture’, technology and the state. She teaches part-time at the Manchester School of Architecture and the University of Salford.
3.2 Public meeting 19th November – Genius or Monster? The bizarre tale of motion picture pioneer Eadweard Muybridge. -From his early experiments, splicing together dozens of still photographs to create the effect of movement, Kingston motion picture pioneer Eadweard Muybridge has been hailed as the father of cinema. When he died in 1904 he left all his movie equipment and all his glass negatives to the corporation of Kingston, forming the principal collection in the town’s museum in Wheatfield Way, which was under construction at the time.
But this former Kingston Grammar schoolboy, who adopted California as his home during the Gold Rush, had a darker side. Locked up after shooting dead his wife’s lover, Muybridge was sensationally cleared by a jury in what law lecturers still cite as one of the worst miscarriages of justice.
Freed to continue his moving picture experiments, he became obsessed with nudity. He hired prostitutes to demonstrate the human body’s movement, he regularly filmed naked children, and used asylum inmates as models, despite them being unable to give informed consent.
Tim Harrison explores his life, his bizarre death, and his legacy to try to reach a conclusion about this remarkable and controversial Kingstonian.(warning contains nudity, but Tim will be fully clothed throughout)
3.3 Public Meeting 10th December (PROVISIONAL) The new Local Plan will be presented to the Place Committee on 22nd October at a special meeting. We have been asked to provide a public forum for the Place team to explain the changes.Watch this space for updates.
Last Updated on October 16, 2025 by Kingston Society