Cabinet is asked on 14 September to use Section 203 powers over the West Kensington school site, so 91 flats and a new school cannot be stopped by injunction.
Hammersmith and Fulham Council wants the legal power to build over its neighbours’ rights of light on Avonmore Road in West Kensington. Cabinet is asked to approve it on Monday 14 September.
The report going to Cabinet asks councillors to appropriate the old Avonmore Primary School land from education purposes to planning purposes. That single step unlocks Section 203 of the Housing and Planning Act 2016, which lets a council override easements, covenants and rights of light that would otherwise block a development.
Neighbours who hold those rights do not lose them for nothing. They convert into a right to compensation under Section 204 of the same Act. What they lose is the ability to stop the work.
Why the council wants it now
The site is already vacant and already handed over. Avonmore’s staff and pupils moved to the refurbished Mund Street site in spring 2025. The council signed an unconditional contract with its construction contractor in March 2026 and handed the land over to start building.
That sequence is why the report says the council “must demonstrate that the public benefit is reasonably realisable and achievable”. Its stated purpose is to let the scheme proceed “safe of injunction”.
The council’s own risk register, signed off by its risk and assurance manager on 20 March 2026, is blunt about what it is guarding against:
- “There is a high legal risk that legal action may be brought by local residents or their representatives to prevent the project.”
- The report advises setting aside time to prepare a defence strategy in advance, and funds to pay for it.
- It also records a “people risk that the benefits of the project are not understood by residents”, and recommends the council set them out in public and in press releases.
What is being built
Planning permission was granted in December 2024 under reference 2023/03051/FR3, after the Planning and Development Control Committee considered it on 5 November 2024. The site sits inside the Olympia and Avonmore Conservation Area. The permission covers the demolition of the existing buildings and three new ones in their place:
- a one form entry primary school for nursery to year 6, built around a triple-height atrium, with nursery, reception and year 1 at ground level, years 2 to 4 above and specialist teaching and years 5 and 6 on the second floor
- improved facilities for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities, plus a new kitchen and library
- a forest school, a playground, an external play deck and outdoor learning decks
- 91 homes across two blocks, 45 of them affordable
- a financial contribution to new community infrastructure at Marcus Garvey Park
Of the 45 affordable homes, 39 sit in Block B, split 21 social rent and 18 shared ownership. Six more social rent homes are in Block A. That is 27 social rent homes in total. The remaining 46 homes are for private sale, and the receipts pay for the school.
The council’s contractor, Higgins Partnerships, announced its appointment on 8 July 2026. It puts the school at 2,297 square metres of flexible learning space, with more than 1,500 square metres of outdoor play across three levels, 100 solar panels and a 74 per cent cut in operational carbon. The council’s own record of the contract award, taken on 2 February 2026, keeps the contractor and the price in appendices marked not for publication.
The bill has gone up, and the figure is not public
The second half of Monday’s report asks Cabinet to approve a budget adjustment. The reason given is construction cost inflation since the original tender was submitted in November 2024.
The amount is in Appendix 3, which the report asks Cabinet to withhold from publication as commercially sensitive. The report says the increase will be met in full from Right to Buy receipts together with additional grant funding, so it does not name a number that residents can check.
What neighbours said at the planning stage
The council wrote to 874 neighbouring properties twice, in December 2023 and again in July 2024 after the landscaping was changed. By the time officers wrote their committee report, they had logged:
- 76 objections
- 140 letters in support
- one petition in support, signed by 116 people representing 84 properties
Objections came in on massing, loss of trees, loss of light and overshadowing, construction noise, overlooking and loss of privacy, and the permanent loss of school playground land. Officers named Avonmore Road, Earsby Street and Lisgar Terrace as the streets whose residents raised amenity concerns.
The officer report acknowledged the daylight impact directly, then leaned on national policy that tells councils to apply daylight and sunlight guidance flexibly in dense urban areas so that land is used efficiently for housing.
What it means for you
- If you own property backing onto or facing the site, this affects your legal position. A right to light or a restrictive covenant becomes a claim for money rather than a bar to building. The council is also asking for delegated authority to negotiate voluntary releases with compensation before it uses the statutory power.
- Take advice before the decision, not after. The report asks Cabinet to delegate the negotiation of releases, which means the detail will be settled by officers rather than in public.
- The meeting is open. Cabinet sits at 7pm on Monday 14 September at the Clockwork Building, 45 Beavor Lane, W6 9AR. The agenda and papers are already published.
- The school is not being closed. Once the land has been appropriated to planning purposes, the report asks for the school plot to be appropriated straight back to education use, and the Block B plot to housing.
The old buildings went up as a temporary post-war structure and were extended over decades with modular and prefabricated additions. The council’s case is that they are beyond repair and that the Department for Education will not fund a replacement, which is why the homes are paying for the school. That funding model, the Community Schools Programme, was approved by Cabinet in March 2019.
More decisions from the borough’s planning system are tracked on our Fulham planning news page.
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