Area being sold for development includes Packhorse and Talbot and Sofa Workshop

One of the largest single lot sites ever to become available in the centre of Chiswick is being advertised for sale by commercial real estate agent Colliers.

They are offering the freehold on a 0.6 acre site at 145-147 Chiswick High Road which also includes building on Brackley Road. The High Road addresses are currently occupied by The Packhorse and Talbot Pub and the Sofa Workshop.

Colliers say that the site has potential for redevelopment to provide a residential-led, mixed use scheme and is inviting offers for the freehold.

The site is comprised an assembly of multiple buildings with a mixture of use classes. There is 43m of retail frontage facing Chiswick High Road. In addition there is office space on Brackley Road, a car park accessed via Annandale Road and associated buildings across the remainder of the site. There are two flats above the Sofa Workshop. At the moment it yields an annual income of £423,848.

An attempt to demolish the Packhorse and Talbot Pub was thwarted last year and Hounslow Council have designated this part of the High Road a conservation area to give extra protection to the pub.

At that time the freeholder of the pub site was a Panamanian company, Silus Investments, who was granted a judicial review challenging Hounslow Council over whether it had acted improperly in refusing to allow the pub to be demolished on the grounds of it being situated on Chiswick High Road, which is partly designated as a Conservation area.

The company had owned the site since 2009. The Packhorse & Talbot is not a listed building but a public house has been on that site for hundreds of years.

The Chiswick High Road was designated as an Area of Special Character in 2014, (replacing the term Heritage Fringe) in the draft Local Plan but a full consultation had not been carried out when the offshore company had announced its bid to demolish the Packhorse & Talbot.

Mrs. Justice Lang said that Hounslow had not followed proper procedure in terms of the consultation period for making its decision on designating the area of the High Road as a Conservation Area. The judge did not find the Council had acted for an improper purpose in making its decision.

August 3, 2016