The "community contribution" from Capital and Counties to its controversial, Boris Johnson-backed regeneration scheme puts the interests of the developer first
Boris Johnson's close political allies at Hammersmith and Fulham Council (H&F) have hailed "another major milestone" in their quest to hand control of 77 acres of prime London land to property developer Capital and Counties (Capco) and allow it to destroy the famous Earls Court exhibition centre and the homes of 2000 people in the name of improving their lives. Johnson has called the Earls Court Project "a landmark scheme." Its certainly looks like a large example of politicians selling lumps of London to private interests at a knock down price.
Last week Capco and H&F along with neighbouring Kensington and Chelsea and Transport for London, signed a deal - a Section 106 agreement - for Capco to provide £452m for what H&F calls a "community benefit package" enabling outline planning consent for the main part of the redevelopment to be formally granted. It doesn't sound much compared to £8b. So how substantial is this benefit package? Who will it most help?
Let's look at this from Capco's point of view. The developer issued its own press release to mark the signing of the S106, its message aimed at fellow members of the global property trade rather than residents of H&F. This too featured milestone talk, but in the context of "value creation" - that's "making money" to you and me. And when I look at the list of "community benefits" H&F lists, I wonder how much of it Capco would have needed to cough up for anyway if the 6,000 flats and houses it wants to build for market sale are to fetch the highest prices possible.
Consider first, though, the 1500 "affordable" homes the agreement asks Capco to build along with the other 6,000. Of these, 760 would simply be replacements for those of the West Kensington and Gibbs Green estates, recently brought up to Decent Homes standard, that H&F has been so eager to have cleared out of the way. The outcome of the council's consultation of residents produced a very large "no thanks" to demolition, but Town Hall Big Brother knows best. Will this part of the deal be a good one for those unhappy people?
For some, it might. The council has promised that overcrowded estate households - and there are certainly some of those - will receive the extra rooms they need. However, I've heard reports that some tenants who presently live in houses have been asked to consider accepting replacements that would not match most peoples' definition of "like for like" - a term senior H&F figures have used to characterise their unwanted offer the past. And, as the council has explained to estate households, not all of them would be eligible for a new replacement home of any kind. The council says Capco will be required to supply the full 760 replacements for those it wants demolished, but has been unable to say what would become of the surplus ones. Will they remain "affordable" and, if so, how affordable exactly?
That leaves the potential 740 additional "affordable" homes out of the total of promised for the development as a whole. They amount to barely 11% of the total additional dwellings planned - a puny proportion, even by London's generally low current standards. And none of these will be for social rent, the most affordable form of housing. All will be at the "intermediate" end of the affordable range, which can mean rents of up to 80% of local market rates - which are very high in that part of London - or affordable only to households with incomes approaching £80,000 a year seeking some type of shared ownership deal.
In terms of funding affordable homes, then, the Earls Court Project S106 makes much criticised agreements of the same variety in Southwark, Croydon and elsewhere in London look pretty handsome. Yet this miserable yield accounts for £315m of the £452m "community benefit package." So what would the remaining £137m buy if the S106 was honoured in full?
The agreement promises £35m towards improvements to streets and public realm and, to quote H&F's press release, "the creation of 37 acres of green space, including garden squares, communal gardens and a new five-acre park." This "park," a sceptical wag observes, would be better described as a "pass" - a narrow passageway running between mountainous skyscrapers. This follows the Open Spaces Society, which broadly welcomed the park, observing that it would be "dominated by the buildings surrounding it." The local Kensington Mansions Residents Association was even less impressed, warning the council that the park should amount to something more than "a pathway along the site that simply ticks a box on the developers' marketing materials." Has that warning been heeded?
And what about the rest of the green space? The council assures me that the garden squares and communal gardens will be "parkland open to all", but I can't help wondering how park-like and open they will really be. When visiting two of H&F's more recent new housing developments I can't say I felt that the green space within them really belonged tp the general public. Imperial Wharf, a project born when Labour controlled the Town Hall, has a large, grassy apron yet it didn't feel like a space I was warmly invited to enjoy. I didn't linger long on manicured lawn of the ghostly Fulham Reach, which gave me the creepy feeling that someone unseen was watching and would shortly demand to inspect my papers. The Campaign to Protect Rural England considered the plans' open space to be there "only as necessary extras to obtain [planning] permission." The council's representation of the green space can be seen here.
The "community benefit package" list continues. A new primary school, community centre, leisure centre and health centre are promised among £41.4m-worth of amenities. The latter will, I'm assured by the council, be not be a private health facility as some opponents of the scheme have alleged. But providing a new community centre in the area seems the least Capco could do for residents of the two estates, given that they intend levelling the two they presently have, along with their homes.
As for providing leisure, health and school facilities, any redevelopment envisaging a ten-fold increase in residential properties in an area could hardly do otherwise. How could you attract buyers for those high-cost homes if such things were absent? It wouldn't make commercial sense. There's also talk of "cultural space" being provided, prompting me to wonder how this space might compare to the world famous one the Arctic Monkeys packed out recently but is now a target for the wrecking ball. A while back, the council was predicting that a new "international conference centre" would be built as part of the redevelopment. Whatever happened to that?
A further £38.2m is earmarked for improving the area's Underground stations. This sounds useful - improved access and a new ticket hall are in the detail - yet very necessary given the far higher building densities planned. There's £5.5m for "new and improved bus, bus stops and service improvements." Well, there would have to be, wouldn't there? The Earls Court Project masterplan reckons the four "villages" of the new "urban quarter" would be connected by a new high street.
What else? Cycle lanes, hire hubs and parking is allocated £3.1m. Very nice, but one of the many flaws of the Earls Court Project is that, like H&F itself, puts itself out to encourage more cars into the area. Green Party AM Darren Johnson has shown that Earls Court Project would increase the number of car parking spaces in the redevelopment area by nearly 2,000. High levels of road traffic in cities are bad for most people living there and bad for business. But H&F and Boris Johnson, who worked together to half London's congestion charging zone, are all for them.
And finally (for now) there's the promise that the project is "expected" to produce "up to 10,000 permanent jobs." Sounds marvelous, but the council acknowledges that this will be over a 20-year period and can produce no analysis of how many existing jobs would be lost as a result of the Earls Court exhibition centre disappearing, along with the Lillie Bridge London Underground depot and any other businesses affected.
Naturally, the Conservative flagship borough - David Cameron's favourite and the apple of Eric Pickles's eye - continues to insist that the people whose homes it's handing over to Capco will be the chief beneficiaries of having them smashed to bits - including, presumably, the many who will be long dead before any of the "expected" new jobs show up. The council's former leader Stephen Greenhalgh, a close ally of Johnson and now his policing deputy, once told the Guardian that the scheme is "the best deal in the history of redevelopment in London." It certainly looks like a good deal for Capco. Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.
Boris Johnson's close political allies at Hammersmith and Fulham Council (H&F) have hailed "another major milestone" in their quest to hand control of 77 acres of prime London land to property developer Capital and Counties (Capco) and allow it to destroy the famous Earls Court exhibition centre and the homes of 2000 people in the name of improving their lives. Johnson has called the Earls Court Project "a landmark scheme." Its certainly looks like a large example of politicians selling lumps of London to private interests at a knock down price.
Last week Capco and H&F along with neighbouring Kensington and Chelsea and Transport for London, signed a deal - a Section 106 agreement - for Capco to provide £452m for what H&F calls a "community benefit package" enabling outline planning consent for the main part of the redevelopment to be formally granted. It doesn't sound much compared to £8b. So how substantial is this benefit package? Who will it most help?
Let's look at this from Capco's point of view. The developer issued its own press release to mark the signing of the S106, its message aimed at fellow members of the global property trade rather than residents of H&F. This too featured milestone talk, but in the context of "value creation" - that's "making money" to you and me. And when I look at the list of "community benefits" H&F lists, I wonder how much of it Capco would have needed to cough up for anyway if the 6,000 flats and houses it wants to build for market sale are to fetch the highest prices possible.
Consider first, though, the 1500 "affordable" homes the agreement asks Capco to build along with the other 6,000. Of these, 760 would simply be replacements for those of the West Kensington and Gibbs Green estates, recently brought up to Decent Homes standard, that H&F has been so eager to have cleared out of the way. The outcome of the council's consultation of residents produced a very large "no thanks" to demolition, but Town Hall Big Brother knows best. Will this part of the deal be a good one for those unhappy people?
For some, it might. The council has promised that overcrowded estate households - and there are certainly some of those - will receive the extra rooms they need. However, I've heard reports that some tenants who presently live in houses have been asked to consider accepting replacements that would not match most peoples' definition of "like for like" - a term senior H&F figures have used to characterise their unwanted offer the past. And, as the council has explained to estate households, not all of them would be eligible for a new replacement home of any kind. The council says Capco will be required to supply the full 760 replacements for those it wants demolished, but has been unable to say what would become of the surplus ones. Will they remain "affordable" and, if so, how affordable exactly?
That leaves the potential 740 additional "affordable" homes out of the total of promised for the development as a whole. They amount to barely 11% of the total additional dwellings planned - a puny proportion, even by London's generally low current standards. And none of these will be for social rent, the most affordable form of housing. All will be at the "intermediate" end of the affordable range, which can mean rents of up to 80% of local market rates - which are very high in that part of London - or affordable only to households with incomes approaching £80,000 a year seeking some type of shared ownership deal.
In terms of funding affordable homes, then, the Earls Court Project S106 makes much criticised agreements of the same variety in Southwark, Croydon and elsewhere in London look pretty handsome. Yet this miserable yield accounts for £315m of the £452m "community benefit package." So what would the remaining £137m buy if the S106 was honoured in full?
The agreement promises £35m towards improvements to streets and public realm and, to quote H&F's press release, "the creation of 37 acres of green space, including garden squares, communal gardens and a new five-acre park." This "park," a sceptical wag observes, would be better described as a "pass" - a narrow passageway running between mountainous skyscrapers. This follows the Open Spaces Society, which broadly welcomed the park, observing that it would be "dominated by the buildings surrounding it." The local Kensington Mansions Residents Association was even less impressed, warning the council that the park should amount to something more than "a pathway along the site that simply ticks a box on the developers' marketing materials." Has that warning been heeded?
And what about the rest of the green space? The council assures me that the garden squares and communal gardens will be "parkland open to all", but I can't help wondering how park-like and open they will really be. When visiting two of H&F's more recent new housing developments I can't say I felt that the green space within them really belonged tp the general public. Imperial Wharf, a project born when Labour controlled the Town Hall, has a large, grassy apron yet it didn't feel like a space I was warmly invited to enjoy. I didn't linger long on manicured lawn of the ghostly Fulham Reach, which gave me the creepy feeling that someone unseen was watching and would shortly demand to inspect my papers. The Campaign to Protect Rural England considered the plans' open space to be there "only as necessary extras to obtain [planning] permission." The council's representation of the green space can be seen here.
The "community benefit package" list continues. A new primary school, community centre, leisure centre and health centre are promised among £41.4m-worth of amenities. The latter will, I'm assured by the council, be not be a private health facility as some opponents of the scheme have alleged. But providing a new community centre in the area seems the least Capco could do for residents of the two estates, given that they intend levelling the two they presently have, along with their homes.
As for providing leisure, health and school facilities, any redevelopment envisaging a ten-fold increase in residential properties in an area could hardly do otherwise. How could you attract buyers for those high-cost homes if such things were absent? It wouldn't make commercial sense. There's also talk of "cultural space" being provided, prompting me to wonder how this space might compare to the world famous one the Arctic Monkeys packed out recently but is now a target for the wrecking ball. A while back, the council was predicting that a new "international conference centre" would be built as part of the redevelopment. Whatever happened to that?
A further £38.2m is earmarked for improving the area's Underground stations. This sounds useful - improved access and a new ticket hall are in the detail - yet very necessary given the far higher building densities planned. There's £5.5m for "new and improved bus, bus stops and service improvements." Well, there would have to be, wouldn't there? The Earls Court Project masterplan reckons the four "villages" of the new "urban quarter" would be connected by a new high street.
What else? Cycle lanes, hire hubs and parking is allocated £3.1m. Very nice, but one of the many flaws of the Earls Court Project is that, like H&F itself, puts itself out to encourage more cars into the area. Green Party AM Darren Johnson has shown that Earls Court Project would increase the number of car parking spaces in the redevelopment area by nearly 2,000. High levels of road traffic in cities are bad for most people living there and bad for business. But H&F and Boris Johnson, who worked together to half London's congestion charging zone, are all for them.
And finally (for now) there's the promise that the project is "expected" to produce "up to 10,000 permanent jobs." Sounds marvelous, but the council acknowledges that this will be over a 20-year period and can produce no analysis of how many existing jobs would be lost as a result of the Earls Court exhibition centre disappearing, along with the Lillie Bridge London Underground depot and any other businesses affected.
Naturally, the Conservative flagship borough - David Cameron's favourite and the apple of Eric Pickles's eye - continues to insist that the people whose homes it's handing over to Capco will be the chief beneficiaries of having them smashed to bits - including, presumably, the many who will be long dead before any of the "expected" new jobs show up. The council's former leader Stephen Greenhalgh, a close ally of Johnson and now his policing deputy, once told the Guardian that the scheme is "the best deal in the history of redevelopment in London." It certainly looks like a good deal for Capco. Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.