Author: tgntra

35% Campaign update – Elephant shopping centre – decision day

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Elephant shopping centre – decision day

Dec 08, 2018 12:00 am

Mayor’s verdict due on Monday

Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan is due to make a decision on the Elephant shopping centre planning application on Monday, 10 December. Southwark resolved to approve developer Delancey’s proposals back in July, after fierce opposition and three planning committee meetings. Southwark referred the decision to the Mayor on 29 November, when it sent him the legal s106 agreement, which seals the application; he can either approve, direct refusal or take the decision over himself.

The Mayor has said that he will demand a ‘robust relocation strategy’ for traders displaced by the centre’s proposed demolition and redevelopment. He has also said that he will be subjecting the affordable housing offer to ‘rigorous scrutiny’ and be addressing unresolved transport issues.

Relocation strategy and Castle Square

The relocation strategy is listed as Appendix 10 to the s106 (although titled Appendix 9) and was only published on Friday, 7 December. It outlines how traders will be assisted, but they take issue with the document’s claim that they have been consulted on its contents (9. Trader Consultation). The Trader Panel has not yet been established and the temporary relocation facility at Castle Sq has drawn many objections, for its small size, design, opening hours, leases and rents. As the Latin Elephant objection points out these issues could have been resolved though the Trader Panel, had it been set up more promptly.

According to the terms of the S106 agreement, Delancey must obtain planning permission for a temporary boxpark before it can proceed with the redevelopment of the shopping centre and this will be decided by Southwark’s planning sub-committee B on 12 December.

The S106 agreement

Aside from the relocation strategy other notable aspects of the draft S106 include no mention of increasing the social housing offer, above the 116 units Delancey has already committed to build, if it receives a GLA grant. Delancey claimed to the planning committee that it had an ‘in-principle agreement’ for the funding, but this claim has been challenged by campaign groups.

There also remain several points on which Southwark and Delancey are not in agreement, including the target profit on the residential element of the scheme – Delancey wants 17.5% GDV, Southwark says 12.5% GDV is a more appropriate profit level (pg 39, footnote). This could be significant for getting more affordable housing; if the target is exceeded, half the extra profit should go to Southwark, so it benefits from the lower figure.

Page 60 of the S106 agreement (‘Eligibility Review’) also details the complex arrangements for extending the London Living Rent and other so-called affordable, discounted market rent tenancies, beyond their 3-year terms. Tenants who are fortunate enough to see their salary increase during their tenancies may also find much of it going to Delancey, if they jump into a higher band of rent payment – or maybe not, depending on what other affordable units are available at the time. While Delancey is bound to maintain the affordable housing ratios, final decisions on how to do this are left in Delancey’s hands.

Sadiq Khan must reject this scheme

The shopping centre traders are the people to judge whether or not Delancey’s proposals for trader relocation are ‘robust’, as the Mayor has demanded; but the Trader Panel has not been set up and has had no opportunity to discuss the relocation strategy, yet alone amend or improve it, so this test has not been passed.

There are also unanswered questions over any GLA funding for social rented housing; will Delancey get the funding and if it does, will it increase the amount of social rented housing or just use it to subsidise the 116 units it has already committed to build?

The Mayor also needs to take a close look at the head-scratching arrangements for extending so-called affordable rent tenancies, beyond their 3-year terms. They are a recipe for confusion and mismanagement and will leave tenants vulnerable and insecure.

The case for Sadiq Khan ‘calling-in’ this application is strong, for the sake of shopping Centre traders, the local community and all future residents and the call-in is supported by Sian Berry AM amongst others. Delancey’s scheme does not deserve to be approved and should be rejected.

You can still object to Delancey’s inadequate boxpark application here.

You can also join us to make some noise at a demonstration this coming Wednesdaywhen the Council’s planning committee decides on the boxpark application: 6pm 12 December 2018, Southwark Council head office, 160 Tooley St SE1 2QH

https://www.facebook.com/events/747582068976611/


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35% Campaign update – Castle Square – Delancey responds

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Nov 24, 2018 12:00 amSmall progress but still not enough on traders’ temporary premises -Since our last blog on the Elephant & Castle shopping centre saga, over 100 objections have been made to the temporary boxpark proposals for traders on Castle Square.

In response, Delancey has submitted a two-page document covering rent levels, tenancy agreements, service charges, selection criteria, hours of operation, access and the relocation fund. There is now a reconsultation on the planning application proposals.

One clear improvement has been made – the facility will now have lift access – but otherwise Delancey does little more than restate its previous position.

There will still be no affordable retail units, but Delancey claims that the proposed rents are “discounted in excess of the requirements of the Elephant & Castle SPD”.

Delancey also states that traders will be given first right of refusal to the temporary units at Castle Square and units will not be let to others until Delancey receives refusals in writing.

However, the overall size of the boxpark facility is still only 492 square metres and there is no increase to the relocation fund of £634k.

There is also still no agreement with the traders on any of these and the other issues such as the trading hours, service charges and selection criteria.

Moreover, the Traders Panel has only just got off the ground, with no traders yet appointed to the Panel.

Until this happens none of these issues can be said to be settled and the “robust relocation strategy” that Mayor Sadiq Khan is asking for will not be achieved.

Many of our readers have previously submitted objections. We have drafted a revised objection in light of the minor revisions submitted by Delancey.

We must ensure that the traders get the best possible deal, whatever happens; they need the temporary facility, but it must be better; if you would like to help achieve this, please submit an objection using our online objection form.

Join our party!

The Up the Elephant Campaign in support of the traders and for more social rented housing at the Elephant is also holding a Campaign Party on this coming Friday 30 Nov – a night of of Latin beats with DJ Gloria (Exilio) to raise funds to pursue a legal challange to Southwark Council’s granting of planning permission for the shopping centre scheme – further details and tickets available here.

Links: https://www.facebook.com/pg/Up-the-Elephant-1117314135042279/events/
https://twitter.com/uptheelephant_
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35% Campaign update – 11000 new council homes: figures show loss rather than gain

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Nov 12, 2018 12:00 am

Southwark demolishing and selling off council homes faster than it’s building them –

In 2014, as part of its manifesto pledge Southwark Council’s administration announced an “ambitious but realistic plan to build 11,000 new council homes” across the borough over the next 30 years. Concerns were raised by us and in the local press that this would fail to make up for the thousands of council homes currently being lost to ongoing estate regeneration, void disposal policies and Right to Buy applications over the next 30 years.

Extract from an Oct 2014 article in the local newspaper

Council leader Peter John subsequently issued an open letter insisting that the 11,000 council homes would be over and above the existing stock count – i.e. a net increase:

Extract from Council leader Peter John’s open letter

Councillor John went one step further to pledge that the first 1500 net additional council homes would be finished by 2018:

Extract from 2014 Cabinet report

Four years on and we have taken a look at whether Councillor John has delivered on his manifesto pledge. Official statistics from the government’s live tables on local authority dwelling stock show that since the manifesto pledge in 2014 there has been a net reduction in Southwark’s council housing stock of 476 council homes.

Extract from the government’s Live Table 116

The figures aren’t saying that Southwark hasn’t built any new council homes, only that the rate at which is building has not kept up with the rate at which it is knocking them down and selling them off. The Council has or will demolish over 7,500 council homes as part of regeneration schemes, including 1200 council homes in the Heygate estate regenerationand circa 2400 on the Aylesbury estate.

In addition, it has sold 1300 council homes under the Right to Buy since 2012 and has an ongoing policy of selling every council home that becomes vacant which is valued at £300k or more.

Meanwhile, this 30th Oct 2018 Cabinet report confirms that the council has built just 262 council homes over 5 years (para 12).

The Cabinet report confirms that an additional 239 units of developer-built (S106) affordable housing have been bought by Southwark, to become council housing (para 17). One such example is Blackfriars Circus, where the Council has bought 56 homes for £10m from developer Barratt.

A problem with this method of buying council housing is that it does not actually increase the net supply of social housing – the same units would otherwise have been bought and let by a housing association anyway. Further, Southwark is denying itself the benefit of the S106 contribution, by paying for something a housing association would have paid for anyway – and, rather perversely, denying itself funds for building units that would actually increase the net supply.

It is also not clear whether all the new homes have been let at council rents. We have blogged previously about new ‘council homes’ now being let at a percentage of market rent (40%) rather than social rent (which is currently approx 20% of market rent).

In any event, 112 of these new ‘council homes’ are temporary accommodation units in hostels (Willow Walk – 75 units, Good Neighbours House – 37 units) and are let at LHA rent levels, which are more than twice current council rent levels.

Even if we do count all these new homes as council homes at council rents, the short and long term trend is clearly one of an ongoing decline rather than net increase in the number of council homes:

St Mungo’s Putting Down Roots at Betsham and Northfleet Houses

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Since 2006 Team London Bridge (the local Business Improvement District) has been managing a number of green spaces in or just on the edge of our area: Northfleet & Betsham House, The Greenwood Theatre, Melior Street Garden, Gibbon’s Rent, Whites Grounds and Snowsfields Primary School to name a few. As well as lifting the aesthetic and ecological value of public space we also see this very much as a social project.

Our involvement with residential estates is a way for our businesses to connect with the local community, and by using St Mungo’s Putting Down Roots (PDR) as our gardening contractor we are helping people out of homelessness. PDR is an initiative of St Mungo’s that provides the homeless, or those at risk of becoming so, with formal horticultural training to aid them through recovery and into eventual full-time employment.

The PDR clients are led by trainers Ian, Victoria and Jeff who will often be seen tending the Northfleet and Betsham House gardens on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Please do say hello and they would love for residents to come out and help them if they wish (every month throughout the spring and summer they run a Saturday gardening workshop for residents as well as the usual Tuesday and Thursday mornings).

 In September this year we won a Gold medal and overall winner of the Business Improvement District category at the RHS London in Bloom awards – a competition where we show off all the best green spaces (including Northfleet & Betsham House) that the area has to offer.

 Thank you for the ongoing support and we’d always welcome more residential involvement and feedback. If you would to get in touch please contact Henry Johnstone at Team London Bridge henry@teamlondonbridge.co.uk

35% Campaign update – Elephant Shopping Centre – traders and campaigners step-up the fight

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35 per cent

Oct 30, 2018 12:00 am

Campaigners mount legal challenge and object to insufficient temporary premises –

Elephant shopping Centre traders and local campaigners have taken the first step of a legal challenge to Southwark Council’s resolution to approve the shopping centre planning application, while also objecting to the small size of a proposed temporary facility for the traders’ relocation during the 5 years it would take to redevelop the centre.

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The Public Interest Unit (PIU) of Lambeth Law Centre has written to Southwark, asking it to rescind the decision taken by the planning committee on 3 July 2018, or return the application to the committee. If the Council fails to do this an application will be made to the Planning Court to quash the decision.

The PIU is acting on behalf of a representative of the campaign groups Up the Elephant and Southwark Defend Council Housing. The campaign is supported by Southwark Law Centre and Latin Elephant. Barrister Sarah Sackman of Francis Taylor Building has agreed to represent the campaign.

The seven page pre-action letter gives two grounds for rescinding the permission. The first ground is that the planning committee was misled about public funding for the social housing in the scheme. The committee depended on an officer’s report in making its decision and this led it to believe that funding from the Greater London Authority (GLA), was secured for an increase of social rented housing, when this was not the case.

The second ground is that Southwark had not fulfilled its publIc sector equality duty (PSED) properly, neglecting the collective impact on the Latin American community across London, for whom the centre is a social and economic hub. Southwark had also not taken into account the impact on women business owners from black and ethnic minority backgrounds or on particular Latin American nationalities, such as Colombians, despite the detailed objections of Latin Elephant and Southwark Law Centre. The pre-action letter gives a deadline for reply of 24 Oct 2018 and this is still awaited.

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The Mayor to respond

Aside from the legal challange, the Mayor Sadiq Khan will also be having his say, once the draft legal S106 agreement that would seal the planning approval is complete. Campaigners have written an open letter, asking him to reject the approval as it stands. Local ward councillors added their voice to the call, as did Assembly Member Sian Berry. Local Assembly Member Florence Eshalomi, on the question of traders, says “we cannot have these cultural communities being displaced.” Inside Housing reports that Sadiq Khan is keen to ensure that the development ‘delivers as much genuinely affordable housing as possible’.

A temporary new home for traders…

As well as contending with the consequences of any legal challenge or a call-in from the Mayor, developers Delancey must also provide a temporary facility for displaced independent traders, as a condition of planning approval for the shopping centre redevelopment.

Delancey have had to make another planning application to do this and propose a 2/3 storey building on the Castle Square market place, on their adjoining development Elephant One. Castle Square is on land owned by Southwark Council, but currently leased to Delancy on a peppercorn rent and a share of the revenue from the Square’s future street market. The shopping centre planning condition implies that Delancey will now be buying that land from Southwark.

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The Castle Square facility would last for 5 years, until the Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre development has been completed. Traders would then have the first right of refusal back into the shopping centre.

..but better is needed…

The facility is a valuable gain for the traders, won by their campaign for a fair deal. Latin Elephant and the Elephant Traders welcome the concession, but have also objected that the proposed building is too small and would have trading restrictions that would make it an impractical premises for many of the displaced businesses. Delancey’s proposals mention 33 independent traders, while the trader’s own estimate is that there is a need to provide for over 100 traders. There are also many other issues, including the level of rents and service charges, the security of tenacy arrangements, selection criteria and disability access.

Delancey have agreed to the establishment of a Traders Panel and traders want these issues, and the size of the relocation fund (currently at an insufficient £634,700) to be decided by the Panel, but trader representations on the remit and format of the Panel have gone unanswered, leaving them fearful about the make-up of the Panel and how it might deal with these issues.

Delancey is not there yet

Delancey only secured a resolution to approve their shopping centre application after three planning committee meetings. It must now get a further planning permission for the trader’s temporary facility on Castle Square, before they can undertake any shopping centre redevelopment.

We must ensure that the traders get the best possible deal, whatever happens; they need the temporary facility, but it must be better; if you would like to help achieve this, please submit an objection using our online web form.

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