Elephant Park – Lendlease’s final squeeze

Posted by tgntra

Elephant Park – Lendlease’s final squeeze

Oct 03, 2022 01:00 am

Lendlease’s proposal to build a giant office block on the last plot (H1) of the demolished Heygate estate has been recommended for approval by Southwark Council’s planning department. It now goes to the planning committee for a final decision tomorrow (Tues 4 Oct).

If approved the office block will replace the housing that Lendlease promised in 2012, when it won planning approval for Elephant Park. As we reported in a previous blog, Lendlease’s original plan for H1 was to build three residential blocks, one of 30-storeys, two of ten-storeys, comprising about 300 homes.

The new office block application will be much larger than the abandoned H1 housing development. According to the committee report on the office block proposal, it would exceed the housing footprint and have a greater mass.

Lendlease says that it has built enough housing on the rest of Elephant Park, to allow it to build an office block on H1. To do this more homes have been shoehorned into fewer plots, leaving H1 as a ‘spare’ for the office development.

Left- the consented scheme (36,000sqm); Right – the proposed office block (64,000sqm).*

The objections

Lendlease’s H1 proposal has generated over 500 comments, mostly objections, on a range of issues. Local campaigners and groups (including the 35% Campaign) supported by the Southwark Law Centre, have focused on the lack of affordable housing, affordable retail and community space on Elephant Park. There are also concerns about the proposed health hub and a question mark over the levels of social rent, as well as objections to the design and size of the proposed building and shortfalls in carbon reduction.

Use Plot H1 for more affordable housing

Plot H1 is the site of a demolished council estate and as such a brownfield site that should be optimised for housing, according to the Mayor’s London Plan 2021 policy (also called H1).

Also, while Lendlease have built 2,689 homes on Elephant Park it has only delivered 25% affordable housing, including only 100 social rented homes, much less than the 35% required. Lendlease’s claim in 2012 that they could only provide those numbers was justified by a viability assessment that is now ten years old and which was based on 2,462 units, two hundred and twenty-seven fewer than the 2,689 than has actually been built. There should be a new viability assessment, on the basis of the actual number of units delivered, to ensure the maximum amount of affordable housing, in particular social rented housing, is built on Elephant Park.

Will there be a Health hub?

Lendlease hopes that the offer of a health hub will sweeten the office block proposal. Under the Southwark Plan 2022 Lendlease is obliged to give over 10% of the floorspace to either ‘public health services’ or affordable workspace, in any event, so this is by no means a gift. The committee report also reveals that the health hub is just the ‘priority option’ and so the hub will not be secured by granting the planning permission, only after further successful negotiations between Lendlease, Southwark and the South East London Integrated Care System (SEL ICS).

If there is a health hub it will also only have a short 30-year lease (compared to the 250-year lease granted by Lendlease to Southwark for the Walworth Library, now on Elephant Park).

A further concern is the probable loss of the Princess St and Manor Place surgeries, should the hub be built. While it would no doubt provide more up-to-date facilities than the surgeries, the impact for future local health provision and the impact on users of those existing facilities (eg in terms of potentially longer journey distances), beyond the development site, really demands a comprehensive public consultation before, not after, the determination of this application.

Neighbouring Princess St Surgery and Manor Place Surgeries at risk of being replaced rather than complemented by any new health facility.

Objectors say no decision should be made on the Plot H1 application until all these issues are resolved, one way or another.

What kind of community space?

The community space provided by Lendlease on Elephant Park is largely taken up by amenities such as a library and nursery. While this is welcome (although the library appears to have been purchased by Southwark [for £6m]), there is little available for the local community to let at affordable cost, for social and other events. The terms for such rented community space (the so-called Trunk) have been long promised, but not concluded. The Plot H1 application should not be approved unless the community space is improved and leasing and letting arrangements are finalised.

Better design and less mass needed

Lendlease’s proposes a building higher and larger than that which would have been built, had they stuck to their original promise of building new homes. This housing was also designed after extensive local consultation, which has now completely fallen by the wayside. The proposed office floorspace is nearly ten times greater than that which would have been allowed before the adoption of the 2022 Southwark Plan and will have nearly double the floorspace than originally planned. The proposed building will dominate views and reduce sunlight in Elephant Park and have severe negative impacts on neighbouring buildings.

Southwark’s Design Review Panel has also said that the proposed building had an ‘overly bulky character’ and had concerns about the deep plan design; it invited Lendlease to return to them, but this has not happened, according to the committee report. Objectors say that the proposal should be returned to the Design Review Panel for its further opinion, before any decision on the application is made.

Any room for displaced traders?

A large number of local businesses, most from black and ethnic minority backgrounds, have been displaced by the Elephant’s regeneration, in particular by the demolition of the shopping centre.

Lendlease has an obligation under the Elephant Park planning permission to help relocate some of these traders by providing affordable retail units and workspace.

Lendlease has not yet met that obligation fully, supplying only 902sqm, against a requirement of 960sqm. While this is a relatively small amount, the requirement is a minimum and still leaves many traders without premises, including La Bodeguita, one of the Elephant’s largest independent traders. Arch 7 traders also face relocation. Plot H1 should be used to help as many remaining displaced traders as possible.

Not enough carbon reduction

Instead of passive heating or heat pumps, which tend to be the norm in most new developments, the office block will be heated by a central gas boiler.

This is despite the development being selected as one of only 19 schemes worldwide, which claim to be ‘zero carbon or carbon positive’ and provide an example of sustainable development.

In addition, Lendlease has chosen not to fully comply with the 2022 Southwark Plan’s minimum requirement to reduce CO2 by 40%, cutting it instead by 38% and make the difference up with an offset payment of £1.2m. This is a small shortfall, but if Southwark is to reach its target of being carbon neutral by 2030 the full 40% should be met on-site. It is also a long way short of the pledge made in 2009 for the Elephant regeneration by the Lendlease Europe Chief Executive to be a Climate Positive Development and ‘to strive to reduce the amount of on-site CO2 emissions to below zero’, as a founding project of the Bill Clinton Climate Initiative.

Are the social rents on Elephant Park really social rent?

The Council also has an outstanding enforcement action for a social rent property on Elephant Park, to establish whether or not the home is being properly let at a social rent. This raises a question about whether or not social rents are being charged for the hundred Elephant Park social rented units, in accordance with the s106 agreement. Southwark are getting few enough social rented units out of this development as it is; the Council must make sure that those we have are being let at the correct rent levels.

We have written about this problem since 2016 and Southwark still has no effective system for monitoring the rent levels of social rented housing managed by RSLs.

What we think

Lendlease has maximised its gains from the Elephant Park development at every turn – primarily by building more homes than originally consented, selling many of them overseas and by reducing the amount of affordable and social housing.

Up to now, Southwark Council has meekly accepted any argument Lendlease cared to make to justify all this and done what it can to give Lendlease’s H1 office proposal a safe passage.

Southwark now has a final chance to redeem itself, by heeding the objectors to Plot H1 and not approving Lendlease’s application on Tuesday evening. It must also urgently demand another viability assessment, to determine just how much affordable housing Elephant Park can really deliver.

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35% Campaign

35% Campaign update – Elephant Park – homes dumped for offices

Posted by tgntra

Elephant Park – homes dumped for offices

Jun 17, 2022 12:14 pm

Southwark Council is set to roll over to Lendlease yet again in its final bid to squeeze maximum profit out of the Heygate redevelopment. The developer’s latest and last Elephant Park application will increase the density of the scheme via the back door, using the sweetener of a new health facility that is was required to provide anyway.

One of the first tasks of Southwark’s new planning committee will be to consider developer Lendlease’s controversial planning application for a new office block on the final plot of Elephant Park, H1. Plot H1 stands on what was protected metropolitan open land, on the site of the demolished Heygate estate:

The H1 application, which includes a proposal for a health hub, is a dramatic change of direction by Lendlease. Up to now, Elephant Park has been built as a housing development, with some retail, and other uses; Lendlease’s original plan was for H1 to be much the same, with three residential blocks, one of 30-storeys, two of ten-storeys, comprising about 300 homes, across 36,100sqm of floorspace:

This proposal was part of Lendlease’s successful 2013 planning permission application. Now, in 2022, it turns out that Lendlease has shoehorned the housing planned for H1 into all the other plots already built or currently under construction, leaving it with a surplus plot. Instead of building additional housing on H1, which would require a fresh planning application and might open up a can of worms about affordable housing delivery, Lendlease says it wants to build an office block on the site, which would improve ’employment capacity’. A health hub, covering a tenth of the total floorspace, is also being offered, to sweeten the proposal – but only in place of providing affordable workspace.

Lendlease benefits from rule change 1

Southwark Council has reacted favourably to Lendlease’s proposal to provide offices on the surplus plot, with local councillors saying that they are ‘generally in support’ of the application, at a pre-election hustings.

More practically Southwark Council also changed the planning rules to give the application a fair wind. We reported last September how Southwark Council has smoothed Lendlease’s path by changing the local planning rules in the Southwark Plan, to allow a ten-fold increase in ’employment floorspace’ on Elephant Park.

Lendlease’s 2013 planning permission allowed only a maximum of 5,000sqm of business space across the whole Elephant Park site of thirteen plots. Lendlease’s new application proposes ten times that amount, 49,565sqm on a single plot. This would have had no hope of being approved without a change in the planning rules. Southwark Council duly obliged and approved an ‘uplifted’ amount of 60,000sqm, when the new Southwark Plan was adopted in February 2022.

More homes in a smaller space….

Lendlease has also been careful to build all the homes it promised under its 2013 permission. Lendlease say it has built almost to the maximum floorspace allowed by the permission, delivering 2,689 homes including 25.7% affordable housing.

But these 2,689 homes must obviously have been shoehorned into fewer plots, at a greater density than originally proposed, if Lendlease now finds itself with a spare plot that can be used for an office development. Should this application succeed it will also be the second time that the density of the development has been increased. In 2019 Lendlease took advantage of a poorly drafted s106 legal agreement, to increase the original maximum homes from 2,469 to 2,689 homes.

There is also a discrepancy between what Southwark has been told about the number of homes built and the figures Lendlease have given in their 2022 half-yearly report to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). Lendlease’s hy22 Lendlease Major Urban Projects report says that 3,208 homes will be delivered on Elephant Park (including Trafalgar Place’s 235 units), 284 more units than are in the planning documents and 739 more homes than originally consented:

…….fewer social rent

Lendlease remains silent on the shortfall of affordable housing, against the longstanding 35% affordable housing requirement, half of which should be social rented. Roughly calculated by unit this is a loss of about 270 affordable homes, half of which would be social rent.

The sweetener – the health hub

Lendlease appear to have won local councillors around to supporting their office block proposal by promising a health hub. Discussions about this have already taken place between Southwark Council, the NHS SE London Clinical Commissioning Group and Lendlease, and have also including GP services provider Nexus.

A health hub or facility would be very welcome and for that reason it has been a requirement for Lendlease to build it since 2013, under the current planning permission. Rather than get on and build it though, Lendlease has waited until the final plot and the final planning application to extract further gains, in the shape of an office block, several times the size of the health hub. It has had to make £1.08m health contributions along the way, but evidently considers this an acceptable cost.

Given that Lendlease were happy to build the health hub as part of a residential development before, there is no reason why it must be part of an office development now, other than it suits Lendlease. It is also not clear why councillors and Southwark think they are getting a good deal by supporting a health hub with offices, when there is already an agreement to build a health hub with homes.

Lendlease benefits from rule change 2

A further gain for Lendlease in building a health hub is that it would relieve it of the obligation of providing around 5,000sqm of affordable workspace. This has been enabled by another favourable change to the planning rules in the new Southwark Plan, to add to the change that allowed more office space. Up to August 2020 developers could provide affordable retail and affordable cultural uses instead of affordable workspace. Lendlease submitted its application in May 2021 and by the time of the final version of the Southwark Plan in February 2022 ‘public health services’ was added to the list of alternatives to affordable workspace.

So, with this addition, an obligation was turned into a choice between providing a health hub, at what we can assume will be a commercial rent, or affordable workspace at discounted rents.

Princess Street and Manor Place surgeries to go?

Southwark Council has joined with Lendlease and the NHS SE London Clinical Commissioning Group (SEL CCG) to sign a Memorandum of Understanding, supporting the provision of a health hub and an indicative plan of the hub has been drafted.

One point that leaps out of the Memorandum is that the hub is intended to replace the Princess St and Manor Place GP surgeries. It says that the hub would be a ‘health centre for GP….services….to serve the population at Elephant & Castle and the existing people served by the Princess St and Manor Place GP Surgeries.’

New state-of-the-art GP facilities would be a boon to everyone at the Elephant and in Walworth. But if these facilities entail the closure of two longstanding GP surgeries then that is something that should be made plain in the planning application and the public consultation about that application. This has not happened; the only consultation has been around the planning aspects of the application, which the Memorandum calls a ‘separate and independent process’.

A consultation is promised by the SEL CCG, but it looks as if this will not be until after the planning application is decided. This is too late; the fate of the surgeries will be effectively decided too, if the application is approved. Southwark Council and the NHS are the proper authorities to deal with our health care provision, Lendlease are not, but at the moment it is Lendlease who seem to be in the driving seat, with no reference to the people who depend on Princess St and Manor Place surgeries. This planning application should only be determined after the formal consultation promised by the SEL CCG.

What has been delivered on Elephant Park?

Southwark must also clarify and confirm just exactly what housing has been delivered on Elephant Park. The development we have now looks a lot different to that approved, back in 2013 – bigger, denser, with fewer homes for sale (many were converted to Build to Rent), and with an office block in the middle, if the H1 planning application succeeds. This is not what the 2013 planning committee agreed to.

A new Overview & Scrutiny committee has just begun drawing up its scrutiny arrangements and annual work programme; the committe should put an examination of the whole Heygate regeneration and what has been delivered on Elephant Park at the top of its agenda.

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Only one in ten new homes in Southwark is social rented

Apr 12, 2022 01:00 am

Hoardings publicising the Council’s delivery of 11,000 council homes are a familiar sight around Southwark. They promote the Council’s creditable council house building programme, which it launched in 2013 and describes as the ‘most ambitious…in the country’.

The impression Southwark wants to create is that building social housing is the Council’s top priority – as it should be in a borough where only 7% of households can afford free-market housing[^1].

The reality is different. Only one in ten new homes built in Southwark since 2004 is social rented. The figure has emerged from analysis of the London Mayor’s new Planning Datahub. The Datahub documents all the homes built in London since 2004, including those built in Southwark[^2]. The Datahub analysis shows that after losses are taken into account, only 2,711 out of twenty-five thousand new homes in Southwark are social rented[^3].

Eighteen years of low social rent, but high free-market numbers

The contrast between the small number of social rent and the large number of free-market homes built is stark, as our chart below shows. The Datahub figures show that nearly 70% of all new homes are free-market (nearly 18,000 in number) against just 10.7% social rent, with the rest made up of other affordable homes[^4].

Bar chart by 35% Campaign. Source: Planning London Datahub, Residential Completion Dashboard

Lost Heygate homes

The Datahub also shows that more social rented homes were lost in 2021 than were built. Only 31 were built, while 122 were demolished, with a net loss of 91 homes. Southwark claim this is a ‘discrepancy’ but the lost units can be identified through the Datahub as being from the demolished Heygate estate[^5].

The Datahub shows the loss clearly, in percentage terms, as minus 20.4% of the total housing delivered in 2021[^6].

Southwark misses the target

Southwark has claimed that it has more than met its target to build 2,500 council homes by 2022, a pledge it made in 2013.

But this target has in fact been missed. Only 2,208 social rented homes have been built in Southwark since 2013, and this includes any council housing built. This figure is calculated from Southwark’s own Housing Facts and Figures webpage Table 8. The Mayor’s Datahub shows that over the same period 1,136 social rent homes have been lost, mainly through estate demolitions, leaving a net gain of only 1,072 social rented homes[^7].

it should be noted that these figures are from all social rented housing in the borough. It is made up of social housing on private developments, as well as any council housing. The number of council homes built will therefore be a smaller number than the number of social rented homes.

The Council plays with the figures

Southwark is only able to claim that it has fulfilled its 2013 pledge to build 2,500 council homes by 2022, by using an elastic definition if what ‘build’ actually means. For Southwark, it means the homes do not have to be completed, just started, and can also include other homes brought back into use, according to this Southwark News article.

Southwark also apparently include in the definition of council housing homes gained from private developments, through planning requirements. If this is the case then there is no real gain in social rented housing numbers, because these would have been built anyway, and at private developer’s cost.

We need less free-market housing, more social rent

The need for social rented housing has continued to rise since Southwark made its 2013 pledge to build 11,000 council homes over thirty years. The pledge is a good one, but it will probably only maintain the 2013 number of homes, not increase it. Southwark also does itself no favours by exaggerating the progress it is making towards the 11,000 council homes target. The amount of council and social housing being built in the borough is a fraction of the amount of free-market housing and unless this changes and we start getting more social housing from private developers as well as council homes, then Southwark’s housing crisis will continue.

Footnotes:
[^1]: ‘CACI Paycheck data confirms that 93% of households in Southwark have a household income that requires social and intermediate housing’ – para 2, pg 108 Southwark Plan 2022

[^2]: The Planning London Datahub is a ‘collaborative project between all of the Planning Authorities in London’ including Southwark. It is part of the London Datastore and is a ‘new data base that includes data fed live from the boroughs…’. The Datahub’s Residential Completion Dashboard shows all housing completions for all the boroughs in London.

[^3]: 5,761 social rented homes were completed, 3,050 s/r homes were lost, leaving a 2,711 net gain for the eighteen financial years FY2004-FY2021. 25,286 homes of all tenures were completed in total, after losses are taken into account. From an analysis of the Residential Completion Dashboard, data filtered for Southwark.

[^4]: 17,651 free-market (69.81%), 2,711 social rent (10.72%), 339 affordable rent (1.34%), 3,572 intermediate (14.13%), 57 Discount Market Rent (0.23%), 956 Other (3.39%) – 25,286 units in total. Completed during the eighteen years FY2004-FY2021. Figures do not include non-conventional units and empty homes brought back into use. From an analysis of the Residential Completion Dashboard, data filtered for Southwark.

[^5]: 31 social rented homes were completed in Southwark in 2021, while 122 were demolished, all on Elephant Park Plots H2 and H3 (14/AP/3438/3439), leaving a net loss of 91 units. More social rented homes were lost than completed in FY 2004 (-140), FY2015 (-121), FY2016 (-166), FY2021 (-91). From an analysis of the Residential Completion Dashboard, data filtered for Southwark.

[^6]: The net gains/losses for FY2021 are 441 free-market units (98.7%), -91 social rent (-20.4%), 39 affordable rent (8.7%), intermediate 58 (13%). From an analysis of the Residential Completion Dashboard, data filtered for Southwark.

[^7]: Southwark’s Table 8 gives ‘Gross’ figures; the Datahub describes the same figures as ‘Gains’. The Datahub figures for FY2019 and FY2020 vary from Southwark’s, giving total Gains for FY2013 to FY2020 of 2,170, against Southwark’s figure of 2,208 for the same period. Datahub figures from an analysis of the Residential Completion Dashboard, data filtered for Southwark.

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35% Campaign

35% Campaign update – Lendlease’s final plot for Elephant Park – offices, not homes

Posted by tgntra

35% Campaign – Elephant Park – planning committee misled?

Posted by tgntra

Elephant Park – planning committee misled?

Mar 01, 2020 12:00 am

Lendlease fails to declare public funding for affordable housing -Developer Lendlease failed to disclose at Last week’s planning committee meeting that it was in receipt of public funding, which could have increased the amount of affordable housing at Elephant Park (aka the Heygate estate regeneration).

The meeting was called because of the large number of objections to the final phase (H7 MP5) and the lack of additional affordable housing. We explained in our previous blog how Lendlease have met their 25% affordable housing requirement, while increasing the total number of homes, but without increasing the number of affordable homes or proportion of social rent (3%).

One of the objections, from the 35% Campaign, was that “There appears to have been no effort to take advantage of any public funding”. Southwark responded by saying: “There is no obligation on Lendlease to seek public funds.” (para 282, 283 of the officer’s report)

The planning committee followed this up in their cross examination of Lendlease, who were asked directly by Cllr King whether they had considered applying for grant funding:

See video clip of committee meeting on youtube here.

In a lengthy reply, Lendlease did not disclose that the Mayor had in fact committed to fund Elephant Park, back in September 2018.

Elephant Park is the very first entry on a list of estate regeneration projects on the Mayor’s website, which have had funding approved since July 2018.

This gives rise to a number of questions:

Why did Lendlease not say that they had received funding when the question was asked?
Why were the committee members not told that Lendlease has received funding in the committee report?
How much money has Lendlease received from the Mayor?
Why has the affordable housing offer not been improved?

We suspect that the answer to this lies in the murky world of viability; Lendlease insisted in 2013 that only 9.4% of the new homes could be viably provided as affordable.

They repeated this at the planning committee meeting last week and would no doubt argue that any money they have received from the Mayor has gone to bridging the gap between what is viable and the 25% being delivered.

Whatever the merits of this argument (and we think it has none) it still leaves open the question of why Lendlease and the officers report did not disclose the grant funding to members.

There is a similarity here to the ongoing dispute about affordable housing in the shopping centre development. Developer Delancey claims that the £11.24m it is also receiving from the Mayor is being used to increase the amount of social rented housing. We showed previously how it was going to Delancey’s bottom line:

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35% Campaign update – Elephant Park – final phase, final windfall for Lendlease

Posted by tgntra

Elephant Park – final phase, final windfall for Lendlease

Feb 21, 2020 12:00 am

Last phase of Heygate regeneration set for approval with increase in number of homes but no increase in affordable. -We blogged last year about the final phase (MP5 H7) of the Heygate regeneration.

Lendlease’s application for 424 new homes (15 social rent) in this final phase is now set to be approved by the Council’s planning committee on Monday.

If approved without a viability review it will seal an increase in the number of new homes beyond that approved by Southwark’s planning committee back in 2013, without any increase in the number of affordable homes. This will result in a total of 2,689 homes (220 more than approved in 2013) of which 92 will be social rent.

Extract from the 2013 Outline application Committee report

This windfall gives Lendlease the revenue of 220 extra homes that were not included in the original viability assessment of the scheme, which was based on 2,469 units. This allowed Lendlease to build 25% instead of 35% affordable housing and to reduce the required amount of social rented homes to next to nothing. Taking account of the 220 extra homes could have improved both the viability of the whole scheme and the affordable housing offer.

Reviewing viability

We noted in our previous blog that Southwark has neglected to carry out any viability review. Monday’s planning committee report reiterates this, stating: “The council has no mechanism to insist on a viability review” (para 129)

However, this looks to be contradicted by the terms of the Regeneration Agreement between Southwark and Lendlease, which provides a mechanism for the affordable housing mix to be reviewed on an annual basis.

If these annual reviews had been taking place it should have been reflected in higher levels of social rented housing. The fact that the tenure mix hasn’t changed suggests that they haven’t.

Grant Funding

We also noted in our previous blogpost that the 2013 planning committee anticipated that the regeneration could benefit from public funding if it became available.

Extract from the 2013 Outline application Committee report

This was in line with the Regeneration Agreement, which also obliged the parties to seek grant funding:

Such funding has been available since 2016 when Sadiq Khan announced a £4.6bn funding programme, but despite the 2013 planning committee’s intention and the Regeneration Agreement’s obligation, Lendlease has made no funding application.

Also, despite this clear contractual obligation, Southwark nonetheless states in Monday’s committee report for the final phase: “There is no obligation on Lendlease to seek public funds.” (para 283)

Given the clear obligation on Lendlease to seek grant funding, we say that until Lendlease does so Southwark should reject this final phase application.

Southwark should also reject the application unless Lendlease commits to a viability review. There are a number of reasons why this is necessary. Not only was the original viability assessment based on fewer homes than the number actually being built, but also the free-market homes are being sold for twice Lendlease’s viability assessment estimate.

Another significant change to viability since the original assessment has been Lendlease’s recent decision to let, rather than sell homes in the later phases of the scheme.

Monday’s planning committee should also take account of Policy 3.12 of the Mayor’s London Plan, which says that “The maximum reasonable amount of affordable housing should be sought .. having regard to .. individual circumstances including development viability, {and} the availability of public subsidy.”

The Elephant Park development lost Southwark 1,200 council homes. This final phase is Southwark Council’s last chance to (partially) redeem itself by insisting Lendlease abides by its obligations, reviews the viability of the scheme and applies for grant funding.

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35% Campaign update – No room for traders in the new Elephant

Posted by tgntra

Mar 30, 2019 12:00 am

Shopping centre traders left out in the cold –

Just thirty-six independent traders from the Elephant & Castle shopping centre have been allocated new space in which to trade, in the event of the centre’s demolition and redevelopment. Despite concerns raised by the Chair of the ‘Traders Panel’ and his fellow panel member, the figure is trumpeted in a self-congratulatory press-release from Southwark Council and belies the true situation which is that at least 40 traders have been left out in the cold, according to Latin Elephant, who champion the cause of all independant ethnic minority traders. Southwark News reported that 28 applications for space were rejected.

The new spaces are a mixture of permanent affordable units, at the base of the Elephant One Tower and on the ground floor of Perronet House (the ‘Elephant Arcade’), and temporary affordable units in Castle Square.

No room on the Park

Noticeably absent from the relocation sites are the affordable retail units on Elephant Park, formerly the Heygate estate. At over 1300 sqm, with circa 800sqm available in 2019, this is by far the largest of the four sites presented to Southwark’s planning committee as alternatives for displaced traders. This 800sqm of affordable retail comprises 8 units all located on one street (Sayer St), pictured in the CGI below (extracted from Lendlease’s marketing brochure).

sc2

Unlike the other 3 sites, Elephant Park is under Lendlease control, not Delancey or Southwark, so the suspicion is that they have no desire to help Delancey, or Southwark, relocate traders, notwithstanding the ‘imagination, empathy and dedication’ it claims to be bringing to the Elephant & Castle. The CGI image above and marketing image below suggest that Lendlease’s vision doesn’t aim to include the likes of Jenny’s Burgers or the Sundial Cafe.

sc3

Lendlease’s new retail units on Sayer Street nearing completion

A predictable debacle

A relocation strategy that only to relocates half of those who need relocation is a failure by any measure, more so when that failure is entirely predictable. Objectors, led by Latin Elephant, have consistently pointed out that Delancey’s half-hearted and dilatory ‘strategy’ simply did not provide enough space to accommodate all the traders who wish to stay at the Elephant and this has remainded the case, even as the number of traders has inevitably changed over time.

In the summer of 2017 Southwark estimated that there were about 130 independent businesses, occupying 4005sqm within the ‘red-line’ of the development (excluding the Hannibal House office space). Latin Elephant calculated that all available space, including Elephant Park (East St market spaces, nearly a mile down the road), could accommodate 84 businesses on 2,263 sqm – not much more than half the floorspace required and leaving at least 38 eligible buinesses out in the cold.

In March 2018, Latin Elephant objected to Delancey’s planning application, on the grounds that the amount of affordable retail space fell far short of the 4000 sqm needed. Nonetheless, the officer’s report for the application, lumped the new shopping centre’s affordable retail with the affordable retail of Elephant One and Elephant Park. The report noted that over a third of that space would not be completed until 2024, but nonetheless reached the comforting concluson that the total of 3866 sqm was ‘only marginally short…of the 4,005sqm of space currently occupied by independent retailers on the east (shopping centre) site’ (para 221).

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By January 2019, Perronet House had been approved and Castle Square itself went to planning committee, so the officer’s report for this wisely drops any reference to the shopping centre, to reach an affordable retail total of 2,859sqm. The report acknowledges that ‘whilst this would be less than the 4,005sqm currently understood to be occupied by independent businesses on the east site, some businesses may be able to operate from smaller premises’ (para 57). Southwark now identified 80 businesses in the redline and gave verbal assurances that there ‘should be sufficient’ units to accommodate everyone.

In an FOI response in March 2019 Southwark gave the number of traders as 79 (an underestimate that treats the several businesses in Arch 7 as one).

Wishful thinking and indifference

While Southwark’s approach to relocating centre traders can be characterised as wishful thinking, Delancey’s can be characterised as indifference. It’s starting position was that providing affordable retail ‘would be unviable and inapproriate’ (para 4.63) and that a relocation strategy would only be forthcoming, once Delancey had secured planning approval (an aim it acheived). Only the concerted efforts of local campaigners and councillors has dragged concessions from Delancey, including Castle Square, a relocation fund, as well as the affordable retail units, but more is needed. Traders must be given more space for relocation and securer leases; the centre itself needs urgent maintenance and promotion, so that businesses remain viable. The relocation fund of £634,700 is not enough to for the number of traders who need its help.

It’s not too late

In the meantime, it’s not too late to put a stop to this disastrous and inequitable scheme. The application for a judicial review of the shopping centre planning permission continues its legal progress. We want the permission quashed, for a scheme with more social rented housing and a better deal for traders.

You can find out more about the legal challenge here and you can help fund our fight by donating here.

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MP4 Final Design Public Exhibition

Posted by tgntra

MP4 Final Design Public Exhibition

Lendlease would like to invite you to a public exhibition for the final designs for the fourth phase of Elephant Park. Masterplan Phase 4 (MP4) includes two development plots on Rodney Place, plots H11a and H11b (see above).

This event will be at Balfour Street Housing Project, 67 Balfour Street, London SE17 1PL on:

11am – 3pm Saturday 23 June
3pm – 8pm Tuesday 26 June

Outdoor cinema night in Elephant Park

Elephant Park will be hosting an outdoor cinema night on 12th July, and Lendlease want the local community to decide which classic movie will be shown! So whether you fancy yourself as the next John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John and want to dance in the park to Grease, or whether you want to travel Back to the Future with Michael J. Fox, visit the Elephant Park website here to cast your vote on which film should be aired.

This will be just one of a number of events Lendlease have planned for Elephant Park this summer. Keep an eye on the website for further details as these events are announced.

Chelsea Fringe activities at Elephant park

Posted by tgntra

In just a few short years the Chelsea Fringe has grown from a bright idea into a global festival of ‘grass roots’ gardening.

For this year’s Chelsea Fringe, which runs from 19 to 27 May, Elephant Park is playing host to a range of community-focused activities that will bring to life the joys of growing and green spaces.

In total, four events will be held next week which are free for all the community to attend.

Kicking off on Tuesday 22 May with the first ever Green Links Walk from Elephant Park to Burgess Park, and culminating on Saturday 26 May with Flowerful Elephant, a fun-filled day celebrating the area’s local gardens, growing groups, green spaces and the horticultural history.

To find out more about the different events please visit the Elephant Park website here.