The Heygate viability tribunal

Thanks, Russell, this article looks excellent.

Reading the article in The Guardian makes me weep for poor old London...and the ordinary people in it...

Councillor Mark Williams has responded to The Guardian article without actually mentioning it.

Russell Cronin wrote:

Did you see this article in Wednesday's Guardian? Explains how Section 106 provisions are used by rapacious developers to assess schemes as being 'not viable'. Also reminds us how ill-equipped Councillors such as the docile idiot, Peter John, lack the skills, training & nerve required to face down phalanxes of corporate lawyers. As if we were unaware.

Jan, I think that's the reason to feel so strongly about the issue across the city.

I genuinely think we only feature in their plans as impediments - obstacles to clear out of the way from the path of unrestricted development and profit-making.

I take the point made in the article that urban development has always been messy (and by definition, the poorest will be most vulnerable to losing out), but I think Johnson, in contrast, has a very clear agenda of making London safe for massive inward investment for profit, with housing need not even featuring.

At the end of the day, the fact that most of this activity derives from overseas is irrelevant. Whatever its origins it seems like a systematic agenda to squeeze poor people out.

I imagine what is planned is similar to Paris - a massively overpriced inner city/city centre, with low-income households banished to peripheral rings miles from places of work, and effectively ghettoised.

Jim, the travesty is not that London's Banlieus are planned, but that they may simply emerge.

graham wrote:

Jim, the travesty is not that London's Banlieus are planned, but that they may simply emerge.

I take your point, Graham, that they will probably emerge as an 'organic' feature of the squeeze on housing for low-income housing, as opposed to being planned on a drawing board.

The Johnsons of this world are probably not overly concerned whether the London poor are pushed to the metropolitan periphery, or, as happened in Newham (albeit not for the first time in London), social housing tenants were 'incentivised' via cash offers prior to the 2012 Olympics to move right out of the South-East to towns/cities in the North and Midlands that had surplus, unoccupied housing (and no jobs).

There is a local campaign to force an investigation / review of shambles that was the sale of the Heygate Estate. If you would like to lend your support, you can sign the petition here: http://www.change.org/p/heygate-estate-scandal-demand-an-investigation

35 Percent has now had its say: 'The Guardian and BBC (Inside Out, 8th Sep.) stories reflect a wide-spread public view that developers and housebuilders are making big profits at local people’s expense and taking Southwark for a ride (an online petition demanding an investigation into the Heygate development has gained over 700 signatures in 3 days) and a couple of press releases from Southwark won’t change this view.' Indeed.

[quote Russell Cronin]Councillor Mark Williams has responded to The Guardian article without actually mentioning it.