Lewisham shopping centre demolition controversy: Council launch support drive
Lewisham Council and Labour across London have gone to bat this week for approved plans for Lewisham shopping centre after opposition was raised.
For those unaware the green light was given recently to demolish the existing shopping centre and car park. It’ll bring 1,700 homes, 661 student rooms and 445 co-living units.
Opposition to the move has been heard with a number of articles written online and arguments from opposition politicians. A key complaint is the low amount of social housing (98) with 2,500 Lewisham households in expensive temporary accommodation.
Like many boroughs the numbers in temporary housing is greatly harming the council’s finances and leading to service cuts. Just last month Lewisham Council’s Cabinet meeting saw a report highlighting “an increase of those in the most expensive overnight housing of 33.74% since Sept 2023.”
Fightback
Labour appear worried and perhaps rattled hence the recent offensive on why approval was needed with an article from the council leader Breda Dacres in the Standard being pushed far and wide by Labour politicians including the leader of neighbouring Greenwich Council and Sadiq Khan’s Deputy Mayor for Housing Tom Copley.
The piece is misguided in defending housing levels across London when construction totals are at truly abysmal levels in the capital. It also defends the Mayor who is miles off his targets given he front loaded them and totals recently are truly dismal.
This year housebuilding is at just 4.9 per cent of target in London. Not only is that pitiful but shows that targets alone mean little.
What’s also crucial is how many are social, council and at London Affordable Rent tenure (and not London Living Rent as mentioned which is often substantially more expensive) and that isn’t looking good.
Meanwhile households in temporary housing and costs continue to shoot up. The latest figures being a 42 per cent annual increase in costs to £2 billion this year.
Government funds
It should also be noted the Mayor’s funding for housing comes from the national Affordable Housing Programme.
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At the recent Spending Review, Rachel Reeves announced spending totals for that programme in real terms over the life of this Parliament (up to 2029) will be no higher than the last Conservative government. You have to look beyond the PR and press releases to see it, but do so and the totals are meagre.
In fact this year and next may ever end up lower than the last two years of the Sunak government when problems were spiralling. Even measures such as limiting (but not removing) Right to Buy in England were botched to such an extent last autumn under Labour when they gave substantial advance warning.
Of course then came a rush of applicants so now it looks like more will be sold than built for years to come.
Government actions ensure more than 18,500 council homes may sold in 2025/26 which would result in more sold in a single year than at any other time in the last 20 years. According to the i paper, it’s “a 162 per cent increase on the 7,065 Right To Buy sales in 2023/24”
Defence
In defence of Lewisham Council, hands are somewhat tied with the Lewisham shopping centre plan even if the did oppose (though they’re strongly in support). If a Viability Report states only a low amount of social homes are possible, councillors could refuse but it then goes to appeal and wins. The council are then on the hook for costs.
In addition, if the council cannot show a five-year housing supply is in place, they’ll again likely lose any appeal.
Where things don’t look so good for Lewisham Council and many other authorities is defending support by stating the impact on those in temporary housing when firstly, it contains very few social homes at just 98 flats compared to 1,700 homes, 661 student rooms and 445 co-living units (low grant funding for social homes under this government like the last doesn’t help there) and when the very same council sits on acres of public land where they aren’t building social homes for many, many years.
And in Lewisham, one vast site sits in the middle of New Cross at Besson Street. Existing residents and businesses were evicted almost 20 years ago with the site sitting empty ever since.
Given this is public land and high land purchase costs aren’t an issue (something which impacts Viability Reports for private development) then a council with such severe housing shortages opting for development with zero social or truly affordable homes isn’t a good look. Plans have been and gone and the latest is a “joint partnership” with private developer Grainger.
Lewisham are very careful to not state the tenure when highlighting “affordable” homes. That’s because it has zero social, council or LAR tenure dwellings.
The latest design is now six years old. Every few months the council’s Mayor and Cabinet discuss it, then little happens.
On a wider basis Lewisham have revealed development plans for other public sites across the borough of which some have been approved and covered on this site. One such recent site is a car park in Catford. Ideal for housing though only 39 homes will be social housing out of 119 labelled as “affordable”.
Despite 2,500 households currently in temporary housing a lot of public sites still see less than half at social rent levels which is doing little for that enormous bill to private landlords and B&Bs housing people which the authority are legally required to provide a home.
As part of the London-wide publicity drive Lewisham East MP Janet Daby also supported the Lewisham council leader where she refences car parks in relation to Lewisham shopping centre. All very well.
Less said though on just 39 of 119 homes recently approved being social housing on a council car park site. Hardly a dent in the 2,500 households in temporary housing.
And the most recent example was the council backslapping themselves in recent weeks regarding public land in Ladywell.
Though it’s been such a poorly managed project that there’s just 71 social homes agreed – a reduction from 112 council homes if the process had been handled differently a decade ago.
Private development
Advocates of development even with minimal social homes state the more housing is built, the cheaper it will be for all with resulting impacts to the bottom levels of housing costs.
Planning reform is also suggested to speed up building levels, yet private developers have hardly gone all out in the borough even after approval. Convoys Wharf is one stark example.
The 3,000-home project was called in and approved by then-Tory Mayor Boris Johnson a decade ago to speed up building yet not a single brick has been laid since, despite both outline approval across the site and detailed approval at a number of plots.
See also numerous sites around Bermondsey and Catford such as the Plassy island site. Not only has nothing been built for many years, nothing is imminent.
Combined with sluggish public building and there’s evident failure across the board dating back decades.
Next door
Many of these problems are London-wide issues (and beyond). In support of Lewisham, neighbouring Greenwich leader Anthony Okereke today also stated in response to Lewisham’s Labour PR drive: “More homes, more growth, and real answers to the housing crisis. I’m so inspired. Any party that blocks this isn’t protesting they’re sabotaging Lewisham’s future.”
Yet Greenwich too have a huge problem with households in temporary housing with totals now at 2,000. The excellent Greenwich Builds programme is being wound down for “joint partnerships” which have often been a byword for ceding control and minimal action.
And as seen again this week they are not using public sites such as the Waterfront to develop low cost housing or using their off-shoot developer Meridian to build market housing and reinvesting all profit into services or social homes, but instead selling outright.
A common theme for years as housing problems continued to grow, with nearby sites like Callis Yard and Riverside House sold to name but two. Waterfront’s car park was sold around 15 years ago. Building still isn’t complete under private developer Berkeley Homes.
At the Waterfront site now with this week’s news it’s the same old short term revenue grab at the expense of long term costs and once public land is gone, it’s gone, with ever more reliance from the public purse on expensive private housing as local authorities head closer to the brink, council tax goes up and services are cut.
After all, selling Callis Yard, Riverside House and the Waterfront car park to name just a fraction of public land sales has achieved little for the borough’s housing problems.
Complaints
So will this PR offensive from Labour work? It may keep some members happy who don’t look too closely at the details locally, regionally or nationally but for those on the fence (defections have occurred) with a bit of critical thinking skills and the public?
With public land sitting idle for many years, few social homes being built on said public land, social and private housing construction numbers across London on their knees at historic lows, low funding and grant totals from central government plus existing homes being sold off at a greater rate due to government giving advance notice of Right to Buy changes it seems little is going to arrest a continuing political slide for Labour.
At no level are things working well.
Here’s the thing; Lewisham shopping centre as a private site and government policies and funding as they are does leave a council with little levers to pull. Yet going in hard to support while berating others when just a fraction on site will be low cost homes during a massive housing crises – which is driving the council’s operational finances to the cliff edge – while also doing little with capital funding on their very own public sites is a terrible look.
An article or two and some social media doesn’t detract from the fundamentals. Labour are in power at all levels in much of London. They can’t keep pointing fingers.
Christ the gall of that opening from the council’s leader within the Evening Standard column is quite something. Talking of a child in temporary housing when the council presides over such a atrocious record of delivery really is taking the pee.
Refencing Corbyn ruining things. Eh? It wasn’t Corbyn that kicked people out in New Cross to not do a sodding thing for two decades with the land. It was well before him. It isn’t him that wrote the Spending Review and Budget in 2024 and 2025 that is doing so little and losing social housing. I can’t stand the man for many reasons but this fixation on him and deflection from responsibility is frankly pathetic. If Labour in Lewisham wanted to drive away a long term voter they’re managing it. Well done.
Ironic thing about land usage such as the New Cross plot is that if they’d sold it 20 years ago a private developer would probably have built it out with 35 per cent affordable housing including 2/3s social homes by now.
Now I wouldn’t advocate that but in contrast a public site built out by Lewisham in partnership is to see zilch. Nada. F all. And the very same council complain about others!
With no land costs as you state they should be able to strive for 50 per cent truly low cost housing with grant funding with homes perhaps reserved for those in professions such as healthcare or teaching. The reason the Greens and Corbyn probably will take votes at ease from Labour and why the party are doing so badly is that with Labour in positions of power at all levels of the spectrum in London this just isn’t happening. But Corbyn, Sultana, Polanski et al are the problems. They don’t even have any power in London for goodness sake.
In New York with the Mayoral election we’ve seen what just happened with housing and services. Laughable some in Labour here proclaim the win there for Mayor but if someone on that platform stood in London they’d smear him as far left and be on the side of the other candidates New Yorkers roundly rejected.
From what I have read it seems that Labour controlled Lewisham Council has approved these plans and they are now subject to a review by London’s Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan (which I think is normal procedure for a scheme of this size).
Don’t understand the need for a campaign in support of the plans – unless Lewisham think the Mayor is going to overturn the plans ?
Yep that’s the process and almost certain it’ll be given the green light by Khan.
This action is as they’re rattled by the polls, losing seats in by-elections and councillor/members leaving or defecting. In Lewisham they’ve lost some cllrs to the Greens. It’s a message to wavering members not to raise objections and toe the line with the threat of other parties.
Though there’s also some very poor ideas from the Greens on housing recently (some of which seem a public bung to private landlords) and Your Party seem to be imploding already but Lewisham Labour aren’t helping themselves with 20 years of mismanagement at sites like Besson Street which far predates recent issues. We’re talking projects dating back to new Labour in power under Blair and Brown.
Labour now under Starmer and Reeves aren’t helping with feeble grant funding for truly affordable homes in the current financial settlement whilst the cost of temporary housing rocketing for councils as does housing benefit to the Treasury due to high private rent levels. Now running around £33bn a year by some estimates and possibly heading to £40bn soon. Add in that 42 per cent annual rise for temp housing in London (and more beyond the capital – Kent, Essex etc are seeing massive problems) and the picture is pretty awful.
Who cares. That dump of a shopping centre and market outside is preventing lewisham getting better. The sooner it’s gone the better.
Dump?, have you seen Croydon shopping centre.
This is the same party that complains of other parties then leaves themselves open to criticism by their own actions and chronic failings yes?
Can someone buy them a mirror.
I live in Greenwich and the nearest shopping centre for me is Lewisham. All the attention seems to be more accommodation in the area. When will Lewisham have more hospitals, schools, doctors etc. And if all the tenants in the flats have cars where are they going to park them? I can’t imagine what Lewisham will be like in, say, five years time.
There is far too much social housing in inner London already. We need more private housing to lower housing costs for the majority of productive working people
That assumes the private sector will build at scale anytime soon. Sites like Convoys Wharf, Greenwich peninsula, Charlton Riverside, Bermondsey, Canada Water, Royal Docks, Silvertown Quays, Ebbsfleet and many more all have land sat vacant for 20, 30+ years as the private sector did and does little. It predates covid, safety and regulation changes recently seen such as second staircase rule and Building Safety Regulator, higher interest rates (which are still far from elevated on a long term basis) which are all given as reasons now but don’t alone explain decades of private sector lethargy all over London. Some of those reasons are a cause of a big slowdown, but assume we reverted tomorrow to how it was 10 years back. Build levels were still weak. Same 20 and 30 years ago. Props like Help to Buy didn’t see the London housing target get close to being hit. Did Funding for Lending? Or all the other misplaced schemes that pushed up prices ever more relative to wages leading to the current mess?
To get close to needed housing levels, reduce rents and prices it’ll need both public and private to greatly enhance building levels. Not one or the other.
If there was far too much social housing London council’s wouldn’t be paying billions to private landlords.
Look I get it, I’m a YIMBY too but cursory knowledge of development in London tells us the private sector are not building what is needed anytime soon. There’s some people without any real sense of history that think planning changes alone will sort the mess we have here and now. They won’t. Help? Yes but not solving by a long shot. The only time London came close under the private sector was pre WW2 with Metroland and outward expansion built alongside new rail lines andpost-WW2 in the 60s with a population boom, active government new town policies and funding which also saw all guns blazing with the public sector alongside. I’d love to get back to both but Starmer’s Labour are never doing it and so the private sector are never doing it either. Extremely elevated land values also mean it’s simply not happening anytime soon.
Labour isn’t working.
It was true then and it’s true now.
Lewisham centre is a shell of its former self. It needs modernisation. It already became outdated when the Glades opened in Bromley. Now in 2025 its a relic.. I even forgot it had a leasure centre behind the boots. Its all went downhill when C&A and woolworths closed. The writing was on the wall. It needs new life.. with quality homes and businesses again.. Lewisham has gone into a social decline. Let the developers come in and fix the area. Build on the un used green blets of land by A2.. uk is full of it. Pay the rent to the developers.. dont block growth and evolution. More supply cheaper rent for everyone. Stop changes, less movement and higher rents.
@Del: ‘Let the developers come in and fix the area.’ The developers have ruined the town centre with the forest of ugly, highrise blocks that has created a wind vortex strong enough to blow people off their feet. There is nothing of merit and much of the retail space remains empty because the rents are too high. If that is your idea of a fix, I don’t know what to tell you.