Surrey Quays shopping centre demolition change approved: 3,700 homes though fewer are affordable

Changes to a masterplan covering Canada Water and Surrey Quays shopping centre have been approved today having been called in by the Mayor.

The vast project will see the demolition of Surrey Quays shopping centre and 40 buildings across the site. Affordable homes once totaled 35 per cent in a previously approved plan though developer British Land and AustralianSuper (a pension fund with a 50 per cent stake in the project) then claimed just three per cent would be viable.

They then pushed it to nine per cent which is the level now approved. The developer asked for the Mayor to call in the plan and make a decision instead of Southwark Council saying discussions were taking too long. Total homes have grown from 2,815 homes to 3,700 since previous approval.

Blocks including those closest to Surrey Quays station will increase in height.

Approving a development with so few affordable homes will go down badly with many not least in his own party, as households in temporary housing have soared and resultant costs to London councils push many to the brink.

Yesterday in another controversial move the Mayor allowed developers to pay less Community Infrastructure Levy to councils until 2030 that funds projects such as transport, health and education.

The Mayor and Housing Secretary Steve Reed have portrayed it as a win, though it will see substantially less funds for councils across the capital placing further strain on finances.

Public sites

With so few truly affordable ones on private development now permitted by the Mayor and government what about public land? Well, the Mayor hasn’t exactly set the world alight there with starts at extremely low levels.

Aside from sluggish council building via funds the Mayor is given from central government (which over this Parliament is no higher than the last Tory government in real terms) TfL are also still sitting on many long vacant plots via their Places for London development arm with the Mayor ultimately responsible for that.

If private developers aren’t going to build affordable homes it’ll require a big uplift on public sites, yet Places for London have hardly excelled.

This week Places for London held a Board Meeting discussing various projects. There was no mention once again of long vacant sites such as Woolwich DLR plots. It’s now 17 years since the line opened and TfL agreed a joint venture with Oakmayne. Nothing has ever been built.

Other sites have sat vacant for a decade if not more. Limmo Peninsula is one such area near Canning Town. Kidbrooke took years to start and stopped two-thirds through. It’s believed recent staircase rule changes have led to the pause, though the meeting this week and related reports give no indication of a restart date or any progress.

PfL under the Mayor have also pushed joint public-private partnerships on public land, which has often meant glacial progress of any progress at all when the private developer pulls back plans. With interest rates now looking likely to rise again what’s the odds private developers withdraw or pause projects on public land?

Councils

Other public sites across London under council control are also seeing few if any social or council homes built, with many councils instead buying existing homes to help the homeless in turn evicting private tenants putting them at risk of homelessness. This is a policy the Mayor has actively supported.

Rather than using public funds to build new social homes councils are using funding from the Mayor to buy existing homes, often at vast cost and higher per unit than building new.

We now have a situation where councils such as Lewisham proposing zero council homes on large public sites such as Besson Street in New Cross (which has just been revised again having sat empty for 20 years) after they adopted a public private partnership while at the same time paying vast costs to house around 2,000 households in private temporary accommodation. Those costs play a part in wide ranging service cuts. And now councils will see less CIL revenue to mitigate.

Will it be built

We’ll have to see if British Land move any quicker having managed to get the Mayor to agree to an increase in homes at Canada Water and reduction in affordable housing levels.

There’s plenty of examples of large plots going nowhere after having Mayoral call-in such as Convoy’s Wharf in Deptford. Not single brick has been laid after Boris Johnson approved it when Mayor 12 years ago. Much like the Canada Waterscheme the developer asked it to be called-in to speed up a decision.

It made no difference. It remains a vast expanse years on despite subsequent approval of detailed plans on certain plots.

More widely in London the current plan from the Mayor and government seems to be allowing private developers to be let off contributing to services via the Community Infrastructure Levy, reduce affordable homes targets and hope for the best while failing to speed up public building on public land to any great degree via councils or public bodies like Places for London.

Will that work? They’re placing an enormous amount of faith in private developers to overwhelmingly provide housing yet havn’t delivered for many, many years across the capital at numerous sites such as Greenwich peninsula – while refusing to back a big increase in new public house building on public land.