Deptford High Street re-presented

The Academy of Urbanism has shortlisted Deptford High Street in its Urbanism Awards 2016. The awards aim to recognise "the best, most enduring or most improved urban environments". The Academy has visited and assessed "over 100 outstanding examples of good urbanism" in the UK, Ireland and Europe – and our high street is one of 15 finalists.

There are five categories – European City, Great Neighbourhood, Great Place, Great Town and Great Street. Deptford High Street has been shortlisted for the latter category, along with Cairns Street (a residential street in Liverpool) and Oliver Plunkett Street in Cork. The winners of each category will be announced on November 6th at the Academy's Awards Ceremony.

Update 9 November: The 'Great Street Award' was won by Oliver Plunkett Street in Cork. For more info on the winners click here.

Tower of Babel by Barnaby Barford
© V&A

Meanwhile, the high street is one of many represented in Barnaby Barford's Tower of Babel at the V&A. Barford has created a six metre tower out of 3000 individual hand-made bone china buildings, each depicting a real London shop. Barford calls it a snapshot of our times; it "forces you to think where you fit into this hierarchy of consumption". Expensive shops and galleries make up the top part of the tower, with the cheap shops at the bottom. Creative Review notes that "It feels apt that it is the cheaper stores that are the easiest to examine at the base of the sculpture, as arguably these are the most unique, compared to the high street chains and even fancy boutiques that are out of sight higher up". There are 32 Deptford shops at the base of the tower.

Each of the small models are for sale, varying in price from £95 to £6000. You can browse the Deptford shops via the online V&A shop – they vary in price from £110 to £250 and, at the time of writing, over half have sold but you can still pick up Kids Love Ink for £210.

Deptford High Street also features in the child-like drawings of Jeanette Parris, who is 'lead artist' at this year's Deptford X. For last year's festival, Jeanette "spent time talking with local residents and stallholders at Deptford Market" and her depictions of those conversations were printed as a comic  and handed out free. This year she has "been building on these conversations" to create an animation called Brief Encounter.

A scene from Brief Encounter © Jeanette Parris @ Deptford X 2015

The theme of this year's festival is 'Deptford Conversations' and Jeanette will be talking about Deptford with 50 other 'guest' artists about what they feel is relevant to it. Deptford X runs from 25th Sept to 4th Oct.  Follow on Twitter @DeptfordX and Facebook. Also see the Deptford Dame's round-up.

Meanwhile, local fears about gentrification of the high street are demonstrated in the leaflet below that was distributed in last Saturday's market...(click to enlarge).

New developer buys into Creekside gold rush...

Number One Creekside is the latest bit of real estate in our vicinity to be snapped up by developers. The owner of this popular MOT Testing Centre (opposite the Bird's Nest pub) has sold out to Bluecroft Property Development.

On their home page, Bluecroft announce their new land purchase (May 2014, apparently) as a site with "potential for a large residential new build development of circa 150 apartments".

In an effort to distance himself from this boast, one of Bluecroft's two directors, Tom Mulligan, told us that this refers to another site in Deptford, but he wouldn't say where. So it's probably this one. With 150 flats to fit in to this medium-sized plot, it is likely there will have to be a tower block.

Tom said they specialised in "Affordable Commercial", a mixed use of housing and commercial space – with the affordable emphasis on units for 'creatives' rather than homes that ordinary people can afford. Conscious that he was talking to a local artist, he was keen to show his awareness of the area already being a 'creative and small business environment'. This is also the designation for Creekside given by the Council, though this did little to stop Faircharm Estate owners Workspace cutting its affordable commercial employment space by two thirds in order to build luxury flats by the Creek.

Bluecroft say it will take two to three years to work up suitable plans and they will do their best to consult with their neighbours, since they "are a small company who cannot afford refusals" – in other words, they cannot afford to appeal if planning permission is refused. It is equally true that the Council cannot afford appeals either – there is only so much they can do in the face of aggressive market interests (and practically nothing at all when Boris Johnson steps in and takes planning control from them, eg Convoys Wharf, where the GLA has bent over backwards to give the Hong Kong developer everything it wants). Anyway, just how small can Bluecroft be if they can also boast a £150m project in a secret location in the City?

The north London outfit are also already ensconced in Lewisham – they include Riverdale House next on their list of recent projects. This is a bit odd since Galliard Homes are already actively promoting a whole floor of (15) properties 'off-plan' in this "all private" development (with no 'help to buy'). One way or another, Bluecroft are partnered with some big sharks.

Perhaps they will operate in a similar way to Cathedral plc's Deptford Project. They 'worked with' the Council in its plans for the new station and claim to have 'worked with the community' (the train carriage and low-rent 'creative' spaces in the arches). They certainly threw some money at the area around their site, but where's their investment in Deptford now? Nowhere to be seen. Since they arrived in Deptford, they've acquired large sites in Greenwich. Building on Deptford Project aka Rise was delayed whilst they concentrated on their Greenwich High Road site, and at Morden Wharf on the peninsula they're now pretending to be terribly concerned about the future of the river (and all those terrible high rise luxury developments!).

Then as soon as building started in Deptford they brought in IP Global to sell their properties overseas. See our recent post, and also the Deptford Dame's new post on local reactions to IP Global's marketing strategies. (See the video which provoked protest at the end of this post). It remains to be seen what businesses can exist and survive in the renovated arches, but the busy market and cafe culture depicted in their visuals will be in shade for most of the day.

Will they be offering special rents to social enterprises? Why aren't they doing that now in another part of Deptford – and showing their on-going commitment to the area? As the ex-director of Deptford X Visual Arts festival often noted when trying to raise funding, developers only give money when they are trying to curry favour. Once they have their planning permission, the funding dries up. This year's (late) funder was Anthology – new kids on the block, and making all the right noises and showing themselves to be well cuddly. They only appear 'nice' because they're not as awful as Lend Lease or, indeed, Hutchison Whampoa.

Still, even if Bluecroft intend to pretend to be friendly (quote Tom Mulligan "I come from an artists' background, so I know all about the arts"), it is blindingly obvious that development is their business and they are out to make shitloads of money (as the Deptford Dame coins it). And that is almost preferable to the deception being forged by the wolf-in-sheep's-clothing that is the owner of Number Three Creekside. Mr John Cierach (whose portfolio also includes the yard behind the Bird's Nest and the Big Red Pizza Bus) claims to be creating a "creative hub" for this little corner of Creekside and has tried to convince locals that he is "fully invested in the creative life of the area". Fully invested alright – with his secret plans to buy the Bird's Nest pub and turn it into flats (so far resisted) and his fanciful idea of building flats under the DLR viaduct (nice!).

[Ironically, whilst Cierach's plans to stage weekend late-licensed live music events attracting up to 500 people give nearby long-term residents on Crossfields much cause for concern, a brand new residential development at the MOT-Bluecroft site would be incompatible not only with that, but with the already well-established activities at the Bird's Nest. Venues are often shut down as a result of noise complaints from people who move into new developments knowing full well there is a lively and popular venue nearby – hence this recent e-petition.]

Ultimately, the issue we have with developers is that they are not building the homes that ordinary Londoners can afford. Creating balanced communities is simply not their business; their role in 'regeneration' is totally skewed. Bluecroft Property's plans may include affordable creative business units but they'll probably be the 'micro' kind suitable only for trendy mobile app designers who have been outpriced in Shoreditch. And then only because the Council have asked them to – so that they can continue to attract development money to Lewisham! But Bluecroft are under no obligation to provide any remotely affordable homes. Are they?


"When the artists start coming, that's when you want to get in" Tim Murphy, IP Global.
Er, they're already here, Tim, you knob, and you're pricing them out so they'll all be gone soon.

"Buy-to-let opportunity in exciting location with growth potential"

There is nothing particularly surprising about the price of this single Deptford Project (aka 'Rise') flat being sold off-plan (before it has been built) by World LTD via primelocation.com. At £604 per sq ft, it's a bit pricier than the existing new-build luxury flats in the area (£593 per sq ft at Creekside Village) and after all, there are two properties on the high street presently going for £1m+ (a Grade 2 listed building on Albury St and an architect-designed contemporary building in Mary Anne Gardens).

On the Prime Location website the flat in question appears to be the only one left from this development – the others having been marketed overseas or via Conran Estates as investment opportunities with rental yields of 4.75% earlier in the year. (see our April post).

Our only reason for posting about it now is to share the amusing blurb being used to sell it. As usual, Deptford is "considered 'the new Shoreditch' (where prices are £1,000 per sq ft)" and "has more artists than anywhere in London". It is "an area poised to be a hub for young urban professionals". ...And it's only "6 minutes to London Bridge". No mention of the upcoming changes to the Southeastern train service - see our next post!

Property consultant (and director of 'Properties of the World') Jean Liggett writes:

I visited The Rise in Deptford, and the local area at the beginning of July – it was a gorgeous day and I left the town excited, for buyers, residents and visitors alike.

I took the train from London Bridge and it literally takes just six minutes. The development is right next to the recently rebuilt station and has its own private entrance – the first in London to do so.

It is also only 15 minutes from the City and Canary Wharf on the DLR, which is just six minutes’ walk away.

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has earmarked Deptford as one of London’s ‘main opportunity areas’. [ No he hasn't! ] It has huge potential for capital growth and I think you are looking at a 5-year return of around 100% on capital invested in the Deptford Project.

I noticed on my walk that the population is a real mix that includes local business people, artists, students, parents with children, professionals and people from the creative industries.

In my opinion, the area is following the same pattern as Shoreditch did a few years ago – the ‘trendies’ move in first, prices rise, and the professionals follow. There is already a lot of building going on, as well as some recently completed building.

The Deptford Project is about a 10-minute walk from the river with fabulous views of Canary Wharf. A bit further on you can see the Gherkin.

This is an exciting area that until now has been slow to experience the price rises of other parts of London. But with its regeneration underway and its excellent transport links, the area has huge potential for capital growth.

Ironically, the statistics posted in Prime Location's 'Local Info' show a more recognisable picture: 

Deptford Project sold to Hong Kong

So the train's gone, and work has begun on Cathedral's £48m Deptford Project – much to the annoyance of local residents who now wake up to the sound of diggers.  

What a long way this project has come. Originally the redevelopment of the site was part of Lewisham Council and Joan Ruddock's idea to revitalise both Deptford station and the area around it. Richard Roger's firm Rogers, Stirk, Harbour & Partners was brought in to come up with the design below in collaboration with Ash Sakula Architects.

Cathedral won the contract to build it in 2007. Now, after a long delay since planning permission was granted, they have raised the cash to actually build it – by selling the entire block of 121 flats to Hong Kong investor IP Global.

According to this report, this is "the second project in Deptford that IP Global has invested in. The company recently bought a block of 64 flats in a scheme at Hilton’s Wharf on Deptford Creek for £30 million".

Hilton's Wharf is not actually in Deptford (and also not built yet). It's the other side of the Creek in Greenwich. Obviously Deptford is no longer a word that scares foreign investors away, despite the feelings of some snobby residents in the Creekside Village development on Creek Road who are desperate to change their postcode from SE8 to SE10.

Update: 9th April 2014

Conran Estates are now involved in marketing the development "in trendy 'up and coming' Deptford". They say, "This development is being marketed across the world, mainly Asia, but we have secured an early opportunity to offer to local purchasers for both residential and investment purposes".

Since the site hasn't been built yet, who else but investors and buy-to-let landlords are likely to snap up these apartments? ('Yields' are forecast as "up to 4.75%", whilst "predicted prices in the City will increase approximately 19% over the next 5 years".)

Prices are: Studios £260k - £270k; 
1 Bed £320k - £350k; 
2 Bed £395k - £495k; 
Exec 2 Bed £575k - £690k; 
2 Bed Penthouse £605k - £755k
There are: 14 x Studios, 36 x 1-bed, 59 x 2-bed, 6 x exec 2-bed, and 6 x penthouses.

The "Investment Case" states:
• Located in the heart of the trendy and up and coming Deptford with a 1 minute walk to the Deptford overground station
• A very attractive location for those who work in the City of London or Canary Wharf
• Deptford has been hailed as "the new Shoreditch" with farmers' markets, coffee shops and boutique retailers now occupying the area. Steeped in history, the area has been singled out by Boris Johnson as a key investment/regeneration area due to its close proximity to the City.
• The area is to become a smart residential neighbourhood, with the addition of a new Waitrose only a few minutes walk away
• The Deptford Project is part of a £42 million dollar regeneration of the area which will include cafes, restaurants and boutique shops...

Oh, how we laughed!

Catch the midnight train to...Greenwich

Deptford High Street's iconic train carriage is being moved this evening between 8pm and midnight (and possibly as late at 2am) and taken to be stored at Morden Wharf in Greenwich. The squatters are gone, the gates and decking have been removed and the Elvis loo looks a little sad, stranded on its own!

We asked the café business owner Rebecca if it's coming back. She's said, "It wants to come back to Douglas Square. But there's a slight hitch in that the only place it could be sited (to prevent any issues with the existing structures like lighting columns and market trading spaces) is by the Albany. But the Albany is planning to move their front entrance to face the square which will be better for the building as a whole but means the carriage would only have a short time frame in the square. It would be expensive to move it again!"

The train will be stored for the time being at Morden Wharf courtesy of Cathedral plc who are developing the riverside site on the Greenwich waterfront. Rebecca said, "The Council have been very helpful in navigating where the best place is for it to sit in the long term, and Cathedral are supporting my wish for it to stay in Deptford and not take it anywhere else." (The developer had at one point wanted to re-site the train at their new development in Brighton). "In the meantime I might open a little caff in the square just to keep the business going."

We asked what's happening with the Elvis loo. "All the plants and decking have been saved and are going to Tidemill's Assembly garden project. The Elvis loo is still up but there's nothing much left to save and the squatters left it in a bit of a mess. They've also written all over the tables, walls and floor, and had electric heaters on 24/7."

One of the squatters wrote in the comments section on our previous post about the carriage that they would keep the place clean, and even claimed to have changed the electricity bill to their own name. But it seems the more responsible among them were staying with their parents over the Christmas period when things got out of hand. During this period, a local shopkeeper witnessed an ambulance turning up to take a party-goer – who had overdosed on drugs – to hospital. The electricity is still in Rebecca's name.

Was she having a special send-off tonight? "No special send-off. It's all been a bit emotional and a bit of a rush! Now it's time to focus on the future." She hopes people will have good memories of the train, and look forward to its return.

The train arriving in 2008, and more recent and sunnier times...

Update: The train left tonight at just before midnight. Bye for now!

Train carriage squatted, and Creekside cafe to close

Plans to move the train cafe to Douglas Square have been taking a long time, and we heard it could be up to a year before it is relocated. In the meantime, the Deptford Project developers Cathedral plc had now agreed to help the cafe business owner's storage problem by moving it to one of their other sites in Greenwich (yet to be redeveloped) so that building work can commence on the Deptford site. But at the end of last week the train was squatted.

This is the same notice as was pinned to the door of the old Job Centre (perhaps even the very same notice), which was squatted at the end of September, just as refurbishment work was about to start on the new pub that is planned for the building. Although a train is not a pub, it seems the same rules apply, and no-one except the squatters can enter the premises. The decking was due to be removed and donated to a garden project, but now cannot be touched since it would deny the squatters access to their new pad. The electricity supply was also due to be cut off, but the squatters say it would be a breach of their human rights to remove their only source of power, which means the cafe (not the developer) may be stuck with a large bill.

No one was in when the site security guard let us into the yard on Saturday to take these photos. The developer's schedule will now be held up until they can get a court possession order. Not that they have seemed to be in any hurry to get started since they got planning permission several months ago.

Meanwhile, another local cafe is about to close, also thanks to redevelopment – the Creekside Cafe on Creekside, part of Faircharm Trading Estate. Their lease is up and there's no point in renewing it, since some time in 2014 building work will begin to turn a thriving employment zone into luxury housing. This will last three years or more and bring great disturbance to Crossfields residents. Unfortunately, a Lewisham Planning Committee agreed earlier this year that Workspace plc cannot make enough profit for its shareholders by simply providing actual workspace.

Creekside Cafe's situation differs from the train cafe in that its owners (Mason's Catering, already a fairly successful catering firm based on Deptford Church Street) knew nothing about Workspace's plans to turn Faircharm Trading Estate into luxury flats and chuck out the businesses that the cafe serves when they took on the tenancy. The train, on the other hand, was initially supported by the developer, who paid for its installation as "meantime use" on the site. In return, Cathedral ingratiated itself into the community with its branding, whilst boasting the cafe's successes as its own. Until, that is, they got their planning permission and wanted rid of it.

The same clever developer did the same last year with the pop-up Mvemnt Café by Greenwich DLR, which was run by Greenwich Co-operative Development Agency, who knew the limits of the project – to cash in on the Olympic pedestrian traffic to Greenwich Park. Perhaps a fine example of "meantime use". Cathedral hailed it as a great success, though we hardly ever saw or met anyone there (since most Olympics punters were herded away from it and all the other Greenwich businesses).

It seems "meantime use" can only work if the business can be easily relocated or closed down. But even then, a planning application can take a long time to come to fruition, and there are often delays in building phases once permission is got, so any business who takes up a "meantime" offer suffers enormous insecurity about when they must move out. In the meantime the business may have become established in the community, sorely missed as a community resource when it's gone, and the business itself left with debts it has no chance of recouping if it cannot easily relocate. And even if they can, like the businesses being chucked out of Faircharm, relationships in the community built up over many years are severed by a move to another borough or town.

Meanwhile, Creekside Cafe has only been around for a relatively short time, but their cheap and tasty food proved popular with and highly convenient for local artists, craftspeople and residents – and those Creekside businesses who haven't yet been forced out by Workspace's new plans for Faircharm.

Train cafe update

If you're missing the train cafe terrace in this lovely weather, you'll be pleased to know it will be open on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays for the next four weeks.

Meanwhile, Lewisham Council is conducting a feasibility study on the logistics of relocating the carriage to Douglas Square. The results of this will be known soon.

The picture above was taken by Sarah Lee for a recent Guardian feature Ten British restaurants with unusual histories.

Garage Sales at the Deptford Project as occupants make way for the new development...

The future of the Train Café still hangs in the balance and depends very much on the will of the powers-that-be wanting to find a way for it to stay. However, the staff have already found new jobs, so the carriage may not be able to stay open much longer in its present location. (See our previous post Wave goodbye to the Deptford train cafe). Update: Last day of business is Saturday 6th July.

Meanwhile the artists and businesses who have been occupying the development site are on the move. Those at Deptford Project Arches (behind the train) must be out by Sunday. Studio Raw have just relocated their container to the old Tidemill school playground. Union Cycle Works are keeping their new location under their hat.

Borohome.co.uk (aka Boro) have not yet found a suitable new home. They are brilliant recyclers (or upcyclers to use the fashionable term) and make old objects beautifully new again, specialising in furniture (tables and chairs), textiles (great bags!), jewellery and other objects.

Check out their Closing Down Sale at their Arch on Friday 5th (midday – 5ish) and Saturday 6th (10am–5pm). Some of the sale items will be the oddities they have collected for projects never brought to fruition, but there will also be the chance to grab something at a greatly reduced price from the range of upcycled items they sell at Columbia Road. Everything must go!

Next weekend, it's the turn of the artists in St Paul's House Project Space to have a clear out. They're having a Garage Sale starting on Friday 12th July, 6-9pm, and continuing on Saturday & Sunday 13th & 14th (12-6pm) until everything's gone...by which time it may be confirmed whether they will find a new home in part of the old Tidemill School...

Also see The Deptford Dame's latest news on this development: Cathedral's Richard Rogers-designed Deptford Project (or Deptford Rise, as their partners Union House call it) might be downgraded a bit now that Rogers' firm has pulled out from taking the project through to completion, and a cheaper architect takes over.

Wave goodbye to the Deptford train cafe

When building work finally commences in a couple of months' time on the delayed Cathedral/United House development next to Deptford station (see pic below), one of Deptford's most recent and best loved landmarks, the café known to locals as "the train", will have to move.

The café has been given notice to be off the site by 31st August, but a decision over where it will go must be made within the next week. Whilst Cathedral have offered to help with some of the relocation costs, another option is that they buy the train business and move it to Brighton, where they are 'delivering' an "Innovation Quarter". Meanwhile, the café staff have been given notice, as have the creative business tenants in the arches, who have been offered space in Canning Town.

The train café was originally planned to be moved to sit alongside the new station – the perfect place for it. It appears on this model which was viewed during the 'consultation' (though was missing from the application drawings).

There is certainly plenty of room for it here. There is also room here for a nice big anchor.

But Network Rail own the land in front of the station and they have said the train café would compromise the franchises they want to put in their arches, eg their corporate partners Costa Coffee. Surely the developers must have known this might be the case when they submitted their plans?

Might the train go here instead, under the Mr & Mrs mural?

No, Lewisham Council says the train is too heavy. The anchor was also considered to be too heavy to go here. Watch out the pavement doesn't cave in next time you walk on it!

Could it perhaps go here, in Douglas Square? Or are there other vested interests vying for this space? If it can't go here, then it's goodbye to the train cafe.

Update 20th June 2013: Still no news on the train's new home, or if it can stay. Some of the displaced artists and creative businesses may relocate to Tidemill, but nothing is confirmed.

Update 29th June: ditto above.



CREATIVE DEPTFORD AND THE DEVELOPERS

The marketing pitch of all developers is that Deptford is a thriving creative community, yet these days a great many of Deptford's creatives are actually homeless. Businesses are being chucked out of Faircharm to make way for luxury apartments, Utrophia's temporary time on the high street is up just as soon as Antic get their planning sorted, and the artists in St Paul's House must also move out at the same time as those in the Deptford Project yard.

Lewisham Council, which enjoys the vast amounts of Section 106 money that comes from these developments to spend in other parts of the borough, also trades on Deptford's creative reputation whilst failing to ensure there is adequate accommodation for the people that created the reputation. The Council have just re-signed the contract for Newbould Guardians to stay at the old Tidemill school – a property that could accommodate a hundred creatives yet only houses about ten, at enormous expense to Lewisham's taxpayers whilst making a tidy profit for a private security firm.

Cathedral plc say on their website: "In summer 2008 we installed a 1960s commuter train carriage into a site next to Deptford High Street train station in south east London. We put it there to kickstart a £42m mixed-use PPP regeneration scheme with the London Borough of Lewisham in partnership with United House...The Deptford Project Café has become a popular place with Deptford locals. Lovingly restored by neighbourhood craftsmen and run by a local group, the café acts as a creative hub for the community and as the focal point for The Deptford Project. It has been featured in media all over the world and was hailed as London’s grooviest new café. Vogue magazine included The Deptford Project Café in their top 50 favourite things in London....We continued our placemaking by opening up the abandoned arches under the carriage ramp and letting them on a temporary basis to local craftspeople. They have built a vibrant community there..."

But now we're chucking them all out!

United House, who call the site Deptford Rise, say "it is a £60m PPP project to include 138 private homes, new public space, live/work units and office space for small, creative organisations. The Deptford Project is already established as a thriving and quirky community initiative where features include a cafe in a disused train carriage, pop-up markets and an outdoor cinema in summer."

So the people who have built the vibrant community, who have helped to create Deptford's reputation as a creative hub, must fuck off so that new creative spaces (which no one will be able to afford) can be built. The creative scene in Deptford is down to two main factors: Goldsmiths College and cheap space. The latter is now only available as a result of temporary spaces created by developers while they thrash out the details of their luxury home developments with Lewisham Planning. The only creatives who can survive the onslaught of the developers in relative security are those who can afford to own their buildings.

There could be a smoother transition from temporary to permanent in these situations, but there is not. What makes an area unique in the first place is disregarded and unsupported when it's time to sell the luxury flats to overseas investors (see Alternative SE4's latest post). The Deptford X visual arts festival only gets support from developers when they are sucking up to Lewisham Planning in the initial stages. Never mind, eh, creative people are a sturdy bunch used to living on the edge in total insecurity, and those who find themselves having to leave are soon replaced by the next batch of plucky graduates, a factor that the developers are relying on. There is no "now", there is only "the future". In the future, all creatives are envisaged as operating solely in the digital world, where space is virtual.

The buzzword for developers and planners is Placemaking. This is originally defined (since the 70s) as capitalising on a local community's assets, inspiration and potential "to create good public spaces that promote health, happiness and well being". There is indeed now much capitalising on the community's assets – in this case, 'Creative Deptford' – in order to drive up the value of new luxury apartments and increase the profits of the developer.

The main driver for the massive Convoys Wharf development is Deptford's "creative" reputation. The fact that the site has enormous historical significance is more or less disregarded since preserving and celebrating that aspect would get in the way of building 3,500 flats (3000 of which are likely to be marketed to foreign investors). Heritage is mainly to be acknowledged in place naming only. In its "Cultural Strategy" the developer states that their plans will make Deptford "the new Shoreditch" whilst conveniently forgetting that that part of the East End is located right next to the wealthy City of London, and hundreds of creatives had to move out before all the new trendy people could move in.

Still, in the time it takes for the Convoys site to be built (some twenty years or more), there may be opportunities for cheapish temporary spaces, but not for some time to come, so this will be little comfort for those caught in the present developer-led transition. Such is the poisoned chalice of regeneration.

Sold down the river...

If you wondered what was going on with those cranes on the other side of Deptford Creek, the above visual is from Cathedral plc's planning application for their development in Norman Road. It's called The Movement. Read on to see how your landscape will change over the next few years (with a focus on the river)...

The Movement application for Norman Road SE10 was submitted to Greenwich Council in 2010. We weren't consulted even though it has a significant impact on our skyline if the cranes are anything to go by, which can be seen from the other side of Deptford.

Proposed buildings are always shown in isolation, renderings rarely show the true impact, and only planners know what's going on elsewhere in the area. On these borders between Lewisham and Greenwich, you may wonder whether there is any collaboration. Historically there is very little.

In the 2011 planning drawings (submitted to Greenwich), The Movement's new towers are set against the backdrop of Creekside Village, as if to say "our towers are quite modest and unobjectionable" compared with what's planned for the area.

Click on the image below of The Movement to see a larger view of what is proposed for Creekside Village EAST that has yet to materialise. It shows a really massive tower to add to the horrendous wall of glass that is already there (Creekside Village West). This would be on the site behind the Laban and straddles the borders of Greenwich and Lewisham.

Hidden behind the tower would be two more towers and another 'wall' style block. Both councils approved the plans in principle for Creekside Village East, but whilst Greenwich signed off on it, Lewisham held out over the Section 106 agreements. One of the pay offs for Lewisham would be a theatre space and extra facilities for Trinity Laban, but there was also a bridge across the Creek proposed that had little design (or practical) merit. Some time has passed since the last revised drawings in 2007 so plans will have to be reviewed, along with the Section 106 aspects. (View the old application here). Apparently, we were consulted – the Community Consultation statement says local residents on Crossfields and Millennium Quay attended a meeting held by Creekside Forum in 2006 (first we've heard about it!). Here's a promotional shot from 2009 that we posted in March 2010:

 

And below, the view from the bridge on Creek Road in which two of the new towers and the new wall are visible.

And a view from Creekside in which all four new buildings can be seen looming up behind the Laban.

The present view from the Creek:

Very recently, planning permission has gone in again for the footbridge that would cross from the Laban (west side) to Norman Road (east), which the Deptford Dame has written about this month. Update: It is now rumoured that the Laban bridge may be the one aspect of the old application that needs to be completed before the developer (Ampurius Nu Homes) can sell off the Eastern side of the site to another investor. It is thought that the poor bridge design is unlikely to be approved, and the Creekside Village East project may be delayed still further. We hope.

Closer to home, Workspace's Faircharm application uses Creekside Village West to show how modest their tower is in comparison. If the drawing was extended further east, it ought to show also the proposed Creekside Village East super-blocks and The Movement development. But it doesn't.

The drawing tries to show that views are not obscured very much for anyone standing in the road and that there is no loss of light, although everyone in the flats in front of the development on Crossfields will have a radically altered view and loss of light. The developers claim they'll have a better view because they'll be looking out onto a nice development instead of an industrial estate that the developers themselves have allowed to run down.

Meanwhile, the plans for Creekside Village West & East have served to make every other developer's ambitions look modest in comparison. We already have the monolithic new wall separating us from the river that is Galliard Homes' Capital Quay. The density of this development means there will be no light at all to the apartments at its interior.

Further out along the river, there's a new 40-storey tower planned for Surrey Quays (below)...and more towers at Greenwich Peninsula. Perhaps though, slimline towers (Seager Tower?) aren't quite as bad as the the 12+ storey blocks that always seem to surround them. The height, density and massing of the surrounding buildings are what cause loss of light and wind tunnels and make a development even more inhospitable and inhuman.

Back in Deptford, after a long lull (developers ran out of cash, rented out site as film set), building is progressing apace at Paynes & Borthwick Wharf down by the river on Deptford's Watergate Street (Greenwich), where local residents endure work going on six days a week, stationary concrete mixing lorries queue in the street waiting to get onsite, construction workers park anywhere they like (including in front of the Dog n'Bell, preventing beer deliveries) and Twinkle Park is littered with construction workers' drinks cans and fag butts. Here's a model of the development shown in isolation to its surroundings...and as it is on the street behind (with a similar block to Crossfields, Rowley   House, on the left).

Almost right next door is the 40-acre Convoys Wharf (aka The King's Yard). This week we shall see what Farrells have planned for the site since their first engagement with the project last year. It is still likely to be 3500 flats and three very tall towers. Below are two renderings by the previous architects Aedas (2011), followed by Farrell's model, shown in July 2012. Farrells lowered the heights of some of the surrounding blocks and paid lip service to the history of the site, but the density remained, as per the brief of their masters, Chinese conglomerate, Hutchison Whampoa.

 

Like the architects before them, Farrells insists on talking about the towers at Convoys Wharf as a way of 'landmarking' Deptford as seen from the river and Canary Wharf. Obviously, tall buildings are a way of getting maximum return on a site, and to this day, News International, who sold the site to Hutchison Whampoa, still have a profit share on the luxury flats sold.

At a recent 'public' meeting Workspace also described their proposed luxury residential tower at Faircharm as a way of 'landmarking' Deptford Creek. The change from industrial use (employment) to mixed residential use will apparently fund the renovation of the much reduced business space. Residential use is required, says Workspace's Development Executive, because "Lewisham is a net exporter of employees to jobs in central London". However, not building luxury flats by this riverside, they say in their planning application, would be a "missed opportunity".

The gift that keeps on giving, of course, is public access to the river (or muddy Creek). But at what price?

That brings us to an article called Sold Down The River written by Deyan Sudjic, an architecture journalist writing for The Observer in May 2003. He is now Head of the Design Museum. Here are a couple of extracts:

Change in itself is not the problem. We have gained a lot from London's new relationship with its river. Tate Modern and the London Eye have both created new areas of the city, bustling with life, a healthy mixture of uses, and all the attractions that a view of water can bring. But a lot more of the new Thames is not like that. Large stretches are dominated by a continuous wall of riverside apartment blocks that have driven out everything else, to create a tidy but sterile monoculture. The river has become a thin strip of affluence, existing in a bubble that has nothing to do with life in the rest of the city just a street behind.

Now developers, driven by soaring land values to extract the most out of every inch of riverside, build as close to the river as they can. Whole stretches are now lined with apartment blocks, built to take advantage of the views of the river, but the result is to offer residents spectacular views of all the other ranks of balconies on either side of them, and on the other side of the river, looking back at them. In the process the Thames has been turned into something very much like a very long thin football stadium. 

Read the entire article here.

See also Owen Hathaway's recent article The Shard: Beacon of the left's skyline in The Guardian on 12 February 2013, a little less than ten years later than Sudjic's. Hathaway argues how the Section 106 agreement, by which local authorities are able to bargain some sort of public infrastructure out of developers, has failed spectacularly. Not helped, of course, by the relaxation in planning laws that now allows developers to duck out of any commitments to affordable housing (let alone housing that is actually affordable).

Postscript 28 February

For Crossfields, the immediate problem is Faircharm, where the owners wish to make the most of their land next to a very muddy Creek. Someone told them it was a river. Which it is. Across the way, architects BPTW who own the land across the Creek almost opposite the Laban had planned a tower. They have now modified their ideas. At the southern end of the Creek, Galliard have a hold, but Creek dwellers may be alarmed to hear the rumour that Lewisham College are reconsidering the sale of 'the island' again, a piece of concrete that straddles the Creek and which the Ravensbourne is channeled through to appear on the other side of 'Deptford Bridge' and provide a lovely setting for the Seager development. 

The Movement can't really be considered a riverside development. We mention it because it grows stealthily on our doorstep, and it's particularly relevant because it has displaced an industrial business site (an employment area) which had to be closed a few years ago to make way for it, in the same way Faircharm businesses will be closed down to make way for residential flats. The Movement is also in Greenwich, who don't seem to have any credible planning policy. But, although we haven't examined the respective land ownerships, it doesn't seem much different to Thurston Road, another business site which was sold off and is now being developed to join the towers of the monstrous new Croydon-like development on Loampit Vale. Update 6 March: see also Alternative SE4's news on the stalled Lewisham Gateway development.

Cannon Wharf and Marine Wharf also look to put more stress on the Evelyn Street area. (See  Alternative SE4). Round the corner there is the massive Surrey Canal Road development.
 
Also see: What is the right way to regenerate in London?