Save Tidemill & Reginald House update

Save Tidemill campaigners met with the new Mayor of Lewisham Damien Egan and new Cabinet Member for Housing Cllr Paul Bell on Tuesday evening to demand that the redevelopment plans for Tidemill be re-drawn and that Reginald House residents, whose homes will be demolished as part of the plans, are given a ballot on the regeneration of their homes.

Before and during the meeting protesters staged a demo outside Lewisham Civic Suite, with their numbers swelling as night fell.

Save Tidemill campaigners outside Catford Town Hall on Tuesday evening

The meeting and protest came the day after a small group of Save Tidemill members, accompanied and supported by GLA Member for Lewisham & Greenwich Len Duvall, met with the Deputy Mayor of London for Housing James Murray to discuss how the GLA might 'call in' the scheme in order to explore alternative options that took the local community's needs into account. But later on the same day, to Len Duvall's great annoyance and campaigner's disappointment, the Mayor of London announced his final word on the scheme and passed it back to Lewisham Council, having declined the campaign's request for the GLA to take control of the development. 

But he also urged the Council to give Reginald House residents a ballot. Monday's GLA report stated, "in line with his Good Practice Guide the Mayor wants to see ballots used as widely as possible, and so he would urge the landlord of this scheme to undertake one”. 

The GLA signed off on providing funding for much of the affordable housing on the site earlier in the year, which led to Reginald House residents (as one of 34 sites due for demolition across the capital where planning permission has already been granted) being exempted from the new ballot rules when they are implemented. So this was either a cop-out or a challenge to Lewisham Council: if the council is actually behind the idea of ballots (as promised in the Lewisham Labour manifesto), there might still be time to implement one for this scheme. The GLA knew there was still time to change.

Although the plan to demolish Reginald House was approved by the planning committee in September 2017, the process is still incomplete and requires a sign off on the Section 106 agreement with the development partners, housing association Family Mosaic (now part of Peabody Homes) and private developer Sherrygreen Homes. In addition, the contract with them was signed 4 years ago this very month and is due for renewal. During that time, Family Mosaic have merged with Peabody. So it sounds like a great time to review the contract, and for a new administration to embark on a bold new plan to get a better deal than the original contract which sees our dear leaders disposing of publicly owned land to private developers for a quarter of its value.

Campaign banner on the side of Frankham House

Len Duvall also joined and led the meeting with Mayor Egan and Cllr Bell on Tuesday evening on behalf of the campaigners, and opened up the discussion for everyone to speak. Apart from the demand for a ballot for Reginald House, the main request was that Egan and Bell go back to the drawing board with the plans for the site and not push through the current plans which so many local people oppose. 

Save Tidemill said their alternative architectural plan for the site (which Egan and Bell seemed unaware of) showed that it is possible to keep Reginald House and Tidemill Garden whilst building at least the same number of units as current plans; it demonstrated that there was another way. Unfortunately, when originally presented to the Council and its partners in 2016, it had been quickly dismissed without any consideration. Monday's GLA report noted that the alternative plan hadn't even passed through any pre-application examination, but in reality this was because the Council hadn't permitted any examination to take place. 

Save Tidemill told Mayor Egan and Cllr Bell how they have continually tried to engage with the planning process but have been ignored and even sneered at by the Council's development partners. Len Duvall said the community and the residents of Reginald House had been treated appallingly by the Council and this should never happen again. Both Egan and Bell blamed the previous administration for the way things had been handled, with Bell stating he would not entertain the scheme in its present form if it were to come to him now as a new proposal. 

The fact that the new Mayor was Cabinet Member for Housing in the previous administration and would have therefore overseen the scheme was defended by Cllr Bell with the assertion that the new Mayor will no longer be the sole decision-maker in Mayor & Cabinet, unlike his predecessor, Mayor Bullock. One wonders what exactly Egan was doing all that time as he seemed (as did Bell) not to be at all familiar with any of the details of the Tidemill scheme (other than perhaps the affordable housing quota). Cllr Bell then robustly defended one of the campaigner's claims that making Mayor & Cabinet more democratic made no difference because it was still the same unelected Council Officers who were running the show and lying to Councillors in order to get schemes approved. It was later revealed that Cllr Bell had come to the meeting armed with inaccurate figures prepared by those same officers.

Campaigner outside Catford Town Hall on Tuesday evening

The regeneration plans for Tidemill were drawn up by the Council more than four years ago, in a process which began in 2008 after several permutations looked at how the land at the old Tidemill School could pay for the blingy landmark Deptford Lounge, the development of which LBL had fronted and which the school moved into in 2012 (and promptly became an academy!). The housing element of the scheme was built by Galliard and sold to L&Q and is now known by its tenants as the Titanic as it was so badly built. Two other council blocks in Giffin Street were originally included for demolition in the Tidemill scheme, but were dropped from the final plans due to fierce opposition from leaseholders. In 2014 Family Mosaic won the tender to deliver the scheme and promised to provide 35% affordable housing. However, they were unable to deliver more than 11% (or 16% according to the Council) when the application went to planning in September 2016. This was the main reason it got 'deferred' and sent back to the drawing board by the Strategic Planning Committee. 

Campaigners outside the town hall

Another year went by while Reginald House residents waited to find out their fate – with their lives, as well as repairs to their homes, on hold.

Although very little at all changed on the design of the scheme, the September 2017 application saw quite an improvement in affordable quotas, due to Family Mosaic's convenient merger less than a month before with the much larger Peabody Homes, who have better access to GLA subsidies. The quota rose to 37% (or 41% according to the Council) and the application was passed by 4 out of 6 members of the Strategic Planning Committee (with 3 of the committee being absent!). In the meantime, the GLA policy had changed and they now required schemes to have 50% affordable in order to access funding. So it was another six months before a figure just below 50% (the Council say 54%) was achieved due to the Council accessing its magic money tree and finding an extra £4.2m to contribute to the project in March 2018. As we have written before, none of the figures are publicly available, but it is unlikely that Sherrygreen Homes will be out of pocket and will still make a guaranteed 20% profit on the development, subsidised by public funding. 

Currently the proposals are for 209 homes, of which 74 would be 'socially rented'. While the tenants at Reginald House have been promised (nothing in writing) that they will pay the same Council rents as they do now, everyone else housed from the waiting list in the new 'social housing' will in fact have to pay London Affordable Rent, which in Lewisham is actually around 37% more.

As if you didn't know by now, the Council's plans also require the destruction of the Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden, a thriving 20 year old community garden originally created by children, teachers, and parents from Tidemill School with public funding. When the school moved, the garden was taken over by Assembly SE8 and local volunteers, who developed it into an educational and community wildlife garden that attracted both funding and ultimately accolades from the GLA Greener Cities programme which cited the garden as a case study in August 2017. The planning submission in September 2016 put paid to all this educational and outreach work as who would fund a space that might close at any minute? But volunteers have been trying to keep the garden open ever since with occasional events, and have kept the grounds in great shape. 

Events in the garden this June (click to enlarge)

Meanwhile, the Council insists on referring to it as 'meantime use' which negates the fact that it is an open green space that has existed for more than 20 years in an area where green space is being depleted. They even managed to persuade the GLA planning officers that it was merely a bit of brownfield scrubland that local volunteers couldn't manage to keep open regularly enough for it to be considered a public amenity – conveniently forgetting to remind the GLA how one of its other departments have supported and promoted it so keenly. 

Reginald House residents have been living with the threat of demolition for 10 years. More recently they have been harassed by council officers continually wanting to assess their housing need and to see proof of identity of everyone living in the property. One resident told the meeting with Egan and Bell how she had been racially abused by a council officer when she refused to answer the door to them, news of which appeared to shock them deeply. The Council has not responded in any meaningful way to the residents’ most recent petition (signed by 80% of them) other than by an acknowledgement from the Housing Strategy Team that could be read as a threat to keep harassing them. 

The Council's response to the Reginald House petition (click to enlarge)

Pauline, Sonia and Diann asked Egan and Bell not only for a ballot but also for Lewisham Homes to undertake repairs needed to their homes to make them safe and decent. Reginald House is structurally sound and has had a new roof, boilers, kitchens and bathrooms within the last few years. However Lewisham Homes has been ignoring requests for minor repairs, whilst failing to carry out more major refurbishment such as double glazing, external decorations and new fire-safety front doors. This has left the tenants with rotting and drafty windows, blocked sinks, unpainted walls, dangerous electrical powerpoints and other neglected repairs including front doors that not only don't meet fire safety regulations but are also falling off their hinges.  

After hearing about the harassment by council officers, the lack of formal written offers and the appalling state of non-maintenance of their homes, Cllr Bell told the tenants at the meeting “I personally guarantee that I will look at it myself” before passing the buck to local councillor Brenda Dacres who was also in attendance. God knows how Dacres is going to find time to liaise with Lewisham Homes on tenant's behalf, having just become joint-Cabinet Member for Parks, Neighbourhoods & Transport with responsibilities for "Arts, Sports, Leisure, Culture, Town Centres, High Streets, Night Time Economy Strategy, Parking Enforcement, Highways and Transport".

The residents kept saying they did not want to lose their homes and were not interested in the new homes, but Bell's response was to continue to encourage them to consider how they would best like to be accommodated in the scheme – ultimately sounding, in his repetition, not dissimilar to a holiday resort timeshare rep – whilst insisting that “the Council’s biggest priority is its residents”.

We have to wonder exactly what Lewisham Homes' role in estate regeneration is. They seem to be complicit in 'managed decline' (when an estate is allowed to get run down over a number of years prior to long-planned redevelopment, a tactic used most often to justify demolition) whilst benefitting from it. An FOI request has revealed that in the time that £104,000 was taken from Reginald House residents in rent and service charges, only £126 was spent on repairs. We have seen the same at Achilles Street in New Cross, where repair expenditure over 6 years was less than £240k while income to Lewisham Homes was over £2.6m, and the Council's plans for that site (the demolition of 87 homes and 15 or more independent businesses) haven't even gone to planning yet. 

Reginald House residents have heard very little from Lewisham Homes but a lot from Lewisham's Housing Strategy Officers, whose verbal promises have not been supported by written assurances. Tenants fear their close-knit community will be broken up, they'll be given smaller homes, have their rent increased and lose their gardens. Even with the best promises in the world, they don't want to leave the homes that they love. Their roots are not just in the area, but in the very fabric of their homes.

Reginald House and the garden beyond (Winter 2018)

Campaigners are hoping that Egan and Bell will spend further time in considering their demands, and come to a more enlightened and progressive view on how the scheme proceeds. Ideally they might reflect on their election pledges to offer ballots to residents threatened by demolition, and not to sell strategic land to developers. Both pledges negate what is happening at Tidemill, and the power is now in their hands to change things. 

They could pay more than lip service to existing core policies such as Objective 5 (to reduce carbon emissions), Objective 7 (to protect and capitalise on open spaces and environmental assets) and Objective 11 (to strengthen quality of life and well-being). With 79 trees proposed to be felled at Tidemill Garden, perhaps they could also pay attention to their Biodiversity Action Plan in which they promise to "maintain, protect and increase the number and quality of trees in the borough" and that's not even mentioning the full biodiversity of Tidemill Garden, let alone the opportunity it offers local people, especially children, to experience nature on their doorstep, instead of being municipalised into a clinical environment by a remote elite in Catford.

In the past, Cllr Bell supported the local campaign "Don't dump on Deptford's Heart" to stop Tideway Tunnel from taking over the green amenity next to St Paul's Church on Deptford Church Street to build a shaft that could have been built by the river. Locals lost that campaign – as well as 44 trees and a large chunk of green. Tideway construction vehicles are now queuing up in a lorry park on Deptford Church Street, adjacent to Frankham House (and opposite Cremer House) with the bus lane disabled, contributing to increased pollution in Deptford Church Street that is unmitigated by the loss of trees at the St Paul's site (till 2022), and will not be helped by the loss of green space at Tidemill. Nor at No.1 Creekside, but that's another urgent post to come. 

In 2013, while serving on the Strategic Planning Committee Cllr Bell was minded to refuse permission to Workspace plc for their redevelopment of Faircharm Trading Estate. At the meeting he made an impassioned speech about how "Deptford is always being 'done to' – and never 'with' ". He's now in a better position to stop us being 'done to', but the impression campaigners got at Tuesday's meeting is that there won't be any changes at Lewisham Council that will benefit Deptford any time soon. 

To arrange interviews with Save Reginald House and Tidemill campaigners, or for more information on the campaign please contact Harriet Vickers, 07817724556, harriet.vickers@gmail.com

Also see the Save Tidemill Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/savetidemill/

Tidemill and Reginald House update #1 – secrecy and lies

On March 15th, Lewisham's Mayor & Cabinet met in secret to approve further plans for the redevelopment of the Tidemill site that includes the demolition of Old Tidemill Garden and 16 council flats at 2-30A Reginald Road. This was one of two agenda items discussed behind closed doors that night (the other being their plans for Besson Street) due to "commercial sensitivity". While campaigners protested outside the town hall, Cllr Joe Dromey (New Cross ward councillor and  Cabinet member for Policy & Performance) tweeted the outcome of the Tidemill item:

“Great Lewisham Council meeting this eve. Delighted we’ve been able to increase the number of social homes at the Old Tidemill development. It’s now 54% social housing, and 75% affordable. There will now be 117 socially rented homes on the new estate, an increase of 104 social homes. I think that’s the largest amount of social homes delivered in any development in the four years I’ve been a Councillor.” 

While Joe's figures are a little inaccurate (see below) he's right to say it's the largest amount of social homes delivered in any development in the past four years, including any council-led schemes. For example, at Heathside & Lethbridge, the council-led "regeneration scheme" at Blackheath Hill/Lewisham Road, the two estates combined originally consisted of 638 flats (527 on social rents and 111 leaseholders). The Council estimated it would cost £29.3m to do a high quality refurbishment (beyond Decent Homes standards) on all the blocks.

But instead they chose to partner with Family Mosaic housing association to demolish all the blocks and build 1192 new flats at a cost of £272m. According to figures provided by G15 (the group representing London's largest housing associations), at completion of the phased redevelopment in 2020, only 17% will be 'social rents' (199). 21% (248) will be 'affordable rent', 11% shared ownership/equity, and a whopping 52% (616) will be for private sale. This represents a loss of 328 'social rents' – and decanted tenants take priority on the Council's waiting list, depriving others on the list.

So, there certainly a need for some rebalancing! Meanwhile, with no further info than Joe's tweets to go on, the Deptford Dame was able to report four days later that the Council had published some very short minutes of the key decision made on Tidemill (which can also be found here – look for Deptford Southern Housing Sites):

“to increase the amount of affordable housing through increased grant funding, to change 43 homes from private sale to London Affordable Rent (social rent) at a cost to the Council of £4,310,211, and 16 homes from private sale to shared ownership at no additional cost”.

That's more or less it. But let's go back to Joe's figures. If you add 43 additional London Affordable Rents to the original 61 (74 new builds minus 13 demolished tenanted homes) you get 104, as Joe said. But this is not 54%, it is under 50% (of the total 209 units). And if you add 16 additional ‘shared ownership homes’ to the original 22 (25 new builds minus 3 demolished leaseholder homes), you get 38. 104+38 = 142, which is not a 75% total of affordable housing. It is under 68%.  

Never mind, it's a great improvement on the previous quota (8% in 2016 and 41% in 2017) and in fact is well over the 50% required by the GLA to grant funding (at around £60k per affordable flat). Trebles all round. In fact, if there's that much subsidy sloshing about and quite a lot of it coming from the Council itself in previously unused Right To Buy receipts as well as selling the land at "less than best consideration" (actually about 25% of what Family Mosaic paid for its site at Sun Wharf), then why it is still necessary to DEMOLISH 16 HOMES and a much needed mature green space, when no one who actually lives here wants that?

The residents at Reginald Road certainly don't want it, but does anyone listen to them? They have been living with the threat of demolition since 2008 and have several times petitioned against the demolition of their homes. The latest petition was handed in to Lewisham on April 24th and was signed by 12 out of 15 residents (there are 16 homes, but one is presently empty).

Not only have the residents declared several times that they want to keep their homes, but the plans involve a stock transfer (from Lewisham Homes to a housing association), which by law, requires a ballot. Like Heathside & Lethbridge and others, they have never been offered one. Lewisham get round this by offering tenants rehousing in Council property in other parts of the borough if they don't want to move to a new housing association flat.

The Mayor of London (along with Lewisham's Mayor-in-waiting) is now proposing mandatory ballots of residents for schemes where any demolition is planned, as a strict condition of any GLA funding. Soon after consultation on the policy began, Sian Berry (London Assembly member for the Green Party) discovered that the Mayor of London had already signed off funding for 34 estates to dodge his own new ballot rules. Unfortunately, Tidemill is on that list because the GLA signed a contract for funding in January, despite not yet having approved the planning application in full.

We put in an FOI request to see the officer's report that led to the key decision made on 15th March behind closed doors. The answer is as expected – the Council are not required to oblige the request. This is because they are partnering with private companies – Peabody Housing, Sherrygreen Homes and Mullaley – who are not public bodies. This confidentiality applies to any regeneration scheme where Lewisham partners with housing associations and private builders.

Architects for Social Housing (ASH) spent over three years trying to obtain figures from Lambeth Council via FOI when working on alternative community-led plans for the Central Hill Estate in Crystal Palace. They concluded: "The desire of the private sector development partners to hide such information…should be an argument in favour of disclosure in any proposed housing development – let alone one based on the demolition and privatisation of publicly owned assets; let alone one that will receive millions of pounds of public funding…"

They go on, "In the wake of Grenfell, how can any council continue to hide its financial deals with private sector partners behind the cloak of commercial confidentiality?... Who can deny that it is not in the public interest to know the corners being cut by the kind of private deals that made the Grenfell Tower fire a disaster waiting to happen, when those same deals are being withheld from public scrutiny on every estate regeneration scheme that demolishes council homes and replaces them with developments built and managed by private companies?”

Housing associations are private companies. Even the Mayor of London says in the draft new London Plan (para 4.10.5): “Given the impact of estate regeneration schemes on existing residents, it is particularly important that information about the viability of schemes is available to the public even where a high level of affordable housing is being delivered.”

Surely £4+m of public money and the sale of public assets to a private company demands full transparency?

Demolition Deptford #1 : Tidemill update

We're long overdue to report what happened at the Planning meeting on 27 September. It was not a good outcome for Deptford. Yes, there will be new 'affordable' homes built, but at the expense of demolition of both valuable green space and a block of homes where none of the tenants want to move.

Before the meeting, protesters made their feelings known with placards, drums and chants outside the town hall. But once inside the council chamber, those who'd never attended a planning meeting before in their life were quite shocked to see what a flimsy relationship Lewisham strategic planning has with any notion of democracy.

For starters, only 6 out of 10 councillors serving on the Strategic Planning Committee were present, just one of them with extensive planning experience (housing overlord and new Mayor Damien Egan's campaign manager Kevin Bonavia). Quite astonishing for a major and controversial application that impacts so much on the area. See here for 'apologies' (sadly, Cllrs Hall and Curran amongst them).

You can read the minutes here, but here's an additional viewpoint:

Speaking against the application in the short time allowed (and with only one week's notice of the meeting) was a small group made up of the campaign co-ordinator from Deptford Neighbourhood Action (DNA), a resident of Frankham House, two residents from Reginald Road, as well as GLA Assembly member for Greenwich & Lewisham, Len Duvall.

Speaking for the applicant were a 4-person team from Family Mosaic, supported by the Council's Strategic Housing team (remember, this is a Council-led scheme).

Not one representative from the development partner, Sherrygreen Homes, who stand to make such a huge profit out of building the scheme, selling off the private housing, was available to speak. The committee was presented with a cuddly, supposedly ethical housing association applicant, with no mention or sign of the hefty and unnecessary price Lewisham will have to pay to see its scheme proceed.

It was quietly revealed that Family Mosaic had ONLY JUST managed to secure the affordable element of the scheme by "merging" with Peabody Housing Association, a process that had started in December 2016 and completed in July 2017 – a cynical move that gave Family Mosaic access to the GLA grant funding it needed to fund the 'affordable' element on this site, without which the scheme would have collapsed. (And which enables Sherrygreen Homes to continue to make well over 20% in profits).

Perhaps unsurprisingly, with the Council's ambitions and reputation riding so much on a scheme that has been planned for ten years or more, there was some heavy mis-direction from the Head of Planning Emma Talbot and also the Chair Amanda De Ryk. For instance, it was implied that work could not go ahead on the sister scheme at Amersham Vale until this application was approved.

The Council's Strategic Housing team claimed they had consulted fully with the tenants of Reginald House and with the Old Tidemill Garden team. Speaking for the garden, the campaigners countered that the Council's position had not changed at all since the deferral last year. The Chair made much of the fact that Len Duvall had chaired the meetings as if to imply everything had operated democratically.

The fact that nothing about those meetings was democratic was not examined. There had been two meetings of note: one in which how the garden team should fuck off somewhere else (but nowhere else could be found); the other in which all the ideas from Tidemill Garden were incorporated into a slim strip of land like a sort of Disney Tidemill on a very small scale.

When the Housing Team claimed a letter had gone out only the previous week to tenants at Reginald Road explaining all the terms of their re-housing on the new site, elderly resident Pauline stood up from the audience with her hand held up to request to speak.

She was told to sit down by the Chair but members of the audience murmured her concerns – she had not received the letter. Councillors fussed over whether letters had been sent as 'signed on delivery'; the Housing Team admitted they had not and there was no proof letters had been sent. Nevertheless, the lie remained, unexamined any further.

Under "standing orders" (in which Councillors who are not members of the committee are allowed to speak) New Cross Councillor Brenda Dacres said that the Amersham Vale development was being "held to ransom" and there was no reason why it could not go ahead while the Tidemill site was reviewed. (Brenda has been supportive of the campaign against demolition of both the garden and Reginald Road homes, and pointed out that the new Tidemill school had no garden and had been using the old garden).

According to the rules, anything that Councillors say "under standing orders" is not supposed to influence the decision "in any capacity". So it would follow that Brenda's support should not influence Councillors.

Meanwhile, Cllr Joe Dromey sneaked into the meeting late (having arranged with the Chair for "standing orders" to be postponed until he got there because he'd been at another meeting), and spoke fully in favour of the development.

Note: As soon as Dromey was elected he was appointed to Mayor & Cabinet (his mum is Harriet Harman, his dad is Jack Dromey). No one in the Mayor & Cabinet seems capable of speaking against Mayor & Cabinet decisions (tho Joe insists he voted against the Millwall CPO). The committee wouldn't be influenced, right?

Dromey hadn't even been there to listen to the residents (his parishioners) speak about how they didn't want their homes demolished and how they hadn't been properly consulted or kept informed of what was going on. He's probably not sure where it is.

It's unfortunate for Deptford that two of its Councillors are part of the elite status quo (Mayor & Cabinet – the other being Paul Maslin) that controls everything in Lewisham, including the constituency Labour Party, and has so little regard for what happens locally.

The Chair (Amanda De Ryk, now known locally as Amanda 3rd Reich) ruled against any question of the committee looking at the possibility of the scheme being redesigned (as requested by Deptford Neighbourhood Action and Cllr Brenda Dacres) or examining the contractual arrangements with Amersham Vale that were supposedly holding up the sister project. Apparently, these nuanced aspects were strictly "not under consideration for this application". Nothing at all, in other words, was relevant for consideration except the improvement in affordable housing – which had only been achieved at the last minute by Family Mosaic doing a deal with Peabody.

It was Cllr Bonavia who swayed the vote, head in hands, pretending to find it a difficult decision to demolish a precious green space and 16 flats (even though his career depends on towing the party line in Lewisham in support of Damien Egan – new housing at any cost). The fact that he'd been told that only one resident in Reginald Road had shown support for their home being demolished seemed to be irrelevant.

Cllrs Suzannah Clark (Labour) and John Coughlin (Green) were the only ones brave enough to vote against. So the application was passed 4 to 2 (or 4 out of 10).

Note: NOTHING from Lewisham Homes on this matter. No defence of its tenants, no comment about how they chose not to use Decent Homes money to refurbish the outside of 2-17 Reginald Road (not that a refurbishment by Lewisham Homes' contractor MITIE would have inspired confidence since everything they did was awful and still in dispute). Happy to unload care of its stock onto Family Mosaic Peabody. Also too excited about being in charge of "infills" on estates in its care to understand what it means for its tenants to become part of a building site.

Ironically, on the very same night Jeremy Corbyn made his closing speech at the Labour conference; here's what he said about Labour's new policies on housing:



"Councils will have to win a ballot of existing tenants and leaseholders before any redevelopment scheme can take place."

Clapped by everyone, but obviously not a policy backed by Lewisham nor any other Labour borough currently engaging in regeneration of its own land and properties by selling off land at cut price and demolishing buildings they could have refurbished.

This led to the left in the local Labour Party tabling a motion (carried overwhelmingly, apparently) to ask Sadiq Khan call in the decision on Tidemill. The GLA have to review the application anyway – the question is whether enough social housing is being achieved, considering how cheaply the new owners are getting the land for (in Tidemill's case, a fraction of what Family Mosaic Peabody have paid for private land elsewhere in Deptford – e.g. Sun Wharf).

See also this new piece in The Independent that includes Reginald Road, questioning why Labour Councils feature so prominently in regeneration schemes where tenants don't get a say. "...they are opposed to giving residents ballots because it doesn't fit in with their paternalistic attitude or their culture of having absolute control. They have a big plan and they won't listen to any alternatives" (Sian Berry). 

Meanwhile, the Tidemill Garden campaigners have also written to the Mayor of London asking him to call it in, appealing to the loss of green space, especially when he has just launched the Greener Cities programme, hoping to make London the first National Park City, and has Tidemill as the first example of good practice.

An update by Old Tidemill Garden is also available here.

Also, all this this is about to happen on a bigger scale at Achilles Street in New Cross, with four blocks and several businesses at stake. Another great idea from Lewisham Planning Central that has no regard for the people living or working in the buildings it appropriates (and demolishes) in its grand plan (that ultimately makes loads of money for a developer).

(Post edited and updated 3 Nov 2017)

"And so to Greenwich..." : 'Pepyshow' at National Maritime Museum

Pepyshow was the name of a community drama group in the 80s who put lots of shows on at The Albany. They were based at Pepys Estate. The clue is in the name. Samuel Pepys was Secretary to the Admiralty and used to spend a lot of time in Deptford, keeping an eye on the navy's operations at Deptford's Royal Dockyard (now Convoys Wharf), visiting his friend John Evelyn and cavorting with Mrs Bagnell, the wife of a shipwright. Hence the streets and tower blocks near the river in Deptford are named after all the prominent people of that time – including ships captains and slave traders such as Hawkins and Drake.

Under Pepys' stewardship, an ambitious new shipbuilding programme was initiated on the orders of Charles II, its purpose to counter the threat of the Dutch navy and a rapidly expanding French fleet. The construction of the 'thirty ship' programme represented the pinnacle of English shipbuilding practice. The famous diarist's adminstration helped carry the Royal Navy to a position of global maritime supremacy, and he regarded this work as his greatest lifetime achievement.

Pepys was also President of the Royal Society during a time of hugely significant scientific exploration (including the work of John Evelyn), and he was Master of Trinity House, founded at Deptford Strand. So you'd expect to see a mention of Deptford in this new exhibition about Pepys at the Maritime Museum, wouldn't you?

But no, true to form (like most of the other general exhibits in the museum), there is hardly a SINGLE mention of Deptford in Samuel Pepys: Plague, Fire, Revolution.

Considering this is a maritime museum which bills itself as the "gateway to intrepid exploration and endeavour at sea", the section entitled 'Control of the Seas' which covers Pepys' role in the navy and the consequent "development of Britain's place as a maritime, economic and political force on the world stage" is surprisingly small. The sections on plague and fire are similarly small and underwhelming, despite the exhibition's title.

There is a mention of his good friend Evelyn, also a famous diarist, in the penultimate section 'Science and Society' where an original copy of Evelyn's great work 'Sylva' is displayed. But no mention of Evelyn's home and experimental gardens at Sayes Court in Deptford, next door to the Royal Dockyard – and just a stone's throw from Greenwich.

An interactive map of important London places is on display in almost every room, but does not extend beyond London Bridge. Our search for any reference to Deptford exposed a map of Harwich in the navy section which bore the microscopic legend "presented to Pepys as Secretary of the Admiralty, President of the Royal Society, and Master of Trinity House of Deptford Strand".

And if you pay the extra £2.50 for an audio guide on top of the advertised £12.50 ticket price, you'll hear an actor reading exceedingly short excerpts from the famous diary. Next to the copy of Sylva, the talking guide begins "And so to Deptford by water..." as Pepys heads down to see Evelyn. That's it for Deptford.

There is much emphasis on Charles II's mistresses (while missing out a lot of them) but no evidence of Pepys' womanising with Mrs Bagwell. His love of theatre and music takes up a lot of space with a shadow theatre presentation of small segments of Macbeth and Dryden, but the main focus is on the 'repositioning' of the British monarchy after the English Civil war, aka the Restoration. Interesting as it is (unless you're particularly phobic about the monarchy), the information is still paltry and confusing.

They certainly make a big deal, as you enter the show, out of a grand painting of Charles I being be-headed, with special spotlighting on parts of the painting that tell the story and provide a context, all of which you could easily miss if you arrive before or after it's scheduled to be 'interactive'. We're not sure if we heard or saw the word 'Catholic' mentioned in the entire show, but see for yourselves.

The exhibition is designed around what artefacts were available. Pepys' actual diary is not one of those, unfortunately, as Pepys' will confined it to Magdalene College, Cambridge, never to be shown elsewhere. Extracts available either by audio or interactive screen are limited, yet the scope of the exhibition covers before and after Pepys kept his diary (which he stopped long before he died). Even so, the British Museum's 'A History of the World in 100 Objects' managed to say more about the whole world than this show does about the Restoration with 200.

If you really want to know what was going on, when, where and who, you'll have to buy the book, which is £25 (£30 hardback). According to the index, there are about four mentions of Deptford in it, which is a vast improvement on the exhibition itself. They're also selling a comprehensively illustrated tome called 'Pepys Navy' by naval historian David Davies which has countless references to Deptford, but it's displayed on an unreachable high shelf – as if they're unsure what a visitor to a maritime museum might actually be interested in.

Merchandise consists of expensive metal fire buckets painted grey (!), and tins of Twinings English Breakfast Tea. The important fact that tea was first introduced to the UK by Charles II's queen, the Portuguese Catherine of Braganza, is one that you could easily miss in the exhibition unless you'd read the caption for the Chinese porcelain teapot lurking among the display of silver coffee pots.

As for the flavour of Pepys and the people he dealt with in his day to day dealings...well we still have the diaries. The value of this exhibition is its political overview, and what the diary did not cover when Pepys stopped writing about London. But generally you'd be at a loss to find any evidence of ordinary people in this entire show.

-----------------------

Greenwich would be nothing without Deptford, and it's about time the museum acknowledged that fact. Hopefully, Deptford's homegrown projects will redress the balance in the future, offering a better understanding of the past and the part that ordinary people played in it aside from the political machinations of the time (though these cannot be ignored, especially now). The Lenox Project not only wants to construct a replica of the first ship in Pepys' thirty ship programme, but also intends to build a Deptford Dockyard Museum.

Most of the artefacts would have to come from the National Maritime Museum which holds them in storage never to be displayed. Whilst its less prominent staff are enthusiastic about the project, the snobby upper echelons have so far refused to support it. Meanwhile, John Evelyn's legacy will be celebrated by a centre of excellence created by Sayes Court Garden CIC, who are currently working with Greenwich University.

Both projects are still waiting to get started after their ambitious plans were successfully made a condition of the planning permission given to the Convoys Wharf's Hong Kong based conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa by the Mayor of London in March 2014 (after the decision was snatched by the GLA from the hands of Lewisham Council in 2013 because they were supposedly taking too long to decide)...

If you feel proud of Deptford's past achievements as an international powerhouse of scientific ingenuity and industrial prowess, and want to see it celebrated whilst the site gets buried under 48 and 38 storey 'luxury homes', these are the projects that need your support.

The Lenox Project CIC: www.buildthelenox.org
Sayes Court Garden CIC: www.sayescourtgarden.org.uk

Mayor of London gives Convoys Wharf the go ahead

Well, there's no turning back now. As Mayor of Lewisham Steve Bullock said at the hearing at City Hall on Monday at which Boris approved the Convoys Wharf outline planning application, "if we get it wrong now, we won't have the opportunity again in our lifetime". He asked for a bit more time to get it right. Unfortunately, Boris called time, and it's very, very wrong.

The heritage community projects Build The Lenox and Sayes Court Garden appeared to come out well, however, with Boris imposing two conditions on his approval that would help them get a better deal. But although this signalled his enthusiasm for their proposals, much is still to be negotiated and the developer will no doubt continue to stall and obstruct.

Indeed much remains still to be decided – for instance, the design of the buildings. This will happen at a later stage. But the developer now has the green light (and his architect's glossy illustrations) with which to start selling his luxury flats overseas. It doesn't really matter to those investors parking their money in London property what the buildings look like.

Rather too late in the day for Deptford, the debate on London's rising property prices, foreign investors and skyscraper luxury developments has gathered momentum. Only the day before the Convoys application was heard at City Hall, the Observer was publishing a petition by the great and influential which opposes the addition of another 230 skyscrapers to the London skyline. This was part of a response to a report and exhibition "London's Growing Up!" by New London Architecture (NLA) whose research has found more than 230 tall towers over 20 storeys in the pipeline for London. Ironically, the petition is signed by Alan Baxter, whose firm worked on the Heritage Strategy for the Convoys Wharf application.

Last Wednesday, the Prince's Foundation for Building Community published a report on London's housing which said we are under assault from 'faceless' towers and 'poorly conceived' mega-developments, with ordinary Londoners no longer able to afford to live here (download here).

And only hours before the Convoys hearing, the developer's architect Sir Terry Farrell (also an advisor to the Mayor of London) was launching his own government backed 'Farrell Review of Architecture and the Build Environment'. Apparently planners must think about Place with a capital P, working with local people and expert advisors to draw up real, proactive plans for the future.

That'll be the same Farrell who helped the Hong Kong conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa to devise a masterplan that builds over Deptford's Royal Dockyard and has helped them keep local people as far away from the planning process as possible. In fact the bloated old hypocrite turned up at the hearing after his lunchtime launch.

Despite giving the Farrell document a glowing review in the Telegraph, Jonathan Glancy observed "This week, the fight over dismal plans for a pox of hundreds of new and dimly designed skyscrapers defacing London along the Thames promises to become very heated, while planning permission will be granted somwhere near you for ever more cheap-as-chips housing – cheap, that is, to build on land acquired for next to nothing, yet sold as dear as the market will bear".
 
See also the Deptford Dame's comments, plus a report on Deptford Is.., Build The Lenox and local press. Meanwhile, here's Hong Kong...

Only 6 days left to object to the plans for Convoys Wharf

So, how do you help Mr Pepys to save Deptford's Royal Dockyard? 

The Mayor of London is 'keen' to hear your views about Convoys Wharf! 
Email graham.clements@london.gov.uk before 20 March 2014. Quote the application reference DC/13/83358 and include your name and address.

OR SIGN THE PETITION!

If you have previously written an objection to Lewisham Council, there is no need to write again to the Mayor of London. You can, however, make comments on the very slight changes to the application that have been agreed by the developer in talks with the GLA. These changes are so minor you might want to write to say that they're welcome but it's just not enough!

For those who wish to object in general, here's some notes taken from Lewisham Council's report on the application, plus a couple of policy points from the Mayor of London's London Plan, which you might want to use (in no particular order):

SCALE & MASSING 

• The Mayor of London's London Plan states:

Policy 7.7:

Tall and large buildings should
•  generally be limited to sites in the Central Activity Zone, opportunity areas, areas of intensification or town centres that have good access to public transport
•  only be considered in areas whose character would not be affected adversely by the scale, mass or bulk of a tall or large building
•  incorporate publicly accessible areas on the upper floors, where appropriate (not offered in this application)

Tall buildings should not
•  affect their surroundings adversely in terms of microclimate, wind turbulence, overshadowing, noise, reflected glare, aviation, navigation and telecommunication interference
•  should not impact on local or strategic views adversely

General comments
• the buildings, and especially the towers, are too tall
• the density and number of units proposed is too high
• this site has terrible public transport links (in reference to London Plan's guidelines on tall buildings above)
• the tall buildings are out of scale with the surrounding area
• this proposal does not incorporate publicly accessible areas on the upper floors
• locals will lose satellite TV throughout construction and after (to be mitigated by being offered FreeSat)

• English Heritage note: “the cumulative impact of the three tall buildings within the proposal is at odds with London Plan Policy 7.12D.A which states that panoramas should be managed so that development fits within the prevailing pattern of building and spaces and should avoid a canyon affect on strategically important landmarks...the view that the impact of the three towers within the Blackheath Point and Greenwich Panoramic Views is dramatic and contributes towards a potential canyon effect.”

• Lewisham Council required a reduction in scale and massing on some of the proposed buildings, especially in relation to the historic buildings and spaces which they consider "overbearing in a number of locations and views"; Lewisham's Design Panel called the towers 'monolithic' 

NB: Minor revisions to the application have now been made that allow for greater flexibility at the design stage, plus a reduction in the heights of one of the blocks, but those towers will still be there.

The image below shows the Seager Tower on Deptford Broadway with the proposed 48-storey Convoys waterfront tower superimposed beside it. No, the Convoys building isn't nearer, they are side by side, that is the size it will be compared with the 26-storey Seager Tower – almost twice as tall, and twice as wide. (Click to enlarge)

Here's the architect's illustration which shows the new Paynes & Borthwick tower in the foreground of the proposed development. The foregrounding makes the waterfront tower look only twice as high, when in fact when pictured side by side it is three times as high (click to enlarge).

 

Here's the proposed waterfront tower side by side with Aragon Tower on Pepys Estate.

HISTORY & HERITAGE
 
• Deptford Royal Dockyard is an historic site worthy of international recognition that goes back 500 years: founded by Henry VIII in 1513, it was the most significant royal dockyard of the Tudor period, and central to the development of the British Royal Navy for the next 350 years

• It is strongly associated with several of Britain's most famous people: Henry V, Henry VIII, Elizabeth 1, Charles II, Capt James Cook, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, Nelson, Samuel Pepys, John Evelyn, William Bligh, John Rennie (and other famous engineers)...(see end of post for more detail on ships and people) 

• The World Monuments Fund has placed the site on its 2014 Watch List because it's endangered by insensitive redevelopment. See their statement on Deptford Is... here.

• The Mayor of London's London Plan states:

Policy 7.9:  Heritage-led Regeneration

Strategic
A  Regeneration schemes should identify and make use of heritage assets and reinforce the qualities that make them significant so they can help stimulate environmental, economic and community regeneration. This includes buildings, landscape features, views, Blue Ribbon Network and public realm.

Planning decisions
B  The significance of heritage assets should be assessed when development is proposed and schemes designed so that the heritage significance is recognised both in their own right and as catalysts for regeneration. Wherever possible heritage assets (including buildings at risk) should be repaired, restored and put to a suitable and viable use that is consistent with their conservation and the establishment and maintenance of sustainable communities and economic vitality.

• Many of the significant above and below ground remains are being ignored by the developer: inter-related heritage assets include a scheduled ancient monument, six listed buildings and structures, and a further structure under consideration for listing, in addition to the dockyard archaeology uncovered during recent investigations – but all except the Grade II listed Olympia Shed will be built over.

General comments:
• The plans do not go far enough to reflect the heritage assets
• The relationship between the river and the Olympia Shed is unacceptably restrained
• The scale of buildings around the Olympia Shed and its setting is wrong
• Failure to reference many of the dockyard features
• No feasible or sustainable use of the Olympia Shed is provided
• The treatment of the Double Dry Dock is ‘unimaginative and disappointing’.
• The archaeology on site should result in a reduction of the density

• The historic significance of the dockyard is classified as high under National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) guidelines; NPPF paragraph 131 states “In determining planning applications, local planning authorities should take account of: the positive contribution that conservation of heritage assets can make to sustainable communities including their economic vitality…”

• English Heritage "remain concerned that the overall scale of the development is such that the opportunity to create a distinctive sense of place which responds to the outstanding historic legacy of the site has not been realised"

• English Heritage believe "the overall scale of the scheme, including the tall buildings, will cause harm to the significance of designated and undesignated heritage assets"

• English Heritage remains concerned that "the proximity and massing of the feature buildings and 14 storey riverside block create a dominating scale around the listed building [Olympia Shed]...The narrow glimpsed view fails to make the best opportunity of this prominent and centrally located heritage asset...the current proposal would appear to represent the most restricted view.”

• The Council for British Archaeology says “Currently, the proposed development of the site is considered to be at the cost of a proper historic appreciation, and is therefore unacceptable.”

• Lewisham Council says “there are parts of the site where historic connections and layouts have been lost or ignored...and more detailed aspects of the proposed layout fail to respect the underlying heritage assets or the location and setting of key buildings..."

• Paragraph 7.4 of the London Plan states that local people “should have access to a…built environment that reinforces a strong, unique local history and character.”

• Local heritage project Build The Lenox CIC should be accommodated in the Olympia building along with a Deptford Dockyard Museum; this is a better use of the listed building than shops and boutiques

• The Great Basin should be reinstated so that Build The Lenox can have a home port and be a venue for visiting ships; buildings infringing on the footprint of the basin should be altered, but will benefit from a larger waterfront

• Local heritage project Sayes Court Garden CIC should be fully accommodated on the site and their aims to create a John Evelyn Centre of Urban Horticulture fully supported, with more adequate surrounding space given to a new building so that a green area is created that joins the archaeological remains of John Evelyn's Sayes Court Manor House with the present Sayes Court Garden

See also the report from Deptford Is...here

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

General comments in local objections:
• The element of Social Housing proposed on the site is NIL
• The affordable housing allocation is only 14%
• The affordable housing includes shared ownership and would not be affordable to local people on incomes of £20K pa or less
• Housing units are likely to be marketed at a starting price of £300,000 for a studio and the wider Lewisham community is not likely to see any benefit whatsoever from this.
• Restrictions on units sold abroad and on the number sold as buy-to-let investments are required in order to stop the local rental market from seeing mass rent increases and more local people being priced out of the Borough
• A percentage of affordable housing should be by the River Thames to avoid ‘class distinction’.
• More family housing is needed to make the development sustainable

NB: This latter point is partly addressed in the minor revisions made since the application has been with the GLA to slightly increase provision for affordable rented units and provision of family-sized affordable rented units. Lewisham Council were challenging the developer's formula for 'viability' – more realistic 'growth' assumptions [property values] "would allow for more affordable housing...to be increased from the applicant's present proposals."

TRANSPORT

The application includes parking for at least 1800 cars. See Deptford Is... reports here and here.

General points raised by local objections:
• The use of misleading figures to ‘manipulate’ traffic statistics by including side streets with lower usage than Evelyn Street, plus misleading statistics for traffic on New King Street
• Existing bus journey times will be considerably lengthened
• Potential for bus and DLR overcrowding
• Rail capacity has been overestimated and the increased use of Deptford Station in recent years has not been accounted for
• Cumulative impacts on the road have not been assessed
• Construction impacts have not been assessed properly
• The potential for nuisance and disturbance during the construction period, including for homes ‘downwind’
• Parking for construction workers will infringe on local parking
• HGV traffic and the impacts on surrounding residents and safety for children on local roads
• Condition of local roads already poor
• Removal of parking spaces on New King Street unacceptable
• A CPZ will be unavoidable
• Access would be on to Evelyn Street, which when combined would greatly increase traffic and cause future gridlock
• All heavy traffic will have to be diverted along a route of Grove Street and Oxestalls Road and past the local Deptford Park School, causing hazardous air and noise pollution
• More effort should be put into using the river for material access rather than by road
• Parking provision for over 1800 cars on the site, without counting service vehicles, will add to vehicular congestion on the A206 which is already a very heavily trafficked road

• In Lewisham Council's report, Transport for London concluded that further assessments need to be made in order to comply with the London Plan.

• Lewisham Council said, "Given the scale of development and predicted vehicular movement to/from the site there will be a significant increase in traffic, both vehicular and non vehicular, on the local highway network, and modelling of key junctions by the applicant has highlighted potentially significant and unresolved capacity issues. These would be exacerbated if the London Mayor’s Cycle Superhighway scheme on Evelyn Street is implemented as this will reduce capacity..."

“….TfL acknowledge that when they come to look at the detail it may throw up impacts which have not been identified so far and that it cannot accept on the network. They also note that the extent of that risk is yet to be determined… [Lewisham] Officers have serious concerns with this approach and leaving matters for resolution after the outline application has been approved. ..[The GLA and] TfL must ensure that the impacts are fully assessed and understood before the case is determined.”

NB: We have not had time to read up on whether these very obvious transport issues have yet been reviewed, but there is certainly no modification in the 'minor revisions' that relates to the number of car parking spaces.

INFRASTRUCTURE AND ENVIRONMENT

• [the] impact on existing infrastructure…will place an unacceptable burden on existing services such as utilities providers, water supplies and sewerage

• Thames Water states in its consultation response: “With the information provided, Thames Water has been unable to determine the waste water infrastructure needs of this application. The existing water supply infrastructure has insufficient capacity to meet the additional demands for the proposed development."

• Thames Water had not been furnished with the finer details of “the points of connection to the public sewerage system as well as the anticipated flow (including flow calculation method) into any proposed connection point”. So they had not been able to determine the impact of the proposed development on the existing water and sewer system

• Local objectors and Lewisham Officers “remain concerned that daylight/sunlight impacts have not been properly assessed” 

MORE HERITAGE... 

• Over 300 ships were built or refitted at Deptford; warships include HMS Neptune and HMS Colossus, which fought under Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar

• Refitted ships include HMS Endeavour, HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery used by Capt James Cook, as were HMS Discovery and HMS Chatham captained by George Vancouver, and William Bligh's HMS Bounty and HMS Providence

• Privateer Sir Francis Drake was knighted here by Elizabeth 1 in 1581 after his circumnavigation of the globe in the Golden Hind, which was moored for exhibition in Deptford Creek until the 1660s

• Explorer Sir Walter Raleigh had the Ark Raleigh built at Deptford; the ship was purchased by Elizabeth I and renamed Ark Royal; Raleigh laid his cloak before Elizabeth at Deptford

• Diarist Samuel Pepys, Secretary to the Admiralty and Master of Trinity House, initiated and oversaw Charles II's 1677 shipbulding programme here (including the Lenox)

• John Evelyn, diarist, author, horticulturist, inventor and founding member of the Royal Society,  lived here in Sayes Court Manor; his ideas formed the basis of the National Trust, and much of Deptford Dockyard was given by Evelyn to the Admiralty at a peppercorn rent as long as a ship lay on the stocks: with no ship in the dock, the yard actually belongs to Evelyn's descendents

• Tsar Peter the Great learned about the latest technologies in shipbuilding here in 1698 – because Deptford Dockyard was the "cradle of the Navy" and the 'Cape Canaveral' of its time

• Deptford was the first of the royal naval dockyards to have a wet dock or basin: where John Evelyn carried out the first diving bell experiments, where Cook hoisted the pennant on board the Endeavour in 1768, where Bentham built the dry dock in 1802 with Edward Holl, where in 1814 John Rennie rebuilt the basin entrance with the latest caisson gate technology, where Capt Sir William Denison built the slipways to the basin with slipway covers built by George Baker &Sons, where George Biddel Airey tested the effect of a ship's magnetism on navigation instruments...

Johnson's London – a millionaire's playground

Crossfields residents receive constant reminders from the government about how big a discount they can get if they buy their flat. The frequent flyer from the Department of Communities and Local Government comes through the door with regularity, whether you're a tenant or already a leaseholder. Bigger discounts than ever before are now available for Right To Buyers as the Tories push through their evil plan to get rid of 'social housing' altogether. What possible incentive can there be to build more social housing when tenants can buy their properties after only five years?

Meanwhile, the Bedroom Tax is forcing some unemployed social housing tenants into private housing since there are no one-bedroom flats available for those single occupants currently living in two-bedroom homes whose housing benefit has been cut. If they can find a landlord who will take DHS claimants, the private rent is likely to be at least twice as much (£250pw) as their council rent (£110pw), a bill which the council tax-payer and local authority will foot and from which private landlords will profit. Continuing low rates on buy-to-let mortgages has landlords increasing their property portfolios and enjoying record yields on higher rents, and profits from rising house prices.

Add to this the total lack of affordable housing being built, whilst Boris Johnson boasts about meeting housing targets. The Financial Times reports that Bozo promised 55,000 new homes between 2011 and 2015 but only 20,684 are being built. The London Assembly reports that he's recently opted to 'clear London's backlog of housing need' over 20 years – instead of the 10 years he initially proposed.

In the news today, we hear that nine London boroughs have joined forces in a legal challenge against the Mayor's plan to relax 'affordable rents' rules, to be heard in the High Court today and tomorrow. Presently, boroughs have been able to cap social housing rents within new developments (what little there is) to around 40% of 'market rent'. Bozo wants to raise that cap to 80%. That is the percentage that has defined 'affordable housing' for a while now, and for most Londoners, this is still unaffordable. Lewisham set its cap at 50%. Lewisham is not one of the boroughs taking Boris to court. When Lewisham sells off its housing stock next year to a reconfigured Lewisham Homes Housing Association, new tenants may well find themselves paying 80% of market rent.

Speaking from a developer's conference in Cannes yesterday, Bozo announced that he'll be selling up the last couple of development sites owned by City Hall, with only a third available for affordable rented housing. And he wants to launch a 'state-backed housing bank' that would offer cheap loans and guarantees to private developers to get homes built more quickly and reduce the risks for his builder mates.

The news today from the same Cannes property conference is that Bozo's team want to allow house bulding to go ahead without planning permission in certain parts of London. Deputy mayor for housing, Richard Blakeway, said the mayor was "particularly interested" in exploring the potential to "build markets" in certain zones by offering tax incentives to both "investors and consumers". The Mayor could use his compulsory purchase powers to acquire land for private residential use, at the expense of any borough's strategies to achieve a balance of uses (such as employment zones and community uses). These changes to the London Plan are said to be designed "to encourage boroughs to support private rented housing".

The London Assembly has also recently questioned the Mayor about his stripping of London boroughs' right to make planning decisions by using his power to 'call-in' large planning applications. He has already 'called-in' five schemes in the past year. In many cases, Bozo has been 'calling-in' applications before the local authority in question has even had a chance to examine them. (See also the Deptford Dame's latest post).

Darren Johnson, Green Party Assembly member, said, "The recent acceleration in the number and speed with which the Mayor is taking over planning decisions from boroughs...puts developers and investors before local democracy". The Assembly's motion (agreed by 16 votes to 5 against) listed 11 applications – including Convoys Wharf in Deptford – and said that on many decisions, the Mayor has ignored legitimate borough concerns about issues such as inappropriate density and very low targets for affordable housing.

This isn't new. In 2009 in Tower Hamlets, when there were 23,000 people on the housing waiting list, the council refused planning consent for the 74-storey Hertsmere Tower in Canary Wharf because it didn't include enough provision for affordable housing. But a few months later, Boris Johnson overturned the council's decision and Hertsmere is set to accommodate over 700 luxury apartments, some marketed in excess of £10m each.

Here's Boris at the Cannes property conference in 2012, announcing his new 'architecture, design and urbanism' panel for architects, which was to hand out £30m worth of work over the following three years. There's Terry Farrell, second from left, one of those appointed to the panel and the architect employed by Convoys Wharf developer Hutchison Whampoa.

As any fool can see, there has been an enormous amount of new housing being built in London, especially locally. Like many of these new developments, Convoys Wharf has a minimal amount of affordable housing (down from 35% to 14%, and social housing from 4% to zilch). As the Deptford Dame pointed out back in November, another site owned by Hutchison Whampoa – Lots Road in Chelsea – is already being marketed via their Hong Kong estate agency. (See also the BBC film "London's Property Gamble").

Darren Johnson says, "London's property market is only serving the super-rich, leaving crumbs for ordinary Londoners, who have to rent overpriced homes on insecure tenancies or move out of the city altogether". A new industry has even built up around helping developers avoid building affordable housing and paying Section 106 to local authorities (the bribe – or money paid by a developer that is  supposed to benefit the communities in which the development is sited). (Click to enlarge).

The Evening Standard reported yesterday that the number of skyscrapers in the capital is set to double. Meanwhile, Chinese investment in the UK is forecast to triple this year. Boris is busy signing up business deals with Chinese investment consortiums wanting to turn London into a replica of Hong Kong – with a focus on construction projects of all kinds. Meanwhile, Hutchison Whampoa has been busy selling off its luxury properties in Hong Kong since the Chinese state are bringing in 'cooling measures' – described as 'a tough stance on reining in an overheated market' (in other words a 'bubble') – with new rules on the sale of new homes, and stricter rent controls – the opposite of here, in fact. 

Boris Johnson's London is a playground for millionaires. Of course Bozo doesn't want to take over Cameron's job. While Cameron has only a year left to decimate the lives of millions of ordinary people across the country with austerity measures whilst rewarding bankers, Bozo has over two more years to promote and implement their hideous Tory agenda across the capital.