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?

Sign the petition to bring back the Deptford Anchor!

A campaign for the return of the 'Deptford Anchor' was launched on Saturday, and at the time of writing, has already garnered over 1500 signatures in just five days. Click here to sign.

Via 38 Degrees, the campaign is petitioning Lewisham's Mayor to re-instate the anchor to the south end of the high street where it had resided for 25 years until being removed during regeneration works two years ago, amidst much protest. It later became the focus of a local art project, who have now teamed up with the Deptford Society to launch the petition. They want the anchor returned without the plinth it once stood on.

Visualisation of the anchor without a plinth @Deptford Is Forever

Whilst the anchor served as a landmark for friends to meet up, its plinth had also become a seating area for street drinkers, so it seemed to many that the new high street paving had been an opportunity for the Council to remove the anchor and 'design out' anti-social behaviour.

©Ben Graville – http://www.bengraville.co.uk/bengraville/r.i.p_anchotor_photos.html#66

The drinkers soon found somewhere else to sit – on the benches in the newly paved Giffin Square, in front of the new Tidemill school and the library. We heard that parents of children at the school are now petitioning for the seating to be removed!

Meanwhile, utility companies have since dug up new paving stones and filled them with tarmac, and the new paving is already badly stained. The top of the high street still lacks the proud focal point it once enjoyed. Although the space is used by market traders on Saturdays, the rest of the week it remains empty – except when it is occupied by a Talk Talk or Sky sales team, who, with their habit of chasing shoppers down the street and hassling them to buy broadband phone deals, could be said to be more anti-social in their behaviour than the street drinkers ever were.

Talk Talk sales team hassling shoppers

The empty space is also sometimes used as quick and convenient parking for Asda shoppers. And to the distress of residents living above the shops, Asda itself has been loading and unloading here in the middle of the night.

Unmarked Asda truck parks up at 3am in the morning to noisily load and unload ©Ben Graville

Below is where the Deptford Anchor currently resides. It's being 'stored' in the Olympia warehouse building on Convoys Wharf 'for safe keeping'. Why is it still there, under the so-called 'protection' of a developer who gives not a jot for the maritime heritage of Deptford?

The anchor is stored in the Olympia building at Convoys Wharf @Deptford Is Forever

Convoys Wharf is owned by Asia's richest billionaire, Li Ka Shing, via Cheung Kong Property Holdings – one of his two recently reorganised and renamed Hong Kong-based global conglomerates (with limited liability in the Cayman Islands) – otherwise known to us as Hutchison Whampoa.

As the Deptford Dame noted in July, when travellers made it their home for awhile, the site was not even that safely secured. She also pointed out that in the (now) eight months since the Section 106 agreement with the GLA and Lewisham Council was signed and almost two years since HW received outline planning permission for the development from the Mayor of London (March 2014), not a single planning application (ie, worked up designs for the individual buildings and parcels of land) has been submitted to Lewisham's planning department.

So if the aim of both Lewisham Council and the developer was to re-situate the anchor within the development itself, it is likely to be at least another ten years before it is seen again. Time to bring it back! Sign the petition here.

Local meeting about Thames Tunnel – Sunday 8th December, 6pm–7.30pm

 Pink Palace, Frankham House, Frankham Street SE8 4RN

If you want to know more about how the Thames Tunnel affects you and what you can do to stop it please come to this meeting.

Thames Tunnel Public Hearing: Thursday 21st November at the Ahoy Centre

Don't Dump on Deptford's Heart have produced a brief and very good document which contains the arguments against Thames Tunnel using the site at Crossfields Green. Download it here.

Apart from the demo being organised (8.45am) for the start of tomorrow's Thames Tunnel Pubic Hearing at the Ahoy Centre (click to find location), we understand the public may attend the inquiry itself even if they have not registered formally to speak at this "Open Floor Hearing", which is being held by the government's Planning Inspectorate (not Thames Water). If you decide to attend (registration is 9 - 9.30am), you will find the document useful.

HOW IT WILL AFFECT YOU: NOISE AND POLLUTION

Apart from the unacceptable rise in noise levels for the church, school and Crossfields residents, spoil from the shaft and tunnelling work will be removed from the site by hundreds of lorries, forcing the closure of the western carriageway of Deptford Church St, and reducing it to the two lanes closest to Crossfields. For three years.

Work will also start next year on Creekside at Faircharm Trading Estate, and Creekside itself will become the main route for up to 90 construction lorries per day. When the Thames Tunnel work starts in 2016, Creekside will be used as a rat run, so there will be no letting up on our exposure to gridlocked traffic on all sides.

In a recent survey by Greenwich campaigners "No to Silvertown Tunnel", it was revealed that Greenwich Council's own figures showed pollution levels at the top of Deptford Church Street where it meets Creek Road were on average 61.34 μg/m3 between Jan 05 and Jul 13. Readings above 40μg/m3 are in breach of EU air quality regulations.
www.silvertowntunnel.co.uk/our-study/
www.silvertowntunnel.co.uk/our-study/greenwich-borough-data/

Update: (And how could we forget!) If Hutchison Whampoa's application for Convoys Wharf is approved by the Mayor of London (see our previous post and sign the petition there), they will start work in 2014 (to go on until 2023), adding hundreds of construction vehicles to Evelyn St and Creek Road, and causing massive congestion which will of course tail back along Deptford Church Street. 

Thames Water's original site was at Borthwick Wharf on the riverside at Millennium Quay, where spoil could be removed by water. In a massive abandonment of their environment principles, they then switched the site to landlocked Deptford Church Street. We need to let them know we cannot tolerate the levels of pollution this scheme will bring, and insist they revert to their first chosen site.

In addition, see this report that says the proposed increase in household waste water charges (by as much as £80 a year) may generate after-tax returns as high as 24% for Thames Water, more than three times the estimated 7% return for other water utilities.

Please sign the petition here.

The Don't Dump on Deptford Heart's "They say, we say" document can be downloaded here.

Convoys Wharf update – sign the petition!

Last week the decision on planning permission for Convoys Wharf was taken out of Lewisham's control when the Mayor of London stepped in at the developer's request.

Now that locals can no longer make their objections to the application, local campaigners Deptford Is have set up a petition to give a voice to the community so that we can let Boris know that we don't want this. 

PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION AND SHARE THE LINK WITH FRIENDS.

See Deptford Is... and local papers. Also read this week's Private Eye (click on the image below).

BACKGROUND INFO

Heritage versus housing

Deptford's MP Joan Ruddock, in response to the Boris decision to "call in" the application, has described the site as "a heritage jewel in London's crown". The site is also of international significance, which is why the World Heritage Fund saw fit to include it on their Watch List for 2014-2016.

Boris's glib soundbite to news reporters was that "London needs more housing". Don't be fooled by the notion that London's housing crisis can be solved by the building of 3000 more luxury flats.

Originally, the percentage of "affordable housing" in new developments was set at 50% by Ken Livingstone. But most developers now claim that their sites are not "viable" (= massive profits) unless they deliver affordable housing at below 15%. In the Convoys application it is 14% – an extra 500 units at 80% market rent (still not affordable to the people who keep this city running), bringing the total to an impossibly dense 3,500 units.

It is also feared that, like other major new housing developments, the units will be sold off-plan to foreign investors before going on the market in the UK. Overseas investors currently earn enough from the rise in property values they needn't even bother renting their units out to those who can afford the high rents.   

The developers and Boris

It's feared Boris will look favourably on this application, despite the GLA's own reservations to it in their report to Lewisham Planning (in particular from Transport For London).

The developer is Chinese conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa, one of many holding companies owned by the 8th richest man in the world, Li Ka Shing. He also owns major utilities in water and power (ie, UK Power Assets who run much of the National Grid and London's power), fracking (via Husky, causing community uproar in Canada) and telecoms (3G and others – and they're currently being 'investigated' by the EU on their recent purchases of telecoms in Ireland and Italy), as well as major British container ports (see June 2013 post).

Boris Johnson has recently been courting Chinese trade. David Cameron is due to visit China next month "on a trade mission" and Li Ka Shing has been spotted in and out of No.10.  Boris is also mates with Rupert Murdoch. (Thanks, Transpontine). Having sold the site to Hutchison Whampoa, News International has a profit share in the sale of the 3000 luxury flats planned for the site.

And this week the PM launched the Regeneration Investment Organisation Advisory Board (RIO), "an inward investment body" with the aim of raising billions of pounds from overseas trading partners to "fund urban regeneration projects". Sky News reports, "Its remit has been borne out of a frustration expressed by many major overseas investors about the bureaucracy and complexity of finalising major deals in the UK". Like Hutchison Whampoa, for instance, who accused Lewisham Planning of making "unrealistic demands" and "unreasonable and unwarranted requests" that would damage their profit margins.

Lungs for the City
 
The application proposes to build over almost every inch of the historic site, which was founded in 1513 by Henry VIII as the home of shipbuilding for the Royal Navy (the Royal Dockyard that, along with Woolwich dockyard, preceded the grandeur at Greenwich).

To get an idea of the density, have a look round the development at New Capital Quay. That's 1000 flats with a ground space a third of the Convoys site. Imagine that x3. To get an idea of heights, look at the tallest tower at the new Renaissance development in Loampit Vale – that's 24 storeys, half the height of the 48 storey tower proposed at Convoys (the other two being 38).

Convoys also contains the remains of Sayes Court Garden, where John Evelyn's innovative horticultural theories were developed and  which led to the founding of the National Trust. It was his theory that trees are the lungs of a city.

Considering the latest reports by the No To Silvertown Tunnel campaign, in which it was revealed that pollution levels at the end of Deptford Church Street on Creek Road have been breaching European limits for nitrogen dioxide for more than eight years, his advice is worth remembering more than ever. (Thanks, Deptford Dame).

Especially since Hutchison's plans include parking provision for 2000 cars (all housed in the giant blocks of housing units) that will cause ever greater pollution and congestion on Evelyn Street. The only public transport will be a diversion of the 199 bus and a Thames clipper, putting greater strain on existing services. And don't forget the ten years of construction traffic.

In an ideal world, the entire Convoys site should be planted with trees just to make up for the new IKEA being planned to go on the site the award-winning Sainsbury's eco-building at Greenwich peninsula, which will draw in traffic from miles around to unprecedented levels. (Thanks, 853 blog).

But Hutchisons were arguing over the necessity of widening New King Street to accommodate the bus making a two-way journey.

A people's history

The history of this site is amazing – it features loads of important historical figures (Drake, Raleigh etc), was the launch pad for some fantastic scientific discoveries (Cook, among others), and was built and designed by many celebrated pioneers in engineering and shipbuilding (Rennie, Penn etc), as well as being a place where ordinary people who worked in and around the dockyard have fantastic stories to tell (female shipwrights, black and Asian sailors), that were never recorded by Samuel Pepys who ran the yard for Charles II.

So much of Deptford's history has been buried and ignored (perhaps because of the shame of slavery), it is bursting to come through and speak to us. The site is monumentally multi-cultural – with links all over the world – as much as Deptford is now.

The archaeology

Many of the site's surviving below-ground structures (docks) will be buried under dense 12 storey blocks and 38-48 storey towers. The one remaining above ground structure, the Olympia Shed, will be overshadowed and hidden from view by the buildings closely surrounding it. You'll only be able to glimpse a small part of it from the river. Hutchisons were rejecting English Heritage's demands to open the view up.

The plans have been opposed by English Heritage, the Council for British Archaeology, the Naval Dockyard Society and other heritage bodies – not forgetting, of course, the local people who will have to live with ten years or more of building works and construction traffic.

The public space provision in the present application is laughable – a thin strip on the riverside and two strips on the sites of an historic dock and slipway, which are only not being built on because they're "protected". They could actually be listed by English Heritage, but not until the full archaeology report made by a commercial arm of the Museum of London which (had to be) commissioned by the developer has been published. It hasn't been published yet, despite the archaeology work being long completed – although not as thoroughly as it could have been (there is, according to Deptford Is, areas of the site yet to be uncovered).

English Heritage have recently listed the remaining walls on the site (including the river walls), which must make it the longest length of listed Thames wall in London. Meanwhile, with no full report, the archaeology of the site is not "fully understood". It would therefore be premature for the Mayor of London to make a decision until this report is published.

Local campaigners have emphasised the heritage of the site and how it can open up a tourism strategy for Lewisham, bringing in visitors from Royal Maritime Greenwich. Unfortunately, the owner of the site is so fixated on the simple formula of selling luxury waterfront residential units that it cannot envision the advantages of owning a site of world heritage – and the capital value that would add to a smaller number of units.  

Deptford Is are also advocating that an area on the site designated by the Greater London Authority (GLA) as a "protected wharf" (to be used for river business, very often simply cargo) should be developed as a Maritime Enterprise Zone incorporating boat building and repairs and other associated marine business that is presently lacking in this part of the Thames and which would bring great employment opportunities.

But this is strongly opposed by the developer, who will more than likely lobby the GLA, with Cameron, Osbourne and Johnson's help, to change the designation so that it can build even more luxury flats.

If you care about Deptford, you must sign the petition! This application must be opposed so that a better proposal can come forward – one that combines housing with a full appreciation of the site's heritage.

Update 18 Nov:  also see the Deptford Dame's take on the Mayor of London's new role in the process.

 

Save Lewisham Hospital – Petitions and Diary dates

Sign the petitions:
Petition set up by Heidi Alexander MP
Petition to HM Government

Thursday 8th November, 6-8pm at Lessoff Auditorium, Lewisham Hospital
Public meeting: Speakers include Jim Dowd MP, Heidi Alexander MP, Steve Bullock Mayor of Lewisham, Dr Louise Irvine (Lewisham GP and BMA council member).

Tuesday 13th November 7pm, Waldron Health Centre
Local Keep Our NHS Public (KONP) meeting
Contact the Lewisham group: Helmut Heib & Dr Louise Irvine lewishamkonp@gmail.com
On Twitter
www.lewishamkonp.org

Saturday 24th November
Link Hands Around Our Hospital
2pm March from Loampit Vale roundabout to Lewisham hospital
3pm Link hands around Lewisham Hospital
Facebook page


Further reading:

Information about the NHS’s £4billion reserves… which are not allowed to help South London Healthcare.

Treasury raids £1billion from NHS

Lewisham has lowest male life expectancy in London

333 donations totalling £8.3million made to Tories… from health companies that benefit from South London Healthcare not being allowed to access NHS reserves.