A property-owning oligarchy has London in its grip

London is being transformed into a glass skyscraper for the super-rich and global property speculators while many of the things which have made Europe’s largest metropolis a great place to live, work and play are set to vanish.

Human-sized pockets of houses, street markets and art centres which have escaped the greedy eyes of developers are under the hammer. Central London and even further out boroughs have become unaffordable.

The “prime property” syndrome is now stretching all along the banks of the Thames. Speculative fever is sweeping into outlying areas, with the poorest councils working hand-in-glove with property consortiums to smooth the way in deal after deal

The south end of Vauxhall Bridge, across the river from the Houses of Parliament, has already seen a 180-metre tower suddenly sprout up, grossly altering the Westminster skyline. And it is only the first of five.

Places like Wapping will become “wall to wall flats, completely uniform, culturally a complete desert”, an East London art curator has warned. Architectural writer Rowan Moore has pointed to the imminent loss of the Wapping Project in Tower Hamlets. After a 20-year success story, the vibrant cultural space is due to close just before Christmas and the property is likely be sold to a developer.

Blackfriars is now considered as a part of “prime” central London, the first time an area that lies partly to the south of the Thames has earned this dubious description. New “designer homes” will “add a fresh sheen to SE1”, according to an Evening Standard property writer.

“A glitzy new skyscraper is being built at the foot of Blackfriars bridge and already smashing price records for south side homes – studio apartments cost from £960,000. (“Call developers on 020 7871 7188”, the writer adds helpfully.) A former car park in Union Street off Blackfriars Bridge Road will become a designer apartment complex with prices ranging from £820,000 to £2.25m.

Southwark council was caught red-handed in the Heygate scandal where local campaigners spotted that it had agreed a ludicrously low price with a global property giant Lend Lease in exchange for just 79 social rented homes out of a total of 2,535. Labour-controlled Southwark has one of the highest rates of child poverty in London. It is the ninth most deprived boroughs in the capital. .

The Elephant and Castle shopping centre (never exactly a beauty spot, but now home to a popular food market) has been sold for the knockdown price of £50 million to property company Delancey. Its conversion of the Olympic Park’s Athletes Village was heavily criticised for the lack of affordable housing for local people.

A few miles west along the Thames, Wandsworth Council has given planning consent for the an £8bn redevelopment of the 1930s iconic Battersea power station to a Malaysian consortium. Penthouse flats are set to go on the market for a cool £30 million each. So feverish is the London property bubble that the first group of flats all but sold out before a brick was even laid.

In Haringey council, Labour MP David Lamy recently fêted the opening of a 78,000 square foot Sainsbury’s supermarket, part of the Tottenham Hotspurs stadium development.  Spurs, the world’s 14th richest football club, came under heavy criticism from the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment.

In other parts of south London, champagne bars are opening up as the uber-rich move in. Campaigners are quite rightly opposing the “gentrification” that actually means forcing poorer and middle-class people out of areas that property developers want to milk for huge profits.

The Thatcherite notion of a property-owning democracy – enthusiastically endorsed by New Labour -  has truly become an oligarchic tyranny. The time to end it is now.

Corinna Lotz

A World to Win secretary

Elephant in the room is profit (and Labour)

If you want to understand what New Labour Mark II looks like, then goings on at Southwark Council give you a real indication. The south London borough is one of the capital’s poorest. Yet tonight, the planning committee will rubber stamp a £1.5 billion deal with a global property corporation that provides just 71 social rented units out of 2,300 new homes.

Anticipating the gold rush, developers Lend Lease have already started marketing apartments in a tower block that will be built in the run-down Elephant and Castle area. Prices start at over £320,000 and rise above £1 million for flats with panoramic views of London.

“With zero affordable housing of any type, all of its 284 units will be luxury flats for the open market and some with access to a secluded garden on the roof of a 4-storey building beside the tower. We have yet to see the plans for the drawbridge, moat and boiling oil!,” say campaigners.

It is part of the so-called master plan for the regeneration of the area after 13 years of delay. Local campaigners, who have just five minutes to make their objections plain tonight, are bitter about the deal that has gentrification written all over it. About 300 local residents have submitted objections. All have been disregarded.

The campaign group 35 per cent points out that Southwark Council is actually in breach of its own planning policy which would require about 400 social rented units in the scheme. There are properties for rent – but they won’t be affordable for most residents in the borough.

Representatives of local groups who have objected to the plan have published the points they would like to make but can’t possible achieve in the allotted five minutes.  Apart from the lack of affordable housing, they are angry that the scheme is car-friendly and anti-environmental in many ways.

Over 600 car-parking spaces are proposed despite council policy requiring it to be car free. As they point out, the Elephant has the highest possible public transport accessibility with excellent tube, train and bus links so there is no real need for private cars. A new public park will, in fact, be privately-run and managed.

They point out that the area around the base of a tower block “is an example of how the public realm can become marginalized through the impact of tall buildings” and add: “The proposed cafes around the green space may not be affordable to all local people, and will therefore fail to create a truly human sense of place and inclusiveness for the neighbourhood.”

But with thousands of local people living in sub-standard housing, or on waiting lists, it is the housing element that drawn most anger. In 2010, the developer signed a binding contractual agreement with Southwark, which guaranteed that 25% of the new homes would be affordable. Half would be social rented, providing a minimum of 288 new social rented homes out of the 2,300 total. That number has fallen to just 71 – and the council is ready to give the green light.

Even though the viability of the scheme is described as “problematic” in the report to the committee, the council is determined to push ahead. Despite the fact that there is no renewable energy in the scheme, no local jobs target, a reduction in community facilities and scant regard for cyclists, Southwark will give its approval.

The shocking, outrageously commercial nature of the project is right up New Labour Mark II’s street. This is the an example in practice of the “One Nation Labour” that Ed Miliband rattles on about. As Southwark shows, Labour is the developer’s friend first, second and last. It’s a public-private partnership where the public loses all round.

Paul Feldman