Local concern growing as plans for a regeneration scheme that derails plans for Bakerloo Line extension into south London are submitted to Lewisham council.
As part of a huge regeneration project that goes way beyond expanding store capacity, Sainsbury’s, in partnership with developers Mount Anvil and A2 Dominion have outlined plans to build 1,161 homes on the car park of their existing New Cross Gate store. But the development, which is proposed to demolish all existing neighbouring businesses in the retail park where the store is currently situated is facing strong opposition from locals.
The New Cross Gate Action Group (NXGAG) have called upon residents to respond to the application after developers revealed ambitious plans to revamp the entire site that lies to the west of the mainline station. The group have highlighted, amongst other concerns regarding congestion and public health, of how the development throws the future of the Bakerloo line extension (BLE) into question, with both TFL and Sainsbury’s in competition for the site. Whilst Sainsbury’s maintain that a smaller vacant site to the east of the existing station offers a suitable location for the BLE, TFL have already “discounted” the alternative site, identifying the area Sainsbury’s is proposing to populate with 12 tower blocks as “a core requirement” for the delivery of the BLE project. Furthermore, Lewisham Council have also stated in their 2019 Area Framework of how the BLE site proposed by Sainsbury’s offers insufficient space for a functioning station and warned of how such a development there would require the demolition of 19 council properties and a further 14 units which currently provide 30 hostel spaces.
In today’s neoliberal urban context, where declining public resources and state investment cannot meet the capital’s demand for homes, a project like the New Cross Gate Sainsbury’s development is no isolated example. With UK real estate consultancy GL Hearn suggesting that London’s supermarkets could provide approximately 150,000 homes either above or alongside their stores, a number of large chain supermarkets are becoming increasingly involved in commercial property development. Whilst Tesco have become notorious for their controversial, town-absorbing redevelopment projects, Sainsbury’s too have become big players in building what they have heralded “outstanding communities” (read gentrified enclaves) across London. With Sainsbury’s having recently completed projects with Barratt homes at Fulham riverside and Nine Elms Point, Vauxhall where a 36th floor flat can reach prices nearing four million pounds, it is big business. At a time where the urban process is increasingly defined by the principles of capitalism, it is no doubt that supermarkets are now effectively ‘cashing-in’ on their land’s potential value as they exploit their air rights in a bid to maximise profits from minimal land space. This means, if Sainsbury’s proposed development gets the go-ahead, that New Cross Gate could soon be home to 12 new high-rise blocks reaching up to 33 storeys, or 122 metres high.
Despite London and the south east being in a state of acute housing need, it is often agreed that such developments do little to address the prevailing housing crisis, where shortage is not just an issue associated with numerical supply, but affordability too. With Mount Anvil offering misleading statistics in their affordable housing statement, by presenting the proposed percentage of affordable homes in terms of habitable room rather than unit, we can begin to see where the developer can easily deceive the casual reader into believing that a greater number of the properties built would be available at the London affordable rate. When we deconstruct the developer’s calculations we can uncover that just 17% of the total units will be deemed affordable, with just 2% of the 204 one-bedroom apartments within the ‘affordable’ bracket. This is of primary concern to the NXGAG, who, without mentioning the growing abuse of the term ‘affordable’, have highlighted how the development, not only falls short of Lewisham’s target for all new housing projects to deliver at least 50% genuinely affordable homes, but how it also fails to address the borough’s significant need for council properties.
With a huge number of developers increasingly marketing their properties to overseas investors and London’s new-build property market having become somewhat of a bank for international wealth from questionable sources we can further question the role that the scheme would play in meeting Lewisham’s need for homes. With Mount Anvil, in fact, having both a dedicated international sales team and a webpage listing reasons as to why investors should take interest in south London, we can wonder if the New Cross Gate development would suffer a similar fate.
Whilst Scholars have widely recognised the contribution of retail organisations in kick-starting investment and creating jobs into areas historically unattractive to investors, the NXGAG would argue that such a project, in the context of New Cross, would actually present a greater deal of detrimental consequences to the area. With 1,161 properties proposed on a site that Lewisham Council suggested just a 200-unit capacity for, and the developers having explicitly issued their own concerns on the adverse impact that the scheme would have on access to primary healthcare, there is growing uncertainty over how local public services would meet the demands of such a considerable injection into the local population.
When locals are already complaining about mass overcrowding on New Cross Gate’s existing overground line, which regularly leads to station closures due to safety concerns at the underground/Jubilee line interchange, they question how existing transport infrastructures would cope with thousands more commuters, especially considering the fact that the scheme remains incompatible with the BLE project.
The group are asking locals to submit their comments and objections to Lewisham’s planning department by the deadline which is March 15th.
Georgi the Geographer 