The redevelopment of the Aylesham Centre in Peckham has long ignited fierce local opinion, and this week we reported on one of the most significant twists in the saga yet.
Instead of being considered by Southwark Council’s planning committee, Peckham’s most consequential redevelopment in a generation will go straight to the Planning Inspectorate, a branch of the Ministry of Housing.
The Rye Lane site was first designated for housing in 2016. Eleven years and three developers later, Berkeley Homes submitted a planning application last summer to build almost 900 new homes, with 35 per cent set at affordable rents. But in a move many regarded as egregious, last December the developer slashed the number of affordable homes from 270 to 77 – a meagre 12 per cent, well below Southwark Council’s policy requiring developments to provide 35 per cent affordable housing at a minimum.
The developer appears to have doubled down even further on its aggressive approach towards getting shovels in the ground. Berkeley claim they have worked with the council and the community throughout the planning process to provide a scheme that accommodates local concerns while remaining financially viable. They attributed the decision to bypass the council to Southwark’s failure to consider the application within the agreed determination period, which expired on January 31.
There are questions to be asked here around why the council did not request an extension of the negotiation period. But more widely, the Aylesham saga is reflective of the fundamental problem of a planning system built around the profit motive.
Local authorities say they can’t build enough new homes to meet local housing need due to underinvestment and uncertainty around their long-term funding.
Instead, many are increasingly forced to rely on private developers to include affordable homes within new housing schemes. But developers often argue that meeting local affordable housing targets will make their schemes ‘unviable’, frequently citing financial pressures generated by high interest rates and rising construction costs.
As BBC London reported this week, it is worth bearing in mind that there are 300,000 properties in London with permission to be built, which still have not been built – this at a time when London is supposed to be building 88,000 homes a year, but is only building 36,000. It puts into perspective the sorry state of the situation.
The government this week announced plans to make it easier to build on London’s green belt, reflecting once more a misunderstanding about what is driving the housing crisis in London.
What local authorities need is not permission to dig up London’s leafy suburbs – it’s more cash to build the homes that people need. Only then can we start giving Londoners the homes they deserve.
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The Spending Review is coming up and demands are high from all sections but housing should be the priority.
