Earls Court: Tory council signs "peoples' estates" land deal but anti-demolition fight goes on
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Version 0 of 1. Conservative flagship council Hammersmith and Fulham (H&F) has finally signed its deal with property developer Capital and Counties (CapCo) to sell off land containing two housing estates comprising 760 homes, all of which will be demolished should the controversial 77-acre Earls Court project redevelopment scheme go ahead. The conditional land sale agreement (CLSA) was completed after a judge rejected all four arguments of a judicial review application challenging the consultation process on the sale plan conducted by the council last year. The council's own assessment of the consultation's outcome was that the estates' residents, who responded in large numbers, opposed the destruction of their homes by a huge majority. What will happen next? The anti-demolition campaign, backed by the tenants and residents associations of the two "Peoples' Estates" - the West Kensington and the Gibbs Green - is considering an appeal against the judge's decision, and argues that in any case this reverse was still a battle worth fighting in a much longer and larger war of attrition. Last October they secured a go-ahead for a separate judicial review (JR) of the policy underpinning the planning process. A substantive hearing of that case is expected to take place in the autumn, and CapCo cannot start work on the scheme until the issue is resolved. Further legal challenges are under consideration. Jonathan Rosenberg, community co-ordinator for the anti-demolition campaign said, "The more the council and developer press on with their scheme, the more they harden the resolve of residents to save their community." In part, we're talking tin tacks under tyres. The campaigners' hope is that the scheme as a whole will eventually collapse under the weight of its own scale, expense, alleged illegality and sheer complexity, not to mention its unpopularity with other interested parties. The Earls Court project would also see the two Earls Court exhibition centres knocked down, to the dismay of the Association of Event Organisers. A panel of architects assembled by H&F and neighbouring fellow Tory borough Kensington and Chelsea, which contains part of the proposed development area, has been highly critical of the scheme masterplan drawn up by Sir Terry Farrell. Resident pressure groups in K&C are alarmed by the heights of some of the buildings proposed. If any of this has perturbed the leadership of H&F there has been no public sign of it. After the rejection of the consultation JR, H&F leader Nick Botterill repeated the council's insistence that the Earls Court project is "a once-in-a-lifetime chance for the local residents to benefit from a multi-billion pound investment in their own neighbourhood," promising over 7,500 new homes as well as new shops, offices, public open spaces, a school and "up to 9,500 new permanent jobs." The council has also re-emphasised its pledge that every home on the two estates "would be replaced within the development area." Botterill's enthusiasm echoes that of his predecessor Stephen Greenhalgh, who stepped down from the helm of H&F last spring to become Boris Johnson's deputy for policing and head his mayor's officer for policing and crime. City Hall tells me that the two main planning applications for the scheme, which were respectively approved by H&F and K&C last year, have yet to be put before Johnson for his consideration. When they are, it seems unlikely that the mayor will use his powers to require changes. He and Greenhalgh, who told the Guardian last February that he regarded the Earls Court project as "the best deal in the history of redevelopment in London," have long been close allies. Questioned about the scheme in 2010, Johnson expressed his support for it and described Greenhalgh as "the great man." Greenhalgh took a hands-on role in the progression of the project when council leader, and it was this close involvement that led to Rosenberg making a formal complaint about him to the Greater London Authority (GLA) - a complaint the GLA's monitoring officer felt obliged to refer to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) last Monday. The Metropolitan Police has been assessing a dossier of material which argues that promises of preferential treatment in the allocation of new homes were illegally made by public officers to residents of the two estates in return for their supporting the demolition plan. That same dossier has been supplied to the IPCC. My latest information is that the IPCC is unlikely to decide whether or not to investigate the complaint before the end of next week. Greenhalgh has described the allegations against him as "baseless and politically motivated." |