Peckham people win battle against Aylesham developer

The people of Peckham claim victory in a battle to stop Berkeley Homes from re-developing the Aylesham Centre.

 

 

 

‘Homes. Communities. People. Transforming Tomorrow.’

This is how the developer, Berkeley Group, a FTSE 100-listed corporation, brands itself. But tomorrow might never come for its plans to demolish and redevelop Peckham with luxury homes.

It’s 18 May 2026. People in Peckham are claiming victory in a ‘David against Goliath’ battle to stop Berkeley Homes from demolishing and re-developing the Aylesham Centre on Rye Lane, Peckham, in south London.

Peckham people involved in Aylesham Community Action celebrate after National Planning Inspector Matthew Shrigley, a chartered town planner, refuses Berkeley Homes planning permission to develop the Aylesham Centre, one of Berkeley Home’s key ‘pipeline future sites’.

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Shrigley, in his decision, states the harm to Peckham’s heritage and townscape would outweigh the benefits of Berkeley Homes’ plans for new housing.

Berkeley Homes had intended to build 867 new homes, with 790 ‘split’ off as ‘market homes’ and only 77 as ‘affordable’. This ‘affordable’ element amounts to 12% by habitable rooms – and Shrigley acknowledges Peckham is a part of the south London borough of Southwark where many people desperately need homes they can afford.

However, Aylesham Community Action said the plan allocated just 50 of the new homes as ‘social housing; an unacceptably low proportion in Southwark, a borough ‘where one school has 80% of children registered as homeless’. People across Southwark have spent years campaigning for developers to allocate at least 35% of homes in new developments as ‘affordable’.

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Shrigley, through his site visits and planning inquiry in 2025, is compelled to consider local people’s objections to the Berkeley Homes plan: increased house prices driving existing residents out of the area, many flats being bought as investments and staying empty, and the plan’s lack of four-bedroom family homes.

Shrigley also notes that local people objected because ‘gentrification would arise rather than regeneration’, and that Berkeley Homes’ community engagement was ‘tokenistic and not meaningful’.

The Inspector does state the scheme would ‘considerably benefit’ Peckham by meeting some of the area’s acute need for affordable housing. But he also concludes Berkeley’s planned development would ‘not be sustainable in light of such harms’ to the area’s local ‘heritage assets and townscape’.

Shrigley says Berkeley Homes is ‘disparaging about the credentials of the building to be replaced (the Aylesham shopping centre) but does not offer an appropriate design solution’. He adds Berkeley Homes’ blocks represent ‘an enormous wall of development’, that would be ‘out of scale, visually intrusive and unduly diminishing’ of Peckham’s clocktower, an important landmark for local people.

He adds: ‘The circumstances…do not lead me to accept new housing and other associated betterments at all costs.’

Any future plan ‘should be carefully managed to ensure a more optimally designed scheme for future generations’.

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The Aylesham Centre, a shopping, leisure and business mall with a turquoise roof, opened in July 1988. The Aylesham is part of Peckham’s busy town centre, which includes the Jones and Higgins department store building with its landmark clock tower. Much of this part of Peckham is a Conservation Area, which means any development should preserve or enhance the area’s character and appearance.

Local people drove the Aylesham Community Action (ACA) campaign against Berkeley Homes’ plans for six years. They said the plans would ‘destroy Peckham’ through ‘gentrification on steroids…displacing communities, local traders, and wrecking Peckham’s heritage, economy, and heart.’

ACA has said throughout its six year struggle with Berkeley Homes and Southwark Council that local people would welcome a sensitive redevelopment of the Aylesham site that creates jobs, facilities, and good quality homes for Peckham people.

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Ann Lalic, of ACA, says: “This is a great victory, and we need it to push for changes in a planning system that doesn’t work for anyone but greedy and voracious developers.”

Siobhan McCarthy, also of ACA, adds: “The inspector, puts it in black and white: this a generational opportunity for Peckham.  So there now must be real, comprehensive, lasting, grassroots input from the community on any future plan for the Aylesham site.”

Rob Perrins, Berkeley Group executive chair (£785,000 annual salary 2025-26), says: “This decision demonstrates the extreme uncertainty developers continue to experience within the planning system.”

Berkeley Homes could appeal against the Planning Inspector’s dismissal of its own appeal. Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government Steve Reed could also step in and try to reverse the Inspector’s dismissal.

Berkeley Group, on behalf of Berkeley Homes, has been approached for further comment.

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Notes

1. The decision by the National Planning Inspectorate of Appeal Ref:APP/A5840/W/25/3366760 https://acp.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/ViewCase.aspx?CaseID=3366760&CoID=0
2. Matthew Shrigley (BSc Hons, MPlan MRTPI) is an experienced Inspector of the National Planning Inspectorate. He holds the Inquiry between October and November 2025. Shrigley visits the site on 2 and 5 November 2025.
3. Southwark Council leader Sarah King, says the council welcomes the planning inspector’s decision, adding: “This is a great day for Peckham.”
4. Aylesham Community Action (ACA) is made up of local people who persuaded elected politicians of the London Borough of Southwark to reject Berkeley Homes’ application for planning permission to build luxury homes for profit in Peckham.
5. ACA is part of SHAPE (Southwark Housing and Planning Emergency), an umbrella group of housing and planning campaigns from across the south London borough. SHAPE is supported by Southwark Defend Council Housing, Aylesham Community Action, Save Borough Triangle, Peckham Vision, Latin Elephant, Up the Elephant, 35% Campaign, Yes to Fair Redevelopment, Southwark Notes , Fight for Aylesbury, PlushSE16 No Price on Culture, Glengall Wharf Garden, Southwark TUC, Housing Action Southwark and Lambeth, and Southwark Group of Tenants Organisation.
6. A brief history of the Aylesham site: https://www.ayleshamcommunityaction.co.uk/history
7. Berkeley Homes is a subsidiary of the Berkeley Group, which says it ‘builds homes and neighbourhoods across London, Birmingham and the South of England’ and ‘specialises in brownfield regeneration’.

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© Paul Coleman, London Intelligence, May 2026.