Elephant and Castle residents to fight Lendlease office tower plan
“I’m outraged that Lendlease want to build an office block, when the original plan was for new homes and open space,” says Jerry Flynn, a former resident of the Heygate council estate.
Elephant and Castle residents and community groups are fighting against a giant office block being built right in the middle of the new residences of Elephant Park, the private housing development that replaced the demolished Heygate council housing estate.
Some Elephant Park and other new residents feel they have been sold their homes on a false prospectus, as they could face an office block on their doorstep.
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Objections
Elected councillors of the south London borough of Southwark had earlier rejected global corporate developer Lendlease’s proposal, after receiving over 450 objections. Councillors said the office block was too big for the area, that it was ‘out of character’ and would badly impact local residents’ privacy and light.
However, London Mayor Sadiq Khan Sadiq Khan declined to ‘call in’ the decision; and now Lendlease has appealed to central government to overturn the council’s decision. There will be a public inquiry this September.
“We want to take a full part in the inquiry. We don’t want to just stand on the side-lines while Lendlease uses big money to overturn a local decision, taken by the councillors we elected,” says Flynn.
Campaigning residents and groups need to raise at least £5000 to support their legal team. Southwark Law Centre, and the Public Interest Law Centre have committed themselves to the residents’ cause, but they also need a barrister to present the best case possible at the inquiry.
Readers wishing to support the campaigners can contribute via:
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/no-to-the-elephant-h1-office-b/
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False
The Heygate Estate itself was demolished on a widely predicted broken promise that over 1,000 public sector homes would be replaced by genuinely affordable homes for its long-established ethnically diverse working class population.
But Lendlease’s bitterly opposed Heygate ‘regeneration’ led to that community of over 3,000 people being displaced from the Elephant and Castle and dispersed across London and south-east England.
Featured image: Lendlease employees are even required to wear Elephant ‘regeneration’ propaganda on their backs.
© Paul Coleman, London Intelligence, June 2023