In this edition of Nimby Watch, we’re off to the People’s Republic of Peckham, handily situated in zone two of London.
Right then, where are we looking for Nimbys this week? As ever, we are spoiled for choice – but we’ve headed down to Peckham, where last week a planning inspectorate inquiry kicked off to decide whether or not to build 877 homes on the site of a 1980s shopping centre which everyone agrees should be redeveloped.
Hang on, you say ‘everyone agrees’? That doesn’t sound very Nimby-ish. Oh, we’ll get to it. But there’s almost no one in this case saying that this particular shopping mall is a heritage local asset which must be preserved for the ages. The developer that owns the site obviously wants to build on it. The site is essential to Peckham’s local plan to hit its housing targets. And even the ‘Aylesham Community Action’ group says it supports development on the site – with some caveats.
‘Caveats’ sounds ominous. Yes, it does. Needless to say, Aylesham Community Action opposes the actual plans to build 877 homes on the site – Yimbys never seem to start up local groups just to cheer developers on (not yet, at least). And the group has celebrity support: comedians Nish Kumar and James Acaster performed at fundraising gigs, helping it raise £46,000 to oppose the development.
Is Nish Kumar a big Nimby then? He would certainly claim not to be! Last July, he opened his Pod Save The UK podcast with a monologue. It began: ‘Housing is one of the biggest issues in our country today. House affordability is at record lows. The average age of homeownership is climbing. Finding a place to rent can be nearly impossible in some areas,’ and continued for some time. So… yes, it does look a bit strange that he’s now fundraising to oppose 877 homes in an area facing an acute housing shortage and affordability crisis.
What would Kumar – or the community campaigners – say their argument against the development were. Are we being unfair here? In the interest of fairness, we should probably note that Berkeley Homes, the developer here, has managed to make themselves look extremely sketchy with this one. A few months ago, the development was going to be 35% affordable homes. At something close to the last minute, this was dropped to just 8% by number of properties, or 12% by floorspace. That does look an awful lot like the kind of bait-and-switch that infuriates councils and locals alike.
Okay then, what would Berkeley say? Well, annoyingly, they didn’t respond to our queries on this occasion. But they told the inquiry that it was a matter of cost – their argument is that no one would be able to redevelop this brownfield site with 35% affordable homes. Given what we know about costly legal fights, delays, site preparation costs and the huge cost of buying appropriate sites with planning in London, there is almost certainly some basis to this argument, too.
Well, this is just depressing so far. It is, isn’t it? What makes it more depressing is that this is the third attempt to redevelop this site. Southwark council first identified it as a prime site for redevelopment – and essential to their housebuilding strategy – in 2014. The previous developer eventually gave up by 2021 and sold the site to Berkeley. These plans got produced in 2024, and now are going through a process that is trying to skip council approval, given other problems. But we have had 11 years of pretty much everyone saying there must be homes on this site, and there is still not a single home on this site. This is pretty much London’s housing crisis in a nutshell.
This feels a lot like we’re just telling local campaigners to suck it up and accept development without affordable homes. Honestly, maybe we have to bite that bullet. As it stands, there are no new homes, affordable or otherwise, on that site, and the shortage just pushes up property prices – and rents. ‘Outsiders’ still move into Peckham – it continues to gentrify at pace – they just move into the slightly less shiny flats which locals might otherwise rent or buy.
It feels like ‘stopping development’ counts as a win because that way maybe a ‘good’ development is built on the site in future. Exactly: Aylesham Community Action want a development with 35-50% affordable housing, including social housing, and one in three jobs during construction and on the site afterwards to be guaranteed for locals, at all levels of seniority. Anything that falls short of that getting permission means this plan never happens. But realistically, this plan will never happen anyway. The perfect is being the enemy of the good.
Well, I’m thoroughly depressed. And I can’t work out if I want this development to be built or not. I think we probably want it to be built, because if not we’ll be back in ten years and it’ll still be a decomposing 1980s shopping centre. But maybe we should ask ourselves what the point of ‘affordable housing’ targets are.
If they’re supposed to be actually affordable for people on average incomes, most of them aren’t. If they’re supposed to help development happen quicker, that’s clearly not the case – it’s often used as the excuse to oppose them. Is it reducing local opposition to building? Absolutely not.
‘Affordable housing’ feels like it was introduced as a cheat to justify building no actual social housing, and to pretend the market would somehow just fix it all, even with agonisingly strict planning rules. Instead, we’ve just ended up with no market housing and no social housing. Maybe someone ought to look at that?
Feel better for getting that rant off your chest? Much better, yes. Thanks.
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