White City Opportunity Area response

7/27/2019 White City Opportunity Area response

1/4

White City Opportunity Area Planning Framework

Response to Consultation

Andy Slaughter, MP for Hammersmith

1. Legitimacy. Having read the Framework and supporting papers I am confusedas to its significance. Paragraph 1.23 describes it as having very little weightat present but that this may increase. Previous SPDs, notably that forShepherds Bush Market which forms part of the WCOA, have been legallychallenged and quashed. This seems to have created some uncertainty inthe Councils mind as to the purpose of SPDs. Planning Committees havebeen instructed to ignore those for Shepherds Bush Market and WestKensington; other major development areas like Hammersmith Town Centrehave struggled on without them

The most important guidance in the Framework is that based on the

Development Infrastructure Funding Study (DIFS). But this document isbased on hypothetical and speculative reasoning as to the amount it isreasonable to expect developers to contribute to public benefit. It appears tohave been devised as a piece of defensive briefing to validate the Councilabandoning its own targets for affordable housing. As the Councils officershave told me the outcome from the DIFS therefore need to be used with caution. It doesindeed as it is a political rather than a financial appraisal.

In any event the Framework is about two years too late. Most of the majorsites have already received planning consents without the benefit of theFramework. Because the development of White City has therefore

progressed in a piecemeal, anarchic way, some of the consented schemesare already proving unfeasible and sites are changing hands (eg Dairy Crest)or new applications are being prepared (eg Westfield). Bizarrely this meansthat the Framework despite its lateness already looks out of date.

2. Affordable Housing.As the document notes, White City is in the top 5% areasof deprivation in the UK, housing overcrowding is 18% and house prices, torent or buy, are beyond the reach of White City residents

Against this background the Council voluntarily lowers its target for affordablehomes from 40% to 15%. But in reality this is 5% as the 10% of social rented

homes must be filled by emptying and disposing of social rented housing


2/4

elsewhere, a policy driven solely by ideology and damaging to both socialcohesion and the welfare of residents.

This one policy makes the document worthless and risible as an attempt toset guidelines to regenerate White City. It is a thinly disguised political fix

which distorts any legitimate purpose of the Framework.

It is a pity that H&F, unlike Westminster, does not quantify the sum it donatesto developers by failing to achieve its own planning policies. Here, this mustrun into hundreds of millions. The paucity of ambition and surrender of publicbenefit to sectional interests is disgraceful and it is surprising that professionalofficers want their names associated with it.

3. Viability. Councillor Dame Sally Powell, who represents White City, and Iquestioned offers about the quantum of affordable housing in the document,

we were told by officers that:It is important to emphasise that the target for affordable housing in the Opportunity Arearemains at 40% in line with the objectives set for White City in the Core Strategy. The DIFSoutcome raised a concern that due to the high site abnormal costs and the need to contributeto considerable highway and social infrastructure costs when financial viabilities are providedby developers these will most likely propose a level of affordability below this target.

With respect, this is gibberish. At best it is throwing in the towel beforenegotiations have started on any individual site. However, the towel wasthrown in long ago: there is zero affordable housing in the Imperial West andShepherds Bush Market consents and 10% on the Westfield 2 site.

The Framework notes (7.13) that the DIFS viability assessment was carriedout on the basis of general assumptions and not actual detailed schemes. It,and the Framework, are a giant Christmas present handed to the countryswealthiest developers, paid for by local residents and taxpayers.

4. Review. At 7.18 the Framework states: In negotiating recent s106Agreements in the area, the Council has sought to include review clauses,particularly with a view to increasing affordable housing in the future, ifpossible.

Where this has happened, as with Westfield, the review clause is patheticallyunambitious, envisaging a possible increase from 10% to 16% in affordablehousing should the property value of one of the countrys prime retail sitesincrease over the coming years.

But we are lucky to know even this as very little of the viability assessments orreview mechanisms are publicly available. In any event, where it suits theCouncil it dispenses with review altogether, as with the WestKensington/Earls Court application, despite this being the largest single sitein the borough with the longest gestation.


3/4

5. White City Estate. The document explicitly excludes the White City (andsmaller) estates from its compass (2.18). Why? This is a once in ageneration opportunity to help regenerate one of the economically poorestareas of London.

The Councils previous strategy was demolition, relocation and socialengineering as with other parts of the borough. No doubt this is the long-termaim still, but not feeling able to express this view with elections pending, theyremain silent on the future living conditions of the majority of current WhiteCity residents.

6. Infrastructure. Public transport, roads, GP and other health services, schoolsand leisure facilities are all given inadequate weight in the document. Thequantum of development is huge in an area with current low level ordiscontinued uses. The only plausible explanation for this is that the Councildoes not expect many of the 5,000 flats to be constructed to be occupied, or,

if they are, for their owners to use public services.

7. Density and tall buildings. There is no precedent or reason given forencouraging very tall buildings in this location. They have become a featureof the various applications for the area simply because the Council willapprove them. In the case of the Dairy Crest site the application for a densedevelopment including a very tall building appears to have been a way ofincreasing the site value. As soon as consent was granted the site was soldon to Imperial who do not intend to build out the scheme.

8. Strategy. There is none here. The previous White City Masterplan was builtaround the BBC and cultural industries. Sadly, the BBC is abandoning thearea. But there is an opportunity via Imperial to make health, education andresearch its focus. There is nothing about this in the document just thepromotion of faceless over-developed redundant tower blocks. The loss ofindustrial and employment land is simply driven by what makes developersmost money in the London housing price bubble

9. Open space. Because developers have been given their planning consentscheaply and chaotically there has been no provision so far for open space.Now there is White City Green, a sliver of land that has to be prised out of St

James. It is wholly inadequate. Meanwhile, the major existing public openspace, Hammersmith Park, is seeing a third of its area sold on a 35 yearlease to a private company who will price local residents out of its use.

10.QPR. Loftus Road Stadium is a landmark in the area but there is nothingabout QPRs contribution to the local community, to the need to keep the clubin the area or how the intensification of land use elsewhere will affect the areaon match days.

11. Emergency services. There is nothing about the proposed closure ofHammersmith Hospital A&E, or the ability of St Marys to cope with the extra

demand from 5000 homes. Nor about the closure of Shepherds Bush police


4/4

station to the public. What service will residents get when huge additionalnumbers of visitors and residents are added to the local population?

12. History. Although this is paid lip service to in the document there is noattempt to preserve the character of White City. Shepherds Bush Market is

being sanitised and important parts of the area, such as 30-52 GoldhawkRoad, being destroyed. Every part of White City has character: WCE, BBCTVC, QPR, Shepherds Bush Green and Market. The Council clearly eitherignores or dislikes the history of White City. This document colludes with thedestruction of the area. It adds nothing and takes away a lot. I suggest it isquietly buried.

Documents

White City Opportunity Area response