Turn autoplay off,
Office Pro Plus 2010
Turn autoplay on
Please activate cookies in order to flip autoplay off
Sally Taylor, chair of the West Kensington tenants' association. Photograph: Teri Pengilley
My write-up in present day Society area concerning the campaign by citizens with the West Kensington and Gibbs Green estates to resist demolition of their properties as portion of the vast Earls Court regeneration scheme says that Funds & Counties, the developer partners of David Cameron's favourite Council, will be exhibiting their masterplan later this month. And they will. But interested parties attending the annual MIPIM property business trade event in Cannes have already been given a look. The excellent Planning magazine - now mostly behind a pay wall, sadly - reports:
Gary Yardley, investment director at developer Capco, said that an application covering the whole development area, which includes land owned by the developer,
Windows 7 Product Key, the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham and mayoral agency Transport for London, would be made in June this year....The outline application includes the West Kensington and Gibbs Green housing estates owned by Hammersmith and Fulham Council, although a decision as to whether or not the estates will be redeveloped has yet to be made.
And the excellent Building magazine - also, sadly,
Office 2007 Ultimate, mostly behind a pay wall these days - has reported:
A spokesperson for the project said without the local authority land the site would still be 52 acres, down from 72, and still commercially viable. He explained that Capco now thought around half the estate residents were in favour with the plan, and half opposed. There had been fears that the masterplan could be scuppered if opposed citizens used new planning laws to take control of their estate. "It's an ongoing debate,
Office 2007 Professional Plus Key," said Yardley. "We have got to make sure there is a clear understanding from the scheme. All residents get a new place to live. No one is going anywhere else."
It seems that the West Kensington and Gibbs Green estates are a detachable component of the masterplan. This underlines that the possibility of the citizens breaking away from the Tory borough under new "right to transfer" powers made available by the Tory-led government and assuming ownership of your estates is taken seriously by all concerned. CapCo's recently-published audited preliminary results for last year acknowledged the new rights could render the council "unable to secure vacant possession of its land interests."
Much may depend on the relative speeds with which the "right to transfer" powers are activated and the planning application process progressed. I'll be covering every new episode of this remarkable saga, which has the potential to set off a series of transfers of Council housing stock to independent community ownership across London. It's a fascinating tale of how a government "localist" initiative could be used to prevent Conservative - and Labour or Lib Dems - boroughs from over-riding the wishes of Council tenants and leaseholders.
It should be stressed that, like CapCo's Gary Yardley, Hammersmith & Fulham continue to claim that they have the best interests of your West Ken and Gibbs Green citizens at heart. Only a little with the statement the Council provided me with appears in my piece for Society - the space constraints of newspapers, you see - so I'm happy to reproduce it in full here:
With the potential for one with the largest developments seen in London for many years happening on their doorstep, the council has a duty to explore whether this could benefit residents. We would be criticised if we did not. We have said all along that the Gibbs Green and West Kensington estates will only be included in any development if it is right for residents living there and right for people living in the wider area. This remains a firm commitment from the council.Nobody wants to break up neighbourhoods and communities.
That is why we have given residents on the estates detailed assurances that if their estates are included they will be offered a suitable new home in any development and that their friends and neighbours would be moved together. We will have a 'one move' policy, so that residents will only move into their new homes once they are completed. Dozens of citizens have come forward to tell they are excited by the proposal and want to find out more and we look forward to working with citizens to influence any proposals.
The Council also said it has been working with a "steering group" of around 25 residents interested in what the scheme can offer them,
Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010, though the two tenants and residents' associations say that a majority on the estates continues to support them.