‘Fighting for breadcrumbs’: Protest calls on council to block development until more social housing offered 

Campaigners took to the street last night calling for more social housing to be included in a development over a popular market.

A crowd gathered outside Southwark town hall in Tooley Street, to demand the council’s refusal in its current form of Berkley Homes’ planning application for the Borough Triangle development.

The demonstration was organised by Southwark Housing And Planning Emergency (SHAPE), an umbrella group of housing campaigns from across Southwark.

Berkeley has submitted plans to build almost 900 homes on the Borough Triangle site, bounded by Newington Causeway and Borough Road.

Only 25 per cent will be social rent, with 35 per cent penned as “affordable”, despite more than 18,000 families waiting for council housing across the borough.

Siobhan McCarthy, 47, of Aylesham Community Action, said: “The bare minimum is too low and people don’t know it’s happening.

“This is an area that people love, it has a community spirit and the heart of it is going to be demolished.”

Four buildings are proposed, with one stacked as high as 44 storeys to be built on the site of Mercato Metropolitano, a popular food and drink market in Elephant & Castle.

There are 40 traders operating out of the market but only 12 will be offered a temporary space during construction.

Hind Danoun, 32, has run her Syrian restaurant, Utopia Food, out of the market since last year.

She said: “It has been very stressful for me. There are no affordable retail spaces and it was so hard to get this one.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen. Berkeley said some of us would be able to stay but they didn’t say how they would choose.

“I’m trying to find somewhere I can store all of my things while I look for somewhere else. But I can’t find anywhere and this is my full-time job.”

Sophie Wall, project officer for the not-for-profit Latin Elephant, said the plans echoed “previous mistakes” made in the redevelopment of the Elephant & Castle shopping centre.

Ms Wall said: “What we saw at the shopping centre was five years of destruction to successful, independent migrant traders who are in debt or suffering from losing customers.

“Berkley’s strategy has a lot of the same problems – there is not enough money in the relocation fund and we don’t know who will be allowed to stay.

“These things need to be clear before planning is granted. Afterwards, it is much harder for the affected community to demand what they need.”

But Ms Wall said the displacement of traders was part of a bigger picture for migrant communities in areas like Elephant and Castle.

She said: “Latin American communities and migrant communities have laid roots and created economic social value in these areas.

“That value is being capitalised upon by developers for projects that don’t centre the communities already there.

“There are ways the planning process can be used to empower these communities, but it’s not happening to the extent it could. 

“When you’re fighting for breadcrumbs you make gains, but a lot is lost in the detail.”

The protest follows a march organised by SHAPE on March 1 against unaffordable developments pushing up rents and displacing communities in the borough.

Southwark council’s local plan states that new developments must contribute a minimum of 35 per cent affordable housing, but the target is “subject to viability”.

The protest drew attention to other developments across Southwark, including proposals to build 4,000 new homes in Canada Water, and 867 in Peckham’s Aylesham centre.

The Aylesham proposal is currently offering 12 per cent affordable housing, whilst at Canada Water, British Land’s latest application has indicated that work is needed if the scheme is to achieve more than 10 per cent.

Councillor Helen Dennis, cabinet member for new homes and sustainable development, said: “Our planning policies clearly set out what we expect from developers in our borough and, as a result of these, we have secured huge investment into a new Northern line entrance and ticket hall at Elephant & Castle, a new leisure centre soon to be opened at Canada Water, and more than £20million for investment in Neighbourhoods via our CIL.

“Southwark council is focused on delivering the affordable housing that our residents need. We are proud that 22 per cent of social rent homes started in London this year have been started in Southwark.”

The council will make its decision at a planning committee on Wednesday of next week.

Pictured top: Campaigners outside Southwark town hall demanding the council’s refusal of Berkley Homes’ planning application for the Borough Triangle development (Picture: SHAPE)