Streatham Hub Public Meeting #1 - so what did we learn?

So Council officers and Tesco came to Streatham to report on the Hub status. Streatham Action hosted a public meeting at the Streatham Business Centre and both sides presented the side of things they wanted us to hear, and were asked questions. We will be uploading a redux of the minutes taken (there were pages and pages) as soon as a copy is available, but in the meantime, what did we learn?

Basically we don’t know much more from what was said at the meeting, than we did before. However, if you’ve been following this in the press, there are 5 salient things I felt were the most important in relation to public perceptions. These are (in no particular order of importance or priority except the first two are mainly Lambeth issues; the rest mainly Tescos’ issues), Lambeth masterplan as regards Streatham, lack of development South of St Leonards church, Tescos blame for the housing market, uncertainty over pool and ice skating provision and the expiration of planning permission in 2012.

Firstly, we found out about the Masterplan council officers keep going on about, and exactly what it’s good for…..

What’s the point to the Masterplan anyway?

Lambeth spent a lot of time and money developing its masterplan for Streatham. A 6-figure amount was paid to a consultancy group to launch “Future Streatham” to “consult” with the public about development in Streatham into the future. The gist of this was that Streatham would be divided into 4 regions (North, Central, Village and Hub). There would be specifically targeted development schemes for these regions (or so we were told): entertainment in the North, dense residential development in central and village, retail (Tescos + Hub) in the Hub and so forth. In addition to the monetary figure quoted above, many, many hours/days of personnel effort, civic input (Town Centre Mgt committee and Streatham Action both dedicated much time to this) were spent on it and our erstwhile Town Centre Manager burned a lot of runtime on it as it was considered a priority in TCM efforts.

All of this was interestingly put into context when Jo Negrini was questioned on it. Her statement was that the Masterplan was an ideal if the situation lent itself to the plan (i.e. if that’s what developers were going to do anyway) but was nothing more. It had no force or compulsion. Reading into local gov’t speak it was something that would offer an indication of the development the council wouldn’t oppose and might be willing to help and assist with in its implementation.

But even that’s subject to the irony of reality doing its own thing, usually in the opposite fashion to well-laid plans: the only high-density residential development, and the only major entertainment complex, opened in Streatham in the past two years are both in the “Hub” area, whereas the flagship Megabowl retail/residential development in the  Streatham Hill region was shot down in flames by well-orchestrated local opposition and was retail/resi development, not night-time economy as per the masterplan.

So much for a Masterplan. Seems the point to it in this case is to give underemployed council officvers something to do. To indicate to developers the possiblities that exist is fair enough, except the council commissioned GVA Grimley to do just that a while back and developers are working to that and ignoring the current council masterplan.

And what about South Streatham Development?

Possibly the ugliest thing about Tescos prevarication on the Hub development is that the council have been happy to off-load development south of St Leonards Church onto Tescos and concentrate their attention elsewhere. The council feel they don’t need to do any development in the South as this is taken care of by Tescos. Apparently. Jo Negrini was specifically asked about this and chose not to answer.

So the pavements are deteriorating, the congestion on the High Road and, therefore, on the cut-through roads, hasn’t lessened and the retail profile of the area drops off sharply to phone-abroad shops, fried chicken shops and no-name plumbers merchants.

The only council investment has been to build in an IT training facility across from Morrisons which is apparently being paid for by the council to the tune of £25,000 per month but has never actually opened. Hmmm…

Housing downturn is a red herring

Tesco made a policy decision to not use house/flat building as a part of the finance package in thedevelopment they delivered in Brixton(!) in 2007 when flats could command a steep price. Therefore any change in Tescos stance toward flat building is borne out in policy terms, not as a reaction to economic conditions.

Furthermore, given the cost to build residential units has fallen precipitously in the recession, the economics remain sound but Tescos internal policies have changed. To cast the project risk to the Streatham Hub as being subject to thevagaries of the housing market is not just a red-herring, it’s disingenuous to the residents of Streatham and really has nothing to do with the project at all. Project risk is more than offset by shifts in the economics in Tescos favour.

Unless Tesco and the council aren’t telling us something. Perhaps the council have moved the goalposts, or Tescos wants to alter the housing mix. perhaps these are the commercially confidential negotiations we keep hearing about. In the old ABC Cinema building a resident confided to me today that the landlords are still talking about rumours Jamie Oliver is going to set up a restaurant there. Unfortunately,the council allowed the developers to build an additional 9 flats in the space that would have been back-of-house in any viable restaurant premises. This was done in a last minute variation under commercially confidential negotiations by council officers in the same wording and tone of voice we’re hearing now.

Unfortunately the council believe they’re the equal of one of the biggest and most profitable multinational corporations in Europe when it comes to negotiations. given the corner the council have painted themselves into on the Hub development I believe it’s clear to all they really aren’t.

Uncertainty over pool and ice skating provision

One certainty we could take away from the meeting is that whatever Tesco agreed to before, their new proposals do not contain a commitment to continuity of the provision of ice skating and swimming. Eoin Dardis could not give a firm statement of commitment and was very precise in his wording (“Tesco wants to commit to this and they view this as optimal…” Wanting to do something is a clear shift away from firm commitment to doing it).

Additionally there was a question as to whether the Section 106 agreement committed Tesco to provision of ice and swimming “during the development” or “until the development is finished. In other words, will the ice rink, and the leisure centre, be protected from now until the development is finished, or only when development begins (in which case they could delay until one or the other closes before development begins eliminating their responsibility by creating a fait accompli in situ)? This wasn’t answered at the meeting, or in subsequent questioning since.

Is Tesco playing a long game?

It’s entirely possible, and appears very probable, that Tesco is playing a long game in which they allow planning permission to expire forcing the council to re-negotiate better terms with them under the threat of Tescos land-banking the site and allowing the ice rink to decay and close. The leisure centre is the council’s responsibility but the council a) has no money, b) won’t have any in the new austerity economy following this recession, and c) won’t wish to build a new leisure centre as this may be seen by Tesco as not negotiating in good faith by constructing a long-term/permanent building on the site of what is supposed to be the land-swap site. The sharp-eyed would have noticed the extortion, implicit in this strategy, towards the local community.

It’s also possible Tesco had hoped Boris would have been more amenable to the development profile they wanted to move to. It appears this hasn’t happened. They may wait to see if David Cameron will be more friendly, or if a hung Parliament might be persuaded to relax planning requirements. Improbable as this may be, Tesco takes on no risk allowing this to unfold in any way it may. Finally Tesco may land bank the site for decades expecting a future council, weary of Streatham resident’s demands, to approve Tescos application to do what they want (i.e. build a store, and, well, that’s it! Nothing else).

As it stands now the council is between a rock and a hard place.

So, what’s next?

The council have said to us they want to revisit this episode in 2 months time as, insofar as Tesco have just tabled proposals, they should be able to give us some visibility into the new proposals and provide guidance as to where tesco is heading and how the council is likely to take this.

So Streatham action is planning to re-commence in the same place on the 8th of December or thereabouts. We hope to see you then!