please empty your brain below
Well said DG, your final paragraph echoed my thoughts as I read through your post. Homes for ordinary people aren't exciting, but they are essential. Many more years of this type of development "vision" (ha!) and London will have all the charm, character and social balance of an ostentatious duty free outlet in a Middle Eastern airport.

Waterhouse | 14.10.13 - 7:44 a.m. | #

Don't get me started about the property market. Grrrr.

Karen | 14.10.13 - 8:01 a.m. | #

Yes, exactly. Insane, socially destructive, speculation.

Dominic H | 14.10.13 - 8:11 a.m. | #

All the way through this post, I was thinking that development on this scale isn't much different from the vast swathes of housing which went up around a hundred years ago - of course, that was on a far more human scale: terraced houses with gardens or blocks of four or five storeys of flats and maisonettes.

Then I reached your final paragraph, and realised it's entirely different - they were built for everyday people on an average wage to buy or rent. These are for the people that Boris and Gideon have gone to China to woo. Goodness knows where the people who'll be cleaning their flat and working in their local Little Waitrose are going to live.

martin | 14.10.13 - 8:11 a.m. | #

That's capitalism for you. Moving to London with a family has been well out of reach for anyone north of Watford for decades. London doesn't compete or compare to the rest of the UK at all anymore. It might as well be a separate country.

Chris | 14.10.13 - 8:36 a.m. | #

Looking at the agents web site it would seem that all of the "Tower" apartments are sold. I wonder how many of the new apartments owners will actually live in them. I think that more apartment blocks taller than "The Tower" are due to be built, the 1970's built office block near the Tower due to be demolished to make room for one of them.
The area has changed a lot. Walk along South Lambeth Road past BT's empty looking office tower block and you come to a large council estate,"Queens House" etc. This estate was built in the 1970's and replaced streets full of terrace houses. One of which I stayed in for a short time.
New Covent Garden Market was built around the same time on land which had been railway use before.
There is a car boot sale/market there on Sundays will that survive when the rich residence move into the area.
I wonder what thoughts Ken Livingstone has on the bus station at Vauxhall's possible demolition, I think it was one of his projects.
Perhaps the present Mayor Boris, now in China, can persuade some wealthy Chinese to buy some of the proposed property.
All these changes taking place make looking out of the window on the train journey into Waterloo interesting.

John | 14.10.13 - 8:44 a.m. | #

Not everyone loves Vauxhall Bus Station - the canopy completely fails in its sole purpose: keeping the wind, cold and rain off you!!

Nicks | 14.10.13 - 9:11 a.m. | #

I agree Nick, the canopy is no good for weather protection, I also think the bus station could be made smaller as it is a long walk to some of the bus stops.
I just seem to recall in was one of Ken Livinstone many ideas which he completed for better or worse.

John | 14.10.13 - 9:18 a.m. | #

What's happening to London's property market?

Social housing doesn't make the money for the developers, that's what. You have to have political pressure on developers to get affordable housing built. The kind of pressure very few are prepared to exert. Unfortunately.

Bronchitikat | 14.10.13 - 9:43 a.m. | #

On the other hand, those properties are most likely to be rented out, it's still extra housing units.

They may be luxury apartments, but that means rents won't be pushed up in other neighbourhoods.

There are two long term solutions to London's soaring population (up to 10 million by 2030's).

1. Stop all immigration, as the vast majority of immigrants head to London and the SE. Politically popular but does have costs to the London economy.

2. Get rid of most planning controls.

You'd soon see swathes of London's terraces near rail/tube stations demolished for new blocks of flats at the same time vast new fields of houses would be built in the Home counties.

This is course is politically impossible. Recent attempts to loosen the Nimby ratchet of the last few decades has met with severe resistance.

On the other severely restricting immigration goes against the idea that London is now the New York/LA of Europe, you can't have that without the tired and huddled masses all trying to make something of themselves.

In fact relatively little of London's recent immigration has been from poor people, compared to a lot of other World cities. London's recent business success is from the World mobile upper middles being able to hop on a jet and take a job. Set up a consultancy or start some artistic venture. It's the higher incomes of these new immigrants that have helped turbo charge Londons property market.

The failure in policy is not to actually plan for the increase in population that resulted from the loosening of immigration controls.

Rational Plan | 14.10.13 - 10:03 a.m. | #

Long-time reader, first-time commenter. Hi!

Forgive me if I state my case a little more strongly than usual, but what the hell is happening to London's property market?

There was a piece about it in the New York Times, of all the places, which I found interesting.

Chris | Homepage | 14.10.13 - 10:37 a.m. | #

DG, your final thoughts are so prescient. How is this great city to function if nurses / teachers etc can't afford to live here?

IslandDweller | 14.10.13 - 10:52 a.m. | #

Re the comment above about the lack of affordability of Real Estate in London (and indeed in many Capital cities) for 'families', the same is true for many others. Single people on single incomes are not, as tax collectors would like to think, rich individuals whose wallets are overflowing. In fact we struggle to pay exorbitant rents alone and often all we can afford are paltry, smelly bedsits with leaky everything and limited natural light. This is also because we pay all other bills alone too. Also, contrary to what is often popular opinion, we like a bit of space, a bedroom separate from a living room, even a spare room!, a kitchen that can take more than a microwave and a single hob and even outside space to relax or grow things and the capacity to have pets (OK, I mean kittens). For some reason single people are so often constructed as 'no needs', as if they were waiting for marriage and kids before they can be recognised as having needs. Seriously. When flat hunting recently I was told that 'at least I didn't need to be fussy' (eh, as a woman living alone, of course not) and 'it does not matter where you live because you only have yourself to think about'. At a colleague's house I commented on her massive well-stocked fridge (in a nice way, I was trying to find somewhere to plonk my wine)and her comment was along the lines of well of course I wouldn't need much food because eating was social. What am I? One of those funny plants from the 70s that grew on air? All too often when affordable housing (not the same as social housing) is mooted it is all about families and it is ASSumed that single people are either rolling in dough or don't need anywhere decent to live. So my wishlist includes decent housing for us single people (with kittens, or without).

Antipodean | 14.10.13 - 11:17 a.m. | #

As one of the few people who lives in this area, it's all too sad too see what is happening to the place. For all the rage against industrial estates, at least they had some form of greenery and life about them on weekdays, much more human than the high rise flats that are being built everywhere.

It should be Nine Elms Lane though not Nine Elms Road, the latter doesn't exist.

dg writes: Road now renamed, thanks.

Local | 14.10.13 - 11:18 a.m. | #

Get rid of planning controls to allow "vast new fields of houses would be built in the Home counties" ? Sounds like a completely irrational plan to me....

Paul | 14.10.13 - 12:17 p.m. | #

It is quite simple.

The building companies care about themselves, and not you or me.

If you can spend £100k building an apartment and sell it for £500k, where's the fun in that when you could spend £250k and make £2m instead?

Oddly, this is one of the few cases where classic short termism doesn't prevail - they could easily sell the £500k flats, and put less money down in the meantime. But they'd prefer to spend more to make more. Virtually unheard of these days.

Kirk | 14.10.13 - 1:32 p.m. | #

I totally agree with your last paragraph. I've been living down the road in Battersea for 2 years now (in a rented apartment - no chance of ever buying my own property!) and not a day goes by without a letter from one of the local Real Estate agencies arriving through my letterbox telling me that "we have a lot of clients interested in renting your property". With my contract due for renewal next year, I'm already anticipating a move somewhere else in London as I'm expecting a rent increase and I'm already at the limit of what I can pay in rent monthly.

Mike T | 14.10.13 - 1:45 p.m. | #

Most of the land in the Nine Elms Road / Wandsworth Road / Thessaly Road triangle was originally railway land – there termus of the L&SWRly was Nine Elms, roughly where the flower garden is now, until the line was extended to Waterloo. The area was the L&SWRly’s main depot and included stabling, maintenance and loco building. The old terminus became a goods depot. For those intereseted in the area, the large scale (1:2500) London OS maps 88 and 101 from the 1860s onwards show a wealth of detail.

The whole Nine Elms depot etc. closed in the late 1960’s and development then began, with the building of the flower market and the Royal Mail depot.

The disused Nine Elms railway site is the railway location in the film Melody where the rebellious children go.

The Royal mail depot at Nine Elms is probably an empty shell now. Last year staff were given the option – transfer to other (usually miles away) places or take redundancy – and I think they then began stripping the place as staff disappeared.

Roger | 14.10.13 - 1:48 p.m. | #

If your old like me you will remember the multitude of high rise blocks of flats built in the 60s, thought to be wonderful at the time.

It took about 10 years for these blocks to become magnets for crime, drug dealing and gangs to take over and soon become slums.

In the 80s and 90s many of these blocks were subsequently demolished as the problems could not otherwise be solved and town planners realised that houses with gardens was the way to go.

Short memories! - a classic case of sweep that under the carpet as money talks!

How long will it take for all these high rise flats (sorry we must be posh and call them appartments, it gives them more acceptability - NOT) across London to become the slums of the 21st century - not long I suspect.

Agent Z | 14.10.13 - 7:36 p.m. | #

Its funny that all the London markets like Billingsgate and Covent Garden moved out of overcrowded inner London 30 years or so ago only to find their new sites are built up again at Canary Wharf and Nine Elms. One thing that has not changed in London is the weather. And sipping champagne on my balcony in a damp November is not very attractive. So I will remain living in a boring area of London with no view of the Thames nearby and not very attractive to a Far Eastern buyer.

kissenme | 14.10.13 - 8:32 p.m. | #

Well said DG.
Who is going to be left in London in another 20 years? We need more council housing, or some modern equivalent - we do not need hundreds more 'luxury riverside appartments'.

ChrisMitch | 14.10.13 - 8:43 p.m. | #

@ paul, the point was you can't have a big population increase without either building a lot of houses, flats or have prices rise.

We have not built a lot of new houses or flats because of the high price of land, which is due to planning controls.

You can't have everything, choices have to be made. You either concrete a lot of the South East, you reduce the population or you accept high house prices.

Rational Plan | 15.10.13 - 5:12 a.m. | #

Despite the after-effects of the global financial crisis, there seems to be plenty of investment capital sloshing around in the corporate world. Meanwhile, people who lost everything are wondering where their money went.

Great Aunt Annie | 15.10.13 - 8:33 a.m. | #

I fully realise this, RP, but most people don't seem to. Immigration, multi-culture, increasing birth-rate, people living longer ? - 'yes please, we'll have all that'; HS2, third runway, new roads, shopping centres, high density housing ? Nah.... not in my back yard. You're right, something have to give, and I don't want it to be the Green Belt thanks...

Paul | 15.10.13 - 12:23 p.m. | #

ChrisMitch - the experts think plenty of people will be left in London in 20 years time as they predict the recent rapid population growth to continue.
See page 11 of this document for the official estimates.

whiff | 15.10.13 - 6:18 p.m. | #

@whiff
Yes, but have the experts included runaway housing costs in their population growth model? Surely they would have assumed that some sort of rational housing policy would be introduced The lack of affordable housing could still stifle any growth over the next few decades if young people and families move away to find somewhere to live.

ChrisMitch | 15.10.13 - 9:06 p.m. | #

"combustible London Duck Tours" makes me smile. Also makes me wonder if there's any connection to the ill-fated Water Chariots.

Great Aunt Annie | 16.10.13 - 7:49 a.m. | #

A couple of months ago I read that our glorious mayor was describing two bedroom flats priced at £350,000 as "affordable".

Tells you everything that's wrong with the system. Councils have the ability to demand social housing be part of a scheme, or paid for by one, but frequently don't - not least because the developers regularly use blackmail to get away with not doing anything. Some councils just give up and don't do anything in the first place.

It's all madness, but no one in power seems to actually give a flying [insert word of your choice here]. All the schemes to help people with deposits in the world aren't going to solve the insane problems with house prices in London, with people borrowing to the max to get on the ladder.

And a final sobering thought - interest rates will go up one day. How many home owners in London have ended up over stretching themselves, based on the assumption that cheap credit will remain for the duration? What happens when rates get to 8%, 12% or even 20%? I suspect house prices will go down one day. And if they do, it won't be pretty.

Andrew Bowden | Homepage | 18.10.13 - 2:13 p.m. | #











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