Developers have agreed to contribute £452 million to transform community schemes around Earls Court, bringing the £8 billion controversial redevelopment one step closer.
Council bosses from Hammersmith and Fulham and Kensington and Chelsea waved through the agreement on Thursday (November 14) determining how developer Capital and Counties Properties (Capco) will pay £42.1m for the building of a new primary school, leisure centre, health facilities and community and cultural spaces, as part of a package of community benefits known as a 106 agreement.
The news comes just over a month after residents from the Gibbs Green and West Kensington estates lost their third attempt this year to thwart plans to redevelop Earls Court. They claimed the two councils’ adopted planning document which outlined the scheme was unlawful, but Mr Justice Keith Lindblom dismissed the High Court legal challenge on October 9.
Under the arrangement agreed last week, Capco will pay £35m for 37 acres of green, open space with a new five-acre park and improvement to transport infrastructure, including £38.2m to increase capacity at Earls Court, West Kensington and West Brompton Underground stations.
A total of 7,500 new homes will be built under current plans for the area following the demolition of the famous exhibition centre. Out of this total there will be 1,500 affordable homes paid for with £315m - the largest chunk of the £452m - which will also incorporate replacement homes for residents from West Kensington and Gibbs Green estates which are due to be knocked down.
Politicians from both Conservative-led councils are delighted with the agreement, but this is not the case for residents of the two estates and Hammersmith’s Labour MP, Andy Slaughter, who has accused the two councils and Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, of destroying communities, skilled jobs and historic sites ‘to please their developer friends and speed up the social cleaning of west London’.
Mr Slaughter, who has been vehemently opposed to the plan from the outset, said: “An integrated community that includes people from every walk of life will be replaced with a soulless development.
“My constituents are appalled by this development. It demolishes 760 affordable, good-quality, newly modernised houses and flats, the workshops and sidings that keep the tube running and the iconic Earls Court Exhibition Centre. In their place will be 8,000 high-rise luxury flats, almost all of which will be bought off-plan by international investors and remain empty for most of the year.”
Leader of Hammersmith and Fulham Council, Nicholas Botterill, however believes the redevelopment will usher in a new era of prosperity and opportunity on a scale never seen before in west London. “We have said, from the very outset, that we would only include the estates if people living on them substantially benefit from redevelopment, followed by the wider area,” he said.
“This agreement can leave estate residents in no doubt that they will be the major beneficiaries of the scheme, not only gaining brand new homes, but also reaping the rewards of the huge raft of community improvements that will help them to make a success of their lives.”
The contribution from Capco will also include £5.5m towards new and improved bus lanes, stops and service improvements as well as £3.1m towards new and improved cycle lanes, three new cycle hire hubs and over 11,000 cycle parking spaces.
Capco will also be contributing £8m worth of employment and skills training in the area where 10,000 permanent jobs are expected to be created.
