Lambeth Liberal Democrats

COMMENT: Lambeth Planning Ahead, or merely playing the Regeneration Game?

Lambeth is already a relatively poor, diverse and highly populated inner London borough by virtue of its limited geography.

Yet we sense a growing tide of unease among local residents about the sheer rate of development and the effect of that development upon the character of their area - and even of that fragile and cherished diversity being challenged and diluted.

The north of the borough has been under development stress for some considerable time. Being close to the political, cultural and retail epicentre of the capital, it is perhaps understandable that Lambeth planners and politicians have long identified opportunities for growth in an area that historically was once marshy farmland and then largely home to Victorian heavy industrial and commercial interests, supported by a tight-knit local working community.

As the noxious old industrial mix of brewing, wharves and engineering moved away, so cleaner if larger office blocks replaced the area's warren of derelict warehouses and bomb sites after WW2. Then when offices went out of fashion, larger apartment blocks on even bigger footplates inevitably replaced many of the small terraces of traditional houses but did not always lead to larger settled communities.

Many of the more prestigious residential developments were eagerly bought by buy to let landlords or by overseas nationals gaining a foothold on a spiraling property boom continually fed by under-supply of choice property with a river view.

There seemed to be little space amidst this glitz and glamour, glass and soaring concrete, for established communities - still less for those hard-pressed locals with social housing needs.

The really surprising thing in all this is that this unhappy state of affairs has largely come about - indeed blossomed - under a series of Labour administrations running Lambeth Town Hall.

Some critics say that this is borne out of a simple desire to rake in as much Council Tax as possible. Others say that Labour - especially New Labour - was and is still completely obsessed with the god of newness, often at the expense of existing valued heritage assets.

There's some evidence to suggest that Labour politicians play the Regeneration Game to its fullest extent. Wasn't it the last Labour Government that espoused the slightly naïve view that if you allow developers a free reign that this was the only way to ensure that new community facilities like health centres, schools and public open spaces followed?

These same Labour politicians even adapted Planning Guidance to allow for this promised New Age of Developer-led paternalism.

What followed was an orgy of development of swanky private housing blocks and towers in all the prime spots - some with little or no social housing at all and precious little of the promised infrastructural improvements. Developers always seemingly managed to play the hand that these overblown edifices were highly marginal financially, leaving little appetite for serious political opposition.

So the Borough's already meagre open spaces and parks actually dwindled rather than grew, the pressure on school places rocketed and the settled communities got pushed further and further into the margins of these isolated High-Rise Citadels.

There's a war of words going-on currently in Vauxhall between the developers and local communities - the Battle of Waterloo having been lost many moons ago. But some are wondering why certain Labour politicians are getting so hot under the collar right now when they've been largely complicit with a development free-for-all?

And their current bout of public angst does not chime very well given that only recently Lambeth's Planning Department - ironically located right at the heart of the disputed territory - was placed under the control of the Council's toweringly ambitious Regeneration Department.

It may very well be that a future Lambeth will of necessity be a far more crowded place than hitherto with people living in more densely accommodation than ever before. That, however, only underscores the absolute requirement for far more considerate planning - planning that puts people and communities first.

Room sizes, under the rapacious developer's regime, have dwindled in volume so that now, whether in the private or public sectors, people are living in smaller and smaller units of accommodation - the smallest in Europe in fact. Rooms are now so small that standard furniture cannot be shoe-horned in and space is at such a premium that a whole new industry of offsite commercial storage units has been invented just to cope with people's goods and chattels.

That makes it even more essential that the once promised and now even more urgent community spaces and facilities go hand in hand at the initial planning stage. They can never be bolted-on later.

There's been another casualty in this game of regeneration roulette. Quality and design have been largely sacrificed to mediocrity, ease of build and higher profit margins. Many purpose-built modern buildings are now erected with only a 25-30 year lifespan in mind - which means that they will probably not outlive even the once-scorned temporary prefabs built after The Blitz. What a waste of effort and natural resources.

Meanwhile, many perfectly useful and architecturally superior buildings without the benefit of Statutory Listing, are getting torn down just to promote a spurious and preposterous premise that the housing stock is being improved. Planners, under their new Regeneration masters, can apparently simply override the expert views of Design and Conservation officers and local amenity groups and residents.

If all this sounds to some like a monumental recipe for disaster, destruction by municipal wrecking ball, and the slavish onward march towards the slums and social unrest of tomorrow we can only share those misgivings.

For too long Labour's so-called partnership and love-affair with developers has been at best very one-sided and signally unproductive in delivering promised community benefits.

Time to say that building on precious Lambeth soil should be a privilege not a right. Time to recall a long lost sense and pride of place. Time to call the place where we live a living and diverse community, of which we are all part, and have a say in shaping. Time, indeed, to make Lambeth a mixed and vibrant community again, where people live and work and rest and play and not just some lifeless, featureless dormitory commuter suburb located handily across the Thames.

Time to make Lambeth really special and not just anonymous high-rise Anytown.