How the Camden Goods Yard will look – if it’s built

A DEVELOPER hoping to drastically cut an affordable homes pledge told a planning inspector this week it will mothball a huge site in the heart of Camden Town – if it loses an appeal.

Berkeley St George won planning permission in 2018 to create a housing, offices and shops complex on the site of the former Morrisons supermarket in Chalk Farm Road.

But earlier this year it asked Camden Council for permission to cut the amount of affordable housing in the scheme, a request which was firmly rejected. This has led to the appeal hearing this week.

Some private flats on the site – known as Camden Goods Yard – will cost £2 million, but the company says the scheme will become financially unviable if it is requested to build the scheme it was granted planning consent for.

It wants to the axe 120 affordable homes and replace them with 113 private homes.

They also asked to change the mix available, reducing the family housing element from 38 per cent to 15 per cent.

Planning inspector Mark Brooker has been examining the appeal and has heard from lawyers from both the developer and the council.

Barrister Rupert Warren, acting for Berkeley St George, told the appeal hearing a series of hurdles had emerged before it could start building.

He said: “There has been a perfect storm of extraordinary economic and policy shifts that has caused a decline in development economics and viability.”

He blamed the Covid 19 pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, interest rates, inflation and a drop in house sales.

But Camden’s barrister Matthew Henderson said the developer was trying to transfer any possible loss onto the shoulders of taxpayers.

He said: “It appears the appellant has realised a loss based on the bargain it struck with Morrisons. The question is whether that loss either could or should be transferred back on the public by reducing affordable housing.”

He dismissed the risk of builders downing tools if the developer did not get its way.

“Neither the threat of a mothballed site nor the argument that some housing is better than no housing should prevail,” he said.

“Too few affordable homes are proposed. Insufficient London Affordable rent homes are proposed. The wrong mix of affordable homes is proposed. The case is based on the claimed economic viability of the development – that case is flawed.”

He also queried claims the developer could no longer afford to do what it had agreed.

He said: “The ‘loss’ arises because of a commercial decision, the consequences of which the developer must accept. It reflects the fact that some property transactions and developments are successful, whilst others are not.”

He added the housing crisis meant sites like the Camden Goods Yard had to have a maximum possible number of affordable homes included.

He said: “The capacity constraints of land in Camden and the challenge in bringing forward more affordable housing requires that affordable housing is maximised in each case. It has not been maximised here.”

Alice Brown, secretary of the Queen’s Crescent Neighbourhood Forum, told the hearing: “The area is affected by a crisis in housing affordability.  This has resulted in families being forced away from communities where they have lived for generations.

“It is painfully clear we cannot rely on private developers to deliver affordable homes.”

Mr Warren said new fire safety requirements had also come with new costs.

Calling the new plans a “measured and carefully considered response to exceptional circumstances”, he warned if the inspector found against his client, “the very significant public benefits of the full development will not materialise.”

He added: “Refusal would lead to the site being hoarded and left undeveloped. The appeal scheme would deliver very substantial social and economic regenerative benefits –  636 homes of which overall 83 would be affordable. In present market conditions, that would be a very good outcome.”

The hearing is due to last six days, with the inspector likely to report his conclusions early next year.