How the new development in Chalk Farm Road will look

ONE of the UK’s biggest developers stands accused of making Camden’s housing crisis worse – after a Whitehall planning inspector ruled it could slash the number of affordable houses it had promised to build.

Berkeley St George is currently constructing a homes, shops and office complex in Chalk Farm Road, on the site of a Morrisons supermarket – and it learned this week it was being allowed to wriggle of its housing pledges at the company’s flagship ­Camden Goods Yard Project.

It had threatened to halt work at the site in Chalk Farm Road if it was not allowed to alter its plans – a request made on the basis that market conditions have changed and its ­margins have been squeezed.

Camden Council turned down a new application to reduce the number of affordable homes and demanded that the company stick to the original proposals for the land around the Morrisons supermarket, which had been agreed five years ago.

The Town Hall had granted permission for the scheme after being told 203 of the 644 homes would be affordable.

But last year Berkeley St George, which has annual revenues of around £2.5bn, claimed they had to cut affordable homes by 120 to make the project viable for it to continue.

This was a slide from 34 per cent to just 13 per cent of the new housing being made available at the lower rate.

The rest of the housing will be expensive homes sold on the private market. Camden’s refusal to allow the change has done little more than delay the switch, as this week planning inspector Mark Brooker ruled in Berkeley’s favour.

Kate Gemmell, from the civic group TRACT (Tenants and Residents Associations of Camden Town) said: “It is terrible. I do not think you should be able to cut back on social housing to make a scheme viable. They  should change something else – build it not so high, change the materials.

“It is unacceptable that you cannot get better levels of social housing on a site that is so enormous.”

She added that the project’s size was agreed because of the number of promised affordable homes.

“It is huge and dense,” she said.

“There are better ways to manage this. When Hawley Wharf was developed, the planning agreement was a primary school and the social housing had to be built and occupied before anything else.”

Architect Alice Brown is a member of the Queens Crescent Neighbourhood Forum who gave evidence at the hearing.

She said the decision highlighted the dangers of relying on a profit-driven developer to build affordable homes – and warned that the council was entering into agreements elsewhere where the amount of affordable housing could be reduced later down the line..

“Commercial developers cannot deal with the crisis in housing affordability, as it is the process of speculative development based on sales to high value customers that is driving housing costs upwards,” she said.

“We need councils and social housing providers to deliver genuinely affordable homes, and enable community-led housing providers such as co-operatives and community land trusts, using government grants. This will enable the homes to be delivered on the basis of need.”

A Camden Council spokesperson said it was a “deeply disappointing” decision by the inspectorate, adding: We recognise pressures facing developers, but we will continue to push for the maximum level of genuinely affordable housing and community benefit in new developments.”

Rob Perrins, Executive Chair of Berkeley Group, said: “We welcome the Inspector’s decision, which recognises the viability challenges facing London, and which reflects the spirit of the much-needed Homes for London package introduced by the Mayor and Government to help restart homebuilding in the capital.

“The Inspector confirms that Berkeley is delivering a higher level of affordable housing at Camden Goods Yard than the scheme’s financial returns support.”