‘Yoo Capital’s ‘masterplan’ is not good news’

• REAL estate firm Yoo Capital has just produced a draft masterplan for the Regis Road Growth Area (RRGA) in Kentish Town.

You can see it here.

Yoo says its plan “integrates the principles” set out in Camden’s 2020 Kentish Town Planning Framework (KTPF) which covers both halves of the Kentish Town industrial area, that is, RRGA and Murphy’s Yard.

A matter of great concern is the borough’s dwindling stock of industrial floorspace.

The KTPF allows no more losses and calls for coordinated planning applications for Murphy’s and the RRGA.

It insists existing businesses get the opportunity to stay in the area and says: “A business retention and relocation strategy will be required (which) will demonstrate to the council’s satisfaction that any business relocations that occur would not cause harm to CAZ functions or Camden’s local economy”.

The Greater London Authority is likewise committed to “the principle of no net loss of industrial floorspace” and requires any loss in the RRGA be offset on Murphy’s.

Yoo is silent about the quantum of industrial floor area, the planning process for Murphy’s and any business retention and relocation strategy.

It instead offers “an aspiration to provide 1,500 jobs” ignoring the question of existing jobs lost by demolishing workplaces.

Camden’s own industrial accommodation is on the chopping block: Yoo is buying the two depots in the RRGA and publicly confirmed last month that it will demolish the one at Holmes Road where the housing repair and maintenance team is housed although it was recently refurbished for £8.4million.

A replacement isn’t mentioned.

Camden itself couldn’t say if Holmes Road will be replaced when questioned recently.

Last year the accidental leak of their draft sale agreement revealed a clause saying where “facilities (are) no longer required by the council” Yoo will pay Camden more, which perversely incentivises permanent loss of what is a strategic public facility.

The heart of Yoo’s scheme is a new film production facility. Around 40 such facilities are in the pipeline in the United Kingdom.

Under the heading “Why Film?” Yoo quotes a real estate consultant: “the UK is believed to be losing out on several major film projects each year due to a lack of studio space”.

That’s all the industrial strategy we get.

Regis Road is like most industrial estates, it simplifies industrial development while being agnostic about the mix. It’s been open for the last 45 years. What has stopped Yoo from buying a plot there to develop a film facility alongside operations like Royal Mail or Fairfax Meadow meat processors?

The answer is that Yoo’s business isn’t supporting the creative sector, it’s taking over cheaper, useful places and making them much more expensive: in its own words, “conversion of subprime real estate/sites into high-quality core real estate”.

This makes Yoo popular with a local audience that welcomes a high-cost location free of builders’ merchants, electrical suppliers, warehouses and dark kitchens.

Perhaps to broaden its appeal, Yoo boasts that 50 per cent of the housing that it plans to build will be affordable without saying this ratio comes from planning policy not its own philanthropy.

In 2022 former planning chief councillor Danny Beales told colleagues to commit to Yoo Capital because it would free Camden from “planning and development risks”.

Yoo now controls public land, consultation, comms and even town planning via the masterplan.

Yoo isn’t necessary to make big improvements but if local politicians won’t govern large real estate companies will take over government roles and fill the public mind with self-serving twaddle and half-truths.

Expect Camden to rubber-stamp Yoo’s plan: what else are they capable of?

TOM YOUNG
Tom Young Architects, NW5