The Government’s chief design adviser has warned against the danger of supermarket led developments in town centres. Mixed-use developments involving the building of housing, schools and parks linked to supermarkets are often badly conceived and may not thrive in the long term, said the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) in its report published this week.
While developers are keen to sign up a key anchor tenant such as Tesco, Sainsbury or Homebase to lease their retail and commercial spaces, this may not be what residents or local communities want or need. A formula that works for an out-of-town mall may instead lead to the loss of local shops, character and iconic landmarks to big name chain-stores.
Closer to home, there is the proposed development of Hammersmith Town Hall. The plans submitted earlier this month have a key anchor supermarket tenant in the development, strategically located by a lovely new ‘piazza’. However in order to make the numbers work for the developer, two tower blocks 15 storeys tall will have to be constructed to maximise the number of units of luxury apartments for sale. No affordable housing has been incorporated into the plans.
Not surprisingly local residents and no less than 20 amenity groups (including the Hammersmith Society, Hammersmith Mall and Brackenbury residents associations) are up in arms about this over-development. More details can be viewed on the website Save Our Skyline, with objections ranging from the size and scale of the development being out of character with the area, to the eviction of blind residents from a local housing trust.
The blight on the skyline does not of course only affect Hammersmith residents, but also anyone within sight of the river. Views from the bridges, towpaths and homes south of the river in neighbouring Barnes and Mortlake will be dominated by the development. Worse, it will set a precedent for high-rise development that would, in the words of the protesters, “overwhelm” this part of the borough and the river frontage. This is not Canary Wharf.
As for the proposed 2,000 square metres supermarket, there are already five mid-sized supermarkets within a 500-metre radius of the site and there is no crying need for another outlet. So we come to the real motivation for the redevelopment of the site – which is to construct brand new council offices to replace the admittedly outmoded 1970s offices. Will the planners be in a position of conflict when considering the application which includes the construction of offices for themselves? Besides, how can the Tory-controlled Hammersmith & Fulham Council justify the need for lavish offices in a time of austere cuts whilst at the same time shedding staff in merger talks with neighbouring Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster to create a ‘Super Council’?
Thankfully we have on the horizon the much anticipated Decentralisation and Localism Bill that will give more powers to local communities on planning issues and thus hold the local authority to account. The publication of the bill has been delayed, but in the meanwhile please sign the petition to “Save our Skyline” by visiting www.saveourskyline.co.uk.
The public meeting to address the plans is being hosted by Save Our Skyline (SOS) on Monday, 6 December, 7.00pm at Rivercourt Methodist Church, King St., just west of the Town Hall. All welcome.
Merlene Emerson was the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate for Hammersmith in May 2010
13 Comments
“However in order to make the numbers work for the developer, two tower blocks 15 storeys tall …”
Why should developers expect thangs to be made to work for them? Answer: because the ruling Thatcherite meme is that “there is no such thing as society” – meaning by implication that the community perspectives are somehow illegitimate, that the only legitimate interest is that of the profit-seeking business and that government should therefore do whatever it takes to smooth the path to ever greater profits.
What nonsense! What it actually leads to is that housing is rapidly being reduced to gardenless rabbit hutches while society becomes less equal.
There is, of course, another way that the numbers can work for the developer; if they pay less for the site to begin with. And if the site owner doesn’t want to take a lower price? A site value tax would help concentrate his mind in a socially-useful way.
I am a bit confused by this. There seem to be two separate issues – whether to build the two residential towers and whether there should be a large supermarket. You say ‘while developers are keen to sign up a key anchor tenant such as Tesco, Sainsbury or Home base to lease their retail and commercial spaces, this may not be what residents or local communities want or need.’
Here is the great thing about market economies – if people in Hammersmith don’t want or need a new large supermarket they won’t go to shop there and it will close. Developers will be less likely to open them in similar circumstances elsewhere.
Very good piece Merlene – hopefully the new Bill will give more power to local communities to hold local planning authorities to account.
One of the best things the Government could do is include in the Localism Bill the establishment of a Local Competition Ombudsman as recommended by NEF to rein in the monopoly power of the likes of Tesco (12 stores in Reading and counting). It’s not just new developments that need protection from the greed – retail choice will suffer unless measures are brought in to prevent market failure.
SMcG: “I am a bit confused by this. There seem to be two separate issues – whether to build the two residential towers and whether there should be a large supermarket”
I agree. Most of the objection seems to be to the tower blocks but Merlene knows that an anti-Tesco headline appeals to readers, and the GLA selection hasn’t closed yet!
Merlene: “there are already five mid-sized supermarkets within a 500-metre radius of the site and there is no crying need for another outlet”
That may be your opinion, Merlene, but your opinion is backed by nothing more than a few minutes typing the above article, whereas the developers are willing to bet hundreds of millions of pounds on their opinion. Forgive me if I find that a little more convincing.
Of course, the only opinion that really matters is that of the shoppers of Hammersmith. If they don’t want a new supermarket it will close and the vacant unit will be occupied by a shop they do want. However, I suspect that the clue lies in the phrase “mid-sized supermarkets”: if this is a far bigger superstore with much more choice then it may be exactly what the shoppers of Hammersmith want.
Gareth Epps: “retail choice will suffer unless measures are brought in to prevent market failure”
That’s simply not true, Gareth. It doesn’t matter if one opens a Tesco the size of Paris; if local people WANT to shop at Bloggs & Sons then the little retailer will continue to thrive. (This reminds me of a comic strip in one of the old Comics – Beezer or something?). Tesco cannot undermine competition by offering shops, but it can undermine the competition by offering more choice, better quality or lower prices than its competitors. That’s what they’ve done consistently for the past 20 years and that’s why they now dominate the retail grocery market.
The real threat to retail choice (and to liberty in this instance) is anti-competitive measures by smaller, less competitive retailers who can’t keep their customers unless they can deny them choice. A Local Competition Ombudsman would play right into their hands.
It;’s rather late in the day to be going on about Tesco Towns. They are already here, dozens of them withj more to follow. Communities are unikely to have anymore say under the Pickles regime than they had with Labour. Yes there will be new freedoms like running and funding your own social services, recycling, even a post office/ Whoopee. We had a 3-year battle with tesco and lost as the council ran scared of being appealed against if they they rejected the application. Section106s have become the mainspring of local investment now.
Tom, you and I have a fundamental difference of opinion in that I believe in intervention when markets fail. Retail monopolies are a sign of market failure.
Tom I think you are wrong.
A minority of people can want something and market forces will deliver it even if the majority don’t want it.
Most people do not want spam emails. But it only takes a tiny percentage of people to respond, and a profit is made and that is all it takes to make it continue.
What you favour is atomisation, and what Liberals favour is local democracy. If a local politician gets it wrong, then under a fair voting system like STV he will be voted out. Thats the best form of localism.
I am impressed by the Save our Skyline campaign and am even going to cross Hammersmith Bridge to attend the public meeting 6 December.
As is often the case the argument on a second issue in one post detracts from the primary issue. Here in Barnes/Mortlake the new Sainsbury doesn’t seem to detract from the newsagents business on the opposing corner- rather the opposite for the non chain coffee shop next door which has a business to die for.
Gareth, it is not market failure for a shop to open in an area where there is demand. If people want to shop in Tesco, they should be free to do so. It is a failure of Liberty if others, who want another shop but cannot themselves support it, deny the would-be Tesco shoppers from having a Tesco near them and so force upon them the monopoly of the incumbant provider.
Geoffrey, if markets allow minorities to have what they want without giving majorities a veto then good for markets. The characteristic feature of action through political channels is that it tends to requrie or enforce substantial conformity. The great advantage of the market, on the other hand, is that it permits wide diversity. It is, in political terms, a system of proportional representation. Each man can vote, as it were, for the grocery shop he wants; he does not have to shop where the majority shops. The role of the market is that it permits unanimity without conformity; the characteristic feature of political channels (including planning inquiries) is that it tends to require substantial conformity.
Tom, you miss the point and I notice you did not respond to my example about spam mail. I think you should have done and the fact that you didn’t is a cop out.
Usually the minority can get what it wants as the majority doesn’t care. But sometimes the minority wants something at the expense of what the majority wants. This is where democracy is preferable to marketisation
On your other point about diversity, I think that is wrong as well. What we are seeing these days is the emergence of clone towns where small specialist shops cannot compete with chain stores and go out of business. As a result many places are losing the character they once had.
And as far as your reference to Milton Friedman is concerned, his economic theories went up in smoke in the 2006 bank crash and the upending of the Irish economy since. Capitalism is a wild animal that has to be tamed by the state.
Thanks for your all comments. In some countries a “development levy” is imposed by the planners, calculated based on the increased density of the development. Our system of s106 obligations is perhaps more flexible as it allows the building of other amenities (eg a square and Council offices in this case as a trade off for, say, affordable housing). It is not just market forces at work. The proposed plans appear to be the product of negotiations between the Council and the developers hatched behind closed doors.
It was the Guardian article on the new CABE report findings which prompted my blog, coupled with the need to publicise the Save Our Skyline meeting on 6 Dec. I merely echoed their banner headline in using the term “Tesco towns”. Tom: the fact that the GLA selections are on is perhaps timely, but not the reason for posting the blog. Besides I have heard that I might have lost some votes from members of Liberal Vision!