Is it that bad or has the perfect become the enemy of the good?
Part 2 goes into detail on the heritage arguments used to refuse major development in the London Borough of Southwark.
The Heritage Context
As part 1 set out, affordable housing in of itself was not the issue which led the Inspector to refuse the Aylesham Centre planning application. It was heritage and heritage harm. So let us look at the heritage concerns raised by the inspector, some of which are set out in the photo above.
Part of the Aylesham Centre Market Place is seen to the left of the photo. The three original Victorian buildings and old bank in the conservation area in the middle of the photo. The listed chapel can be found directly behind the locally listed ‘square’ 1960s Primark shop building just past the traffic lights in the centre of the photo.
And, finally, the shops opposite the proposed development site in the righthand side of the photo are worthy of mention. Within the conservation area they are quoted as reinforcing the Victorian origins and its transition from a rural to an urban community.
As Rob Perrins, from Berkeley, stated on the Inspector’s decision based on these, amongst other heritage assets ‘How can anyone invest in a town centre when policy-compliant plans for allocated sites are refused on the basis of vague and subjective heritage concerns?’
And: ‘The fact that this borough is spectacularly failing its housing targets and faces a severe housing crisis appears to count for nothing.’
I can understand in isolation, that a degree of subjectivity has been used when the inspector came to the conclusion that the harm to these, amongst other heritage assets, was so great that it justified refusing the appeal. However, I find it less easy to understand this in the context of the council’s own decision when it considered the revised report in July 2025.
This was to advise the inspector what the council’s decision would have been. Southwark concluded that the reduced offer of affordable housing would not overcome the harm to the conservation heritage assets, even though Historic England, the Greater London Authority (GLA), and Southwark Council itself initially deemed the heritage harm as “less than substantial”.
A similar heritage argument for refusal has very recently surfaced in Lewisham, as part of their refusal for the Deptford Reach proposals. This cited harm to the High Street and St Paul’s Church, some five minutes’ walk from the site.
Joining the Dots and a Bit of Context
First, to paraphrase Patrick Geddes, the 19th-century pioneer of urban planning, a city is more than a place in space; it is a drama in time, with urban design as a distinct process going to the heart of the place, and that history plays a key role in shaping that process.
More recently, Matthew Carmona, Bartlett School UCL, in his Public Places, Urban Spaces, stresses the importance of the history of a place in designing for its future. He describes four stages: how spaces are used differently at different times; that there is a cycle of growth and decline over time; the pace and nature of change will vary between places; and that places will relentlessly change over time, but there is a need for stability and for designers needing to understand what can change and what needs to stay the same.
In that vein, he argues that change is inevitable and that urban design is about securing the most desirable changes possible, working within the limitations of buildings and places. It is about overcoming the fear of change, loss of heritage, and identity. He goes on to say that this must be achieved with sensitivity to the local contexts of urban design: perceptual, morphological, visual, social, functional, governance, and production.
I think that the Aylesham Centre site should be recognised as part of this drama of change and the fear of change.
A sense of Peckham?
Over the years, Peckham Vision has defined and shaped the narrative of any development to fit with their vision for Peckham. They have vast experience of leading objections and take control of organising public meetings and the agenda.
They work to a consistent script. They focus on excessive height and massing; the idea that the scheme is not for Peckham or people that live in Peckham, harm to the conservation area, developer profiteering, and lack of affordable housing regardless of the offer. They manage to capture the attention of local, regional, national, and professional media and are very good at fundraising for their campaigns. They raised around £70,000 in total with comedians Nish Kumar and James Acaster doing benefit stand-ups for their cause.
Over the years, local politicians have gone out of their way to appease Peckham Vision and their causes stretching back over the years. Eileen Conn, the founder of Peckham Vision, was named as a women of influence by The Planner Magazine in 2020 for her huge role in protecting Peckham’s heritage and encouraging community participation in the planning process. She started campaigning in the 1970s to save Peckham High Street from redevelopment.
Peckham Vision is not the only source of influence and some of the drama played out within the council itself and Southwark’s emerging policy towards housing delivery and land use. The Southwark Land Commission convened in January 2023 by Cllr Mcash looked at how land could be used for the public good, including a clear focus on allocating more land for genuinely affordable housing.
The commission was chaired by Dr Miatta Fahnbulleh, now MP for Peckham and considered to be one of the key contributors to defining Andy Burnham’s Manchesterism, which has ‘A new economic approach, where public control is reasserted through direct engagement in public investment, provision, ownership, and coordination.’ at its core.
It also included Dr Anna Minton as an advisor from the University of East London, where Cllr Mcash gained his Master’s in Architecture: Reading the Neoliberal City. PropViews has covered more on Anna Minton’s work here.
Furthermore, it should be recognised that Cllr Chamberlain did a planning master’s at the London School of Economics, with his dissertation focusing on public housing in Manchester before he started working for Populo Living, London Borough of Newham’s housing company.
All the key actors on all sides, would appear well qualified and experienced in local planning policy and practice to understand the complexities of delivering housing in today’s challenging political, economic, and regulatory climate, and they have come together in shaping the current approach to house building in Peckham and Southwark. Which makes it even more baffling as to why earlier opportunities to take 35% affordable housing were not taken or why the 12% offer was rejected.
The demand for homes is not just for affordable homes; it is for market homes as well. The fig leaf of ‘genuinely’ affordable market homes doesn’t really stack up either, as the price point Berkeley were aiming for was consistent with existing properties in the area and, arguably, a bit beyond their control due to build, finance, and planning obligation costs.
In looking for the answer to whether this is a pyrrhic victory or not, the reader has to ask the question whether there has been an underpinning ideology shaping the decision, whether the actors have understood the risks involved, and whether having no homes at all being built on a site designated for housing and tall buildings close to public transport in the centre of London for the foreseeable future is a reasonable outcome. And, can the ‘loss’ of any affordable homes be justified?
I know I started by looking at one site, but…
Looking Wider
I was just looking at the Berkeley Aylesham Centre in Peckham site, but recent events have widened the scope of the consequences to include their other sites, the Newington Triangle and the Old Kent Road. Both covered in PropViews.
These sites are now in jeopardy because the council has refused Berkeley’s application to revise the housing contribution to 12%. Which leads to closing down a healthy local development pipeline; putting all three sites together, a potential loss of nearly 1,000 new homes and at least 218 affordable homes at the revised 12% target for affordable housing contribution. And, it takes no account of the contribution that pipeline would make to the local economy or all the jobs that will inevitably be lost. Berkeley look set to make 150 staff redundant, some 50 or so would have been working in Southwark; this does not include the impact on professional services like architects, subcontractors, and suppliers.
Sadly, it’s not just Southwark, and similar patterns are emerging across London, where, arguably, we are now looking at populist expressions of political ideologies coupled with a lurch to an anti-developer rhetoric supported by local, regional, and national media drawing on the critical approach to regeneration and gentrification originating in the 1980s and continuing through to now, as exemplified by Anna Minton in Big Capital: Who is London for?
Berkeley are not alone in mothballing their sites in London; recently, Taylor Wimpey, Barratts, Vistry, Bellway, and most recently Landsec in Lewisham Town Centre have announced stepping back from developing their sites.
The money doesn’t work. PropViews has covered this extensively over the last few months. Put simply, the levels of housing across all tenures cannot be achieved within the current financial, legal, and planning framework. It is not plausible to expect S106 and CIL contributions to deliver the levels of community benefit and affordable housing expected without a realistic housing subsidy from the government; it is basic infrastructure. These costs now rest firmly on the first-time mortgage holders in larger developments which attract anything up to a 35% contribution for affordable housing in London.
When times were good, this was possible, but the world changed. Construction costs have climbed, regulatory costs have grown, and the cost of planning has increased; the risks have become greater, and the cost of borrowing money has become higher. And, it became easier to blame planning delays and developer profits than loss of government housing subsidy for non-viable and stalling schemes.
End
As a planner, I believe that there is a middle ground and we can build homes and communities that people want to live in. I am also a pragmatist and believe it is possible for local authorities to work with developers to build these places. I think that developers can build the affordable homes for local authorities and RSLs to manage; I am not wedded to the idea that only councils can build social housing.
I will admit that I like tall buildings in the right place but not at any cost. I have fiercely argued for protecting heritage assets, libraries, open spaces, schools, health and leisure centres in the past and will do so in the future. And, I have been heard saying that I would prefer negotiating 25% affordable housing rather than 0% because the 35% threshold has not been met.
Maslow’s ‘hierarchy of needs’ and the idea that basic needs have to be met before we move on to the next levels is compelling. At the base of his pyramid are the basic needs, including shelter; the next level includes health, followed by families, a sense of worth, and then last, self-fulfilment; we have to start at the base of the pyramid to build the homes and places for people to live in so they can meet these simple goals. Not sure we have much choice if we are going to act with compassion.
The Answer to Whether it was a Pyrrhic Victory
Yes, it was.
‘If we are victorious in one more battle with the developers, then we shall be utterly ruined.” Seems to be ringing true at the moment but the bells are being ignored. No homes will be built on the site for the foreseeable future, and no affordable homes will be delivered.
Things do not look good, I reckon cranes will stop going up across London. PropViews recently suggested all strategic sites that havent started are now underwater. Molior is already reporting that London is only going to hit 20% of its 88,000 homes target, there have been no recorded starts in four boroughs, and no local authority development in 21 of them.
It will take time for the tide to rise again.
Credit: Architectural Journal, Aylesham Community Action, Mainstream Labour, Peckham Vision, Southwark Council, Southwark News, and others
