Nightmare on Nine Elm Street

The abysmal Vinoly plans for Battersea Power Station that we had all hoped were finally dead and buried with the collapse of previous owners REO has come back to haunt all who care about the beautiful building and the quality of life for all those living in its shadow and the surrounding area.

Just when you thought it was safe Architect Viñoly has been hired as “creative brain” behind developer Mike Hussey’s plan for a new stadium for Chelsea football club. AAAHHHHHHGGGGG……

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Only a few days ago George Osborne and Boris Johnson were doing their best to puff the disastrous scheme which is now as all but dead and buried by the creditors calling in their loans.

For the Battersea Power Station Community Group (BPSCG) it is just another “new beginning” as the fourth developer limps off stage to boos and jeers.

Keith Garner is also interviewed calling for the whole site to be put into public ownership for a sensible, viable, gradual development of the historic and beautiful building and its surrounding site. An ideal exhibition for industrial power ( see our previous blogs). Keith cites the difference in the approach of Southwark to the other Gilbert-Scott designed river front power station, the highly successful Tate Modern. Through partnerships and a gradual, planned development it shows what Battersea residents could have had these past 30 years.

WATCH: ITV London Tonight on Battersea Power Station debt

Spectacle’s crew were there today too and will be posting soon the bits of the interviews the broadcaster left out. Including an hilarious episode where the owners try to stop ITV filming by shutting the gates. Perhaps their last act.

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For Sale

NAMA and Lloyds  are owed 502 million pounds ($786 million) by the owners of Battersea Power Station and they want their money back. Now.

Despite REO’s attempt at positive spin (see below) their ridiculous plan is over and it is about time the heritage site was brought into public ownership and restored as a site for Industrial Power.

Real Estate Opportunities plc (the Company)
Battersea Power Station facilities:

The Company announces that certain subsidiaries (BPS Subsidiaries) of Battersea Power Station Shareholder Vehicle Limited, the holding company of Battersea Power Station formed for the purposes of the restructuring that was announced in April 2011 and which is 54% owned by the Company, have received demand for repayment from Bank of Scotland plc, as agent for the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) and Lloyds Banking Group the (together the senior lenders), under the senior facilities advanced in respect of the Battersea Power Station site, aggregating approximately £324m, and from Oriental Property Limited under the facilities advanced by it to the BPS Subsidiaries, aggregating approximately £178m. The BPS Subsidiaries are currently not in a position to satisfy these demands for repayment.  The Company has also been advised that NAMA  and Lloyds Banking Group have applied to the English court for the appointment of administrators to certain of the BPS  Subsidiaries and that a hearing for this purpose is to be held on 12 December 2011.
The Company remains in discussions which may result in the disposal of the group’s interest in the Battersea Powerstation site and repayment of associated liabilities.  However, there is no certainty that any such transaction will be effected.
The Company’s other assets, which are situated in Ireland, are unaffected by the above developments. The Company has recently received term sheets from NAMA, the principal lender in respect of its Irish assets, indicating NAMA’s continued support for the Company’s business in Ireland.

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Extending the Northern line from Kennington to Battersea is one thing – funding the project is another. During the Autumn Statement in the Commons today, Osborne stated that the government will back the project – but did not mention with how much. He also called for “a developer” to contribute to the project and develop the power station site before a deadline of 2013.

The project is still heavily reliant on private funding and current owners Treasury Holdings is going to struggle. A scheme this size, roughly three times the size of Canary Wharf if you include Nine Elms, is always going to be difficult to get up and running at the best of times. But in a recession..?

Giving the Northern Line extension green light and talking up the moribund and equally fantastic Rafael Viñoly’s nightmare vision of gloomy glass canyons, is certainly invaluable property pump priming. And it’s hard to imagine why the Conservatives are so happy to collude in this theatre, given that they held their 2010 election campaign launch under the same chimneys which Battersea Power Station’s owner Richard Barrett, one of the co-founders of Treasury Holdings, once said “would fall in strong wind.”

Recently, Tory dominated Wandsworth Borough Council’s planning committee gave Treasury Holdings permission to demolish the power station’s chimneys on the grounds that they were unsafe. However, many experts disagree and local residents believe that, like the roof which was never replaced, the chimneys will never be re-built once they are gone. If Treasury Holdings really believe that the chimneys are precarious, it shows a very cavalier approach to the health and safety of Her Majesty’s Opposition, as there wasn’t a hard hat in sight.

The Battersea Power Station should become a World Heritage site for industrial power. The site has a unique Victorian Pumping Station with site of the biggest Cornish engine of its day. It also has spectacular gasometers dating from 1910 as well as, of course, the beautiful coal-powered art deco power station.

It would be nice to see Abramovich spend some of his heard-earned billions derived from oil, show some philanthropic decency and rescue the site from the clutches of the myopic grey men. They would simply turn the site into just another crass, desolated, windswept and empty river-front development along the banks of the Thames.

The Big Society was prime minister David Cameron’s flagship policy idea for the 2010 election campaign and has stated that it’s his “mission.” One may ask, if one of the world’s richest men isn’t going to chip in – then who will?

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here today...

Battersea Power Station- a tragi-comedy of errors.

by our theatre critic BabyLonDon

Last night’s Wandsworth Borough Council Planning Committee meeting to approve the demolition of the Victorian Battersea Pumping Station and the demolition (and supposed replacement) of the iconic power station chimneys was the best show in town- Dickens in modern dress that occasionally lapsed into panto. The farce played to a packed house – with the corridors full of (vested?) interested parties straining to hear the proceedings over the PA.

The rather predictable plot- a variation on the turkeys voting for Christmas story -had a committee clearly determined to vote in favour spending three hours going through the massive planning application with just one dissenting voice of reason, played by a rather hammy councillor Tony Belton, pointing out the blindingly obvious flaws and unfeasibility of the scheme.

The real drama and humour lay in the fact that the committee seemed oblivious to the subplot- that the developers, REO (Treasury Holdings UK), are massively in “toxic” debt and in effect owned by the Irish tax payers via  NAMA and will do nothing but continue to demolish what little is left on the site and then “flip it”- selling it on as an empty brown field site for river front luxury development.

REO were unlucky that when the music of the property boom stopped they were left without a chair, but lucky enough to have their biggest non-Irish asset located in Wandsworth, infamous for having allowed the power station to fall into its current state of near dilapidation and for waving through truly hideous and desolate riverside developments.

There was something distasteful in the pathos of the affable officer’s naive presentation of the nonsensical scheme as from the public gallery hard nosed and cash hungry developers salivated at the easy meal they were shortly to enjoy.

There were comic moments as the “power dressed” committee members seemed to be made up of people who were in thrall to the promised dream of capitalism but had no clue about business. They dismissed the very real credibility gaps in the developers “vision”, enthusiastically hanging the whole wobbly edifice on the “promise” that these mega debtors (or at least Irish toxic debt vehicle NAMA) would stump up over 200 million pounds for the Northern Line Extension, or as it is known locally the “Ghost train to nowhere”. Even if this phantom train ride were real it would not happen for years even if it all went to plan… it was an evening of “even ifs”.

One comedic highlight was the officer’s report on the stringent “conditions” the council had negotiated with the Developers.

REO could take down the chimneys but must replace within 7 years.

REO could remove the embarrassing sight of the wharf cranes they are letting rot and could “restore” them inside the hulk of the rotting power station.

REO could first develop a slither of land on the north west river front. Happily the piece of land with most instant resale value, being the furthest from the smelly and polluting waste transfer facility on the north east water edge of the site and the cluster of huge gas holders on the south west edge, deemed by the HSE to be enough of a potential danger to society they recommended the scheme was rejected. This danger of an inferno seemed not to trouble the committee who dismissed the HSE’s concerns. One councillor mocked it as health and safety gone mad as residents of the later phases of the development nearer the potential blast would have chosen to buy their luxury flats aware of the risk.

They also swallowed, uncritically, the completely spurious argument for knocking down the grade II listed Victorian pumping station on the grounds it was a “community benefit” in order to “save” the power station apparently achieved by destroying its architectural value by knocking windows all along its sides and turning it into a shopping mall with luxury flats.

All of the responsibilities and commitments of REO were locked into phases of the development projected way into the future. As REO have no real intention, or means, to “deliver” these planning pipe dreams they were in effect getting off Scot free. The only thing the planning committee’s decisions would guarantee were the demolitions.

The press has been full of the glossy artists impressions of this bright new future but actually it is a dark day for most Battersea residents as this scheme will deliver nothing but another decade of planning blight. A bleak future without two of the regions most precious and best loved buildings.

The optimists had to accept that even if the Power Station were to survive this scheme it could not actually be seen from anywhere in the borough once surrounded by the 15+ storey buildings REO planned.

Given the power station is Wandsworth Borough council’s logo it was indeed a turkey landslide vote for every day being christmas.

BabyLonDon’s Final Verdict: Funny but sad. Not an “An absolute triumph”

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Tonight, with only one vote against, the London Borough of Wandsworth’s Planning Committee gave the green light for the demolition by stealth of Battersea Power Station by approving the chimneys are removed and (maybe?) replaced and the total destruction of the Victorian Pumping Station as predicted. Condemning north Battersea to another 15 years of urban blight.  But take heart there are still many rivers to cross (for the developers) and many opportunities along the way for us to propose more imaginative uses and to prove that urban planning by speculation is not viable or in the public interest.

For a full report read the review by Spectacle’s theatre critic BabyLonDon

“An absolute triumph”

Coming soon… details of our photographic competition: Soon to be Lost Views of Battersea Power Station

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Wandsworth Council’s Planning Applications Committee will (almost certainly) decide to give the go-ahead for the demolition of the chimneys at Battersea Power Station and the listed  grade II Victorian Water Pumping Station despite widespread and expert objection. The meeting is at the

Wandsworth Town Hall Thursday 11th November 7pm

(Please note the earlier than usual start time)

The Town Hall
Wandsworth High Street
London
SW18 2PU

Go to Details and reports for more info and to download the reports online the application number 1 is 2009/3575, No 4, 2009/3676 demolition of chimneys etc, no 3, 2009/3577, no 4, 2009/3578 Demolition of Water Pumping station.

Brian Barnes MBE, Chair of Battersea Power Station Community Group,  has issued a press release on behalf of the BPSCG:

If it were ever built, the Power station would be obscured by massive blocks of luxury flats and hotels. The Power Station will be altered with changes that will spoil the Grade 2* listed building with windows in the side walls, 1950s control room dismantled, new false ceilings in the main turbine hall, pods for penthouses covering the roofs and chimneys demolished and replaced by replicas (as if). Out of 3700 flats, only about 500 to be part buy/part let (so called “affordable”). The Grade 2 listed Battersea Water Pumping Station will be destroyed completely “in the public’s interest”. Any gain of public open space is unusable as it will be lakes and moats to reflect views of Power Station, as if there isn’t enough water with the Thames flowing past…

You can read the full press release here www.batterseapowerstation.org.uk

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See more of Spectacle’s Photos of Battersea Power Station

Model of proposed Nine Elms development

Garner, who is also a member of the Battersea Power Station Community Group, is objecting to what he views as a “deeply unattractive project,” on three grounds: the destruction of views, especially of Westminster Palace, the disappearance of promised open green spaces and thirdly, the nonsensical positioning of the new northern line extension from Kennington.

To allow a battery of tower blocks to be built at the east of the area towards Vauxhall would ruin the ordinary public’s views upstream from Waterloo and Westminster and downstream from Battersea and Chelsea, points out Garner, apart from residents and tenants of the new development. Millbank Tower, now a Grade II listed building, was consciously designed to replicate the proportions of Victoria Tower nearby. However, its presence should not be used merely to justify yet another “collection of banal residential and office towers,” which are likely to spoil the backdrop of the Palace of Westminster looking down Whitehall.

Model shows planned cluster of new tower blocks

The architect also noted that the linear park ‘green swathe’ that was such a redeeming feature and justification for the project had vanished from the model! He said it was clear from speaking to Wandsworth Borough Council (WBC) staff at the exhibition that the developers were just ignoring the requirement to have a large green open space and that they had no real power to make them provide it. ”Shouldn’t the areas designated as green swathe have been compulsorily purchased or handed over by the developers to WBC?” he remonstrated.

In addition, there was a missed opportunity to move Nine Elms Lane back from the river to the approximate line of the lamented green swathe, as the narrow sites between Nine Elms Lane and the river are so pinched and uncomfortable. This would enable larger sites adjacent to the river and the possibility of more substantial riverside public space than the customary 10 metre wide riverside walk. Moving the road may or may not be a good idea, but could at least have been been investigated. Bigger blocks should be up towards Wandsworth Road, not right by the river.

Finally, the proposed Northern Line extension from Kennington seemed to be purely to serve these development sites, and was not integrated properly at all with east Battersea. ”Why, for instance, does the terminus at Battersea Power Station stop about 200 metres short of Battersea Park station? Why, indeed, are there no plans to refurbish the listed Battersea Park Station?” enquires Garner. “There is no public benefit to the existing communities of east Battersea from having the Northern Line, yet almost all the S106 money will go to pay for it rather than real benefits such as upgrading Battersea Park and Queenstown Road stations from their current squalid state, or other real public benefits such as new public park on the river or a 50 metre swimming pool.”

Garner concludes: “The overall impression the exhibition gave me was that this was just another developers’ carve-up like the Guinness site and the riverbank from Wandsworth to Battersea in general, with very little public benefit and a great deal of harm. If this ‘unrivalled opportunity for businesses’ means doing so much damage in an area beside the river and close to the city centre, then the council needs to re-examine its priorities. I would prefer these sites to be left fallow until more civilised and intelligent proposals come forward.”

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The poor house

REO stops paying interest due to creditors

TREASURY Holdings-backed property group Real Estate Opportunities (REO) owners of Battersea Power Station did not pay interest due to a group of its creditors at the end of the August.

REO is apparently in “ongoing restructuring negotiations” with the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA), Lloyds Bank and others about its loans. The company announced yesterday: “taking into account the status of the negotiations, the company has determined that the interest payment due … will not be made”, a statement that seems to imply that REO could pay the interest if it wanted to.

It owes its banks around €2 billion and in June said it would not be in a position to repay a €450 million debt due in May 2011. It hired advisers to help it tackle this issue.

Perhaps they could cut back on luxuries and use their tea bags twice.

The future of one of UKs best loved buildings is in the hands of mega debtors who claim they will use “their own money” to build the “essential” Battersea tube extension.

Read more in the Irish Times and Property Week.

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The Tideway Village is a community of houseboats moored in an inlet dock a short way down the river from Battersea Power Station. Property developers Berkeley Homes are involved in the regeneration of the so called Nine Elms Opportunity Area which encompasses the dock and have met with opposition from the residents of the houseboats for their apparent plans to remove the boats from their moorings. The residents were dismayed to hear that they had not been invited to the consultation concerning Berkeley’s plans for the area. After another consultation was held, they were shocked to find that in place of their homes there was a sort of floating garden.

The rightly outraged villagers started a petition and a media campaign to raise awareness about their situation. The BBC paid a visit as did the Evening Standard. After seemingly contacting Berkeley homes; the Evening Standard claimed a victory for the houseboat community and that Berkeley Homes had listened to them and removed the dock from their plans.

However Berkeley have made no Official Statement with regards to the continued presence of the houseboat community and their official website concerning the Tideway Wharf development still omits the boats and depicts a floating garden in their stead. See the Architectural Details and Summary of Our Proposals (links open as PDFs) sections of their website for graphic depictions of the proposed garden.

As far as the Tideway Village (and Spectacle) are concerned, Berkeley still plans to remove them from their moorings and the villagers campaign is still underway.

Interviews with the residents can be viewed here.

Please visit the Tideway Village community website and definitely sign their petition to safe this little pocket of individuality on the increasingly homogenized bank of Thames.

Spectacle will be keeping an eye on the situation and has added the Tideway Village to its Battersea Power Station project page as part of our ongoing interest in the Battersea and Nine Elms area development.