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The land in Brill Place behind the British Library |
Labour urges ministers to put homes before a cash windfall
Whitehall pressed to think again about selling prime site to highest bidder
LABOUR councillors have risked a rift with ministers in their own party by backing the campaign to build public housing on a plot of land worth millions behind the British Library.
On Friday, Town Hall opposition group leader Councillor Anna Stewart ended months of silence, saying she would write to housing minister Yvette Cooper asking for a review of the sale of the 3.6 acre site – known as Brill Place – in Somers Town by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).
She said: “I will be writing to press for Camden to be a special case and the sale to be looked at afresh. Is there an opportunity here to address the special circumstances in Camden?
“Camden’s got a huge housing list and a very pressing housing need as well as a long history of housing issues. We need to see this land used for local people.”
Cllr Stewart added that even if the government went ahead with the sale, she supported Holborn and St Pancras Labour MP Frank Dobson’s plea that the land should not automatically go to the highest bidder.
The government’s duty to sell land at market rates had to allow “wriggle room”, Cllr Stewart has said.
“If they are intent on selling it, we need to make sure we get the best we can for that land,” she added. “In my view that means housing.”
The plot of land, left over from the construction of the British Library and temporarily occupied by Union Railways until the Channel Tunnel Rail Link is opened in November, has attracted a rush of developers.
Although Town Hall Lib Dem resources chief Councillor Janet Grauberg ruled out bidding for the site in July – it is officially valued at £26.6 million but experts expect it to fetch much more – housing chief Councillor Chris Naylor said there is eagerness within the Lib Dem-Tory administration at the Town Hall to see social housing on the site.
However, a Town Hall press official confirmed this week that the council has had no contact with government over the site, either before or during the sale process.
A DCMS spokesman has indicated that hard cash and the ability to pay it on time are the sole criteria for the sale of the land.
Although department officials told Somers Town councillors and residents’ groups last month that the sale would “take full account of public value”, civil servants have since made it clear that “public value” means cash up front and cash in the future through “clawback” arrangements if the land grows in value.
Social, economic, medical and environmental impacts on Camden residents of any development were not a consideration for the government, the spokesman confirmed.
• MAYOR of London Ken Livingstone’s new rules on protected views from Primrose Hill and Parliament Hill could receive an early test at the Brill Place site, the New Journal has learned.
Developers bidding to buy the site have been told to submit amended plans which take account of the relaxation in rules that previously protected the view of St Paul’s Cathedral.
Under the council’s 2003 guidelines for Brill Place, developers were limited to a five- and six-storey plan, but they have been sent away to think again after the London Mayor gained approval in June for his new scheme, which will allow higher buildings within viewing “corridors” under some circumstances. |
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