Thamesmead Town Ltd, the community-based company set up to take over the management and development of Thamesmead, hopes to be trading by the end of this year. The company will buy all the GLC’s property interests from the London Residuary Body. It will inherit 5,500 houses and flats, many of which are system-built, and land for the completion of the “town”.
Thamesmead starts with a substantial advantage over many areas, says Clive Thornton(*), chairman of the new company, in that local prices, despite recent rises, remain lower than almost anywhere in London. And the ex-municipal stock, though it suffers from many of the problems of the 1960s and 1970s architecture, provides a better environment than the equivalent property in places like Southwark and Hackney.
The board of the new company faces a mammoth task in setting up a multi-million-pound enterprise in what was once GLC territory, says Mr Thornton. Nobody has bought a town before. Housing policy decisions are still to be taken. Thamesmead Town is a commercial landowner – it will have to balance its books – but it will have a strong social conscience.
“We are hoping to improve the service to our tenants, increase our involvement – through the sale of land – with housing associations and encourage self-build schemes… It would be naive to think that a limited area such as Thamesmead could solve the growing problems within south-east London, but the board of directors are determined, in developing a town with its own facilities and unique identity, not to ignore the housing needs of the broader community.”
(*) In Town and County Planning, January 1987, the journal of the Town and Country Planning Association, 17 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AS.
