To get to Old Kent Road, SE1, from central London, it takes the best part of an hour. A Tube and then a stop-start bus just to end up at a retail park with sprawling car parks all around.
This is despite the northernmost part of the site laying on the same latitude as Victoria, SW1, on a map and being firmly in Zone 1. Not that you would know it.
But with the Old Kent Road Opportunity Area likely to be adopted next year, along with confirmation of the Bakerloo line down to Lewisham, the area is set to change dramatically.
That change includes 20,000 new homes and commercial development set to deliver some 5,000 new jobs across its 694-acre boundary. To enable the regeneration, Southwark Council has set up a partnership board with Lewisham Council and the Greater London Authority.
Colin Wilson, a chief planner at the GLA, has joined on a two-year secondment to head up the partnership. Having been pivotal in seeing both the Vauxhall, Nine Elms and Battersea and White City Opportunity Areas go from industrial to high-density mixed use, his experience, vision and contact base will be influential.
Wilson says there are around 30 sites at pre-application stage that will deliver around 5,000 homes and another 10 or 11 “bubbling away under the surface”.
For an area which has delivered just a few hundred homes over the past five years, according to EG data, it is a step change in activity.
It is easy to understand why Southwark needs the extra resources that Wilson and his team will bring.
“Tomorrow I’m meeting five or six different adjoining landowners who are bringing their sites forward,” says Wilson.
“It’s good for everyone to understand what each is doing. How do they complement one another? How does access work through each site? Have they thought about energy and sewage? Can that be done better? All the unseen bits, they’re hugely critical.”
With the extra resource, Southwark can now be much more proactive too. Instead of waiting for developers to come to it, it is now in a position to approach landowners.
Head of Southwark Council, Peter John, says he wants to see good-quality architecture and public realm.
“Going back a few years, our initial conversations with developers were that they were building for the old Old Kent Road, rather than what it can and could be in the future. We don’t want buildings that are going to come down in 30 or 40 years,” says John.
Another point he is keen to push is affordable housing. He says the council has been really clear to developers that it expects to see a 35% affordable provision and that there is no negotiation on that.
Wilson believes the message is starting to get through to the market, with recent pre-applications adhering to that level.
“Another thing we are keen to see is something other than just residential and commercial, a couple of anchors which will make Old Kent Road much more of a destination,” adds John. “We’re just not quite sure what it is yet: a university or a cultural offer.”
Something similar to Ballymore’s English National Ballet at London City Island, E16, or Berkeley’s Royal College of Art at Riverlight in Vauxhall, SW8, would fit the bill.
A recently completed 19-storey, 158-home scheme by Telford Homes arguably kicked off the potential renaissance of Old Kent Road.
While it was originally refused by Southwark for reasons including over-development, inadequate affordable housing, poor architectural and urban design, as well being in an industrial location, a call-in in December 2013 and the unveiling of the Old Kent Road as an opportunity area by then-London mayor Boris Johnson, turned the scheme into a catalyst. Albeit a slow one.
Since then, few planning applications have come forward, though Wilson insists that momentum is building behind the scenes with a whole host of players keen to get in on the action.
Take the Cantium Retail Park as an example. Currently big-box retail, home to Halfords, B&Q and Pets at Home, landlord Aviva now has more ambitious plans for the site. It has teamed up with Galliard and is drawing up plans for around 1,200 homes, plus new shops and office space.
“The retailers are definitely not against the changes,” says Wilson. “They see the positives of having many more potential customers on their doorstep.
“A lot of this retail doesn’t suit their needs anymore. To compete with e-commerce they need space fit for the 21st century. The retail is a valuable local service and employer and we are keen to keep it and, where we can, enhance it.”
On an adjoining site, Berkeley has also seen the potential and is planning 1,200 homes. An EIA submitted in April supersedes a similar one submitted last year for 884 homes.
Piecing together adjoining landowners and interests while keeping the locals on side will be a huge challenge but Wilson says it could be the “biggest and best” of his career.
With just a seven-strong workforce within his Old Kent Road Partnership board, Wilson is adamant it is skills and clarity through the planning process that his team will bring. It is this, not manpower, that will be crucial in the upcoming success over the next two years.
TfL is still finalising the route of the Bakerloo line extension, something Wilson hopes will be in place before his secondment is over.
During that time, competing landowners will fight it out to get the two new stations that will come to Old Kent Road, on adjoining sites to their own, so that their construction timetables are not affected.
When the extension does complete a little over a decade from now, and central London will be just 20 minutes away, the area will feel very different.
Old Kent Road may well be the dud on the Monopoly board but with the right man steering the regeneration, the opportunity to turn that around is for the taking.
To send feedback e-mail paul.wellman@egi.co.uk or tweet @paulwellman eg or @estatesgazette
