Southwark council has unveiled a detailed £1bn blueprint to resurrect the blighted Elephant & Castle area, SE1.
Instead of being dominated by the infamous pink shopping centre and the brutalist Heygate Estate, the plans will create a “traditional town centre” for the area, replacing them with up to 5,000 homes and 1m sq ft of shops.
The council’s previous attempt at regeneration of the Elephant ended prematurely after the council fired its development partner, Southwark Land Regeneration, in April 2002.
Southwark’s ambitious proposals are detailed in its Framework for development.
The document also includes plans for a new civic space the size of Trafalgar Square on the site of a congested roundabout, a number of landmark towers and a “Borough Market-style” square next to the railway arches, while the decaying Walworth Road running south from the Elephant to Camberwell will be linked to the new square and transformed into an attractive high street on a par with Chelsea’s King’s Road.
Chris Horn, Southwark’s project director for the Elephant, said the vision had progressed significantly from the draft plans the council released in December.
“We were still unsure of the massing and the uses, and how the different sections would work.
“The idea to make the Elephant a car-free zone was simply unworkable, for instance,” he said.
The main area for new development will be the 40 acres (16.19ha) of council-owned land now occupied by the St Modwen-owned shopping centre and the 1,200-flat Heygate Estate.
Proposals to demolish the estate and rehouse the tenants in “decant sites” were passed by the council in February.
For the proposals to work, Southwark plans to either form a partnership with one master developer for the whole scheme, or pursue a more problematic piecemeal arrangement.
St Modwen and Blackfriars Investments have already expressed interest.
“This isn’t a smaller scheme than the SLR one. But it is simpler. The amount of land going in has actually increased slightly, and the development capacity hasn’t been ,” said Horn.
The main difference is that developers will not be given a free hand as SLR was.
As the diagram shows, Southwark has very clear ideas about the massing and densities of the site, as well as the mix of uses.
“The previous approach was, ‘please God, someone do something with it.’ But this document presents it more as a positive opportunity,” said Horn.
References: EGi News 06/06/03
