Why we locals are taking on the development of Mount Pleasan

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Why we locals are taking on the development of Mount Pleasant http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... t-pleasant" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



Edward Denison and Oliver Bennett

Monday 21 September 2015 10.30 BST
Last modified on Monday 21 September 2015 11.52 BST

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Mount Pleasant, in central London, is Dickens territory: once known as the site of Coldbath Fields prison, the Fleet river and one of the biggest post sorting offices in the world. So it was on a fittingly dank night in November 2012 that the Royal Mail Group (RMG) first pitched its proposals to the local communities. Encouraged by the local councils to host a public consultation event, the RMG – via legions of well-remunerated professionals – tried to sell their ideas for this extraordinary site.

From the resulting melee it was clear who knew the area best and who didn’t; and that the planning process is gamed massively in favour of developers and their consultants. The event symbolised a wider problem with the planning system. It no longer works for the people it is designed to serve – the public.
London residents to bid for Mount Pleasant site to stop £1bn development
Read more

It’s been a tough ride. The RMG claims to have spent £12m on its planning application, which was approved by Boris Johnson last year. While we, the Mount Pleasant Association (MPA), are a voluntary group of local residents who can barely afford tea and biscuits for meetings. Despite the noble aspirations of the last government’s Localism Act, which was supposed to empower communities, we are working under absurdly unequal conditions.

Moreover, we’ve been subject to derision by those who were elected to defend the public interest. Johnson’s infamous “bourgeois nimbies” jibe last year, highlighted the extent to which the mayor misunderstands the public mood. We want development. We want housing. We want new businesses and shops with active frontages rather than a brownfield site. But we don’t want the type of developments currently sprouting up across London: empty shiny-glass investment units that on occasion get clad in brick so they can be risibly labelled “London vernacular”.

So why has Mount Pleasant become such a lightning rod for discontent? It is partly the nature of the area. Exmouth Market has moved from shuttered enervation to a frenetic churn of restaurants: some good, other ill-advised. The Post Office has lost thousands of workers, and several pubs that catered to them. Clerkenwell has moved from being London’s “hidden village” of tourist folklore to an area where no property stone has been left unturned.

Located between Farringdon and King’s Cross, Mount Pleasant is a potential “destination” that demands a better development. This goes to the heart of why the community and MPA were so exasperated by the RMG’s offering. Its proposed massive blocks face inwards and have been criticised as boring and bland, with no connection to the surrounding urban grain. These blocks speak to the buy-to-leave capital flight crowd, and a key design precedent in the RMG’s plans was the bulky neighbouring Holiday Inn. Furthermore, the RMG’s plans have little amenity space and planning logic. It has been rightly labelled a fortress – aggressively turning its back on the communities whose public spaces and services will pay a heavy price for its presence, should it be built.

Our plan is a street-based scheme that knits this vacant site back into the complex urban fabric

In challenging this scheme, the MPA has always championed an open debate about the site, and we’ve attracted enormous support from across London and beyond. The social enterprise and research institute Create Streets has been instrumental in taking the community’s ideas and turning them into a financially viable alternative scheme. This has won the backing both of the GLA, which has supported us through the Community Right to Build programme, and of serious business interests who can bid to buy the site and help deliver a genuinely community-led development.

Our alternative plan is a street-based scheme that knits this vacant site back into the complex urban fabric. The buildings are of the low- to mid-rise high-density mansion block type that offers more housing (and therefore more affordable housing) than the RMG scheme, as well as better quality public spaces. Our scheme has been independently proved to be more economically attractive to investors. What’s not to like?

Mount Pleasant is just one of many developments in London that has come to symbolise all that is wrong with the current planning system. With the help of professionals, politicians and the public, the communities of south Camden and south Islington are determined to make this an example of how a development can be conducted in the public interest. Mount Pleasant is a space to watch.

[baldrick]

I saw a newspaper report last week that said that both Sadiq Khan and Zac Goldsmith, who are probably going to be the most likely leading candidates for London Mayor next June, support the local residents' plan for the Mount Pleasant redevelopment, so if the planning dispute goes on until Boris departs they might get their plan adopted.

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