What is the future for White City? The way to find out last week was not reading about the Mayor of Londonโs โvisionโ but attending the planning inquiry in the Town Hall.
Although the planning framework for the area wonโt be agreed until next year, Westfield and Imperial College are putting in planning applications for 3,000 homes this autumn. These will include blocks of 20 and even 30 stories and will set a precedent for the rest of the site. Consequently, the developers are already saying at least 6,000 new flats can be justified east of Wood Lane, not the 4,500 in the plans.
The council wants over a thousand of the new homes to be council homes at low rents. No, this is not some dramatic u-turn by the most anti-affordable home council in the country. The condition is that they are all taken by residents of White City, Wood Lane and Batman Close Estates to the west of Wood Lane. Not one new affordable home must be built.
You donโt have to be Richard Rogers to work out that this leaves over a thousand empty flats in White City Estate โ half the current neighbourhood. And yet the plan states โthere are no plans for the White City housing estatesโ. What they mean is they wonโt tell us.
It was clear as soon as the Opportunity Area was extended to include the estates that, just as in West Ken, the long-term plan is demolition and re-development to a much higher density with luxury rather than affordable homes.
At the same time Shepherds Bush Green and Town Centre were included in the development area, even though they are south of Westfield. So far here we have seen an attempt to get rid of Ginglik, the Village Hall put up for sale, plans to cut down mature trees and erect a cafe on the Green (now subject to a planning inquiry) and seven stories of flats crowding out the Market.
There is space for development in White City, in the interests of new and existing residents. This isnโt it.
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