As an adopted South Londoner and regular frustrated user of its roundabout, I was pleased to see the long-delayed announcement that Lend Lease has finally been selected as the preferred developer for the redevelopment of Elephant & Castle. The Australian developer, in a consortium with Elliot Lipton’s First Base and Oakmayne Properties, had beaten shortlisted rival St Modwen with Salhia Real Estate. The masterplan for the 170-acre site, designed by Ken Shuttleworth’s MAKE and released by the council last August, aims to create a sustainable "non-car parking destination", with 6,000 homes and 800,000 sq ft of retail.
This is another coup for Lend Lease, who are also involved with the Olympic Village in Stratford, the Park Place development in Croydon and the redevelopment of the Overgate Centre in Dundee. Lend Lease is expected to hold talks with Midlands-based St Modwen, which owns the shopping centre (voted London's ugliest building last year) at the heart of the scheme, about progressing the £1.5 billion project. The shopping centre is scheduled for demolition in 2010, but if anything has characterised plans for this area it has been the myriad delays and frustration that have held up the long-needed regeneration. Inital plans were unveiled in 2001, when Southwark Land Regeneration, a partnership between Godfrey Bradman's European Land and Frogmore Estates, was the selected developer for the site. But the inability of the developer and Southwark Council to reach an agreement on commercial and financial terms for the scheme led to the partnership breaking up. Some discontent has already been sounded by developers over the council's conduct. In May it emerged that the council would only be taking up 100,000 sq ft at the site as it would be signing a 25-year £7 million pa lease for 200,000 sq ft at Great Portland Estates' Tooley Street scheme on the South Bank. Lend Lease and St Modwen were both to some extent relying on the council to take 300,000 sq ft to house its 5,400 staff in a new civic centre at the heart of the site. Unlike last time, enough political will and, perhaps more importantly, fear of repeating the mistakes of the past, exists to ensure flaws like this shouldn't significantly derail plans. The Elephant is going up in the world. Although those who live there wonder if they will be coming with it.