Deptford
in East London is among the city’s poorest districts, and despite its closeness to the
financial centres of the City and Canary Wharf – each a few minutes away by
train – has yet to feel the full impact of soaring London house prices and the
onward march of the foreign investor. Boris
Johnson has approved plans for two towers of 38 storeys and a third of 48
storeys (Canary Wharf’s central tower is 50 storeys) to be built by
the Hong Kong-based conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa at Conwoy Wharf. Soon there will be more towers on
the south bank of River Thames which will
hold 3,500 flats – 500 of them defined as “affordable”, the rest sold
for whatever the market dictates to owners who see London property as an juicy
asset rather than a home. Month by month it becomes steadily more obvious to
Londoners that what shapes our lives and townscape is the power of other nations
money. Ultimately, the issue we have with developers is that they are not
building the homes that ordinary Londoners can afford. Creating balanced
communities is simply not their business; their role in 'regeneration'
is totally skewed.Welcome to the Whampoa World.
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| Deptford's Whampoa |
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