You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
Old Oak regeneration company unveils new plans after losing key planning battle
The development company behind the Old Oak Common regeneration scheme has revealed new plans to build homes in the area after losing a key planning battle against a second hand car dealership earlier in the year.
The Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC) said it will now work with Network Rail and HS2 to focus on building homes on public land around two new stations in west London.
It had originally planned to purchase a 54-acre site owned by Cargiant as part of the wider development, but after a spike in land values the site was ruled unviable for residential development by a planning inspector, ending years of wrangling.
OPDC had been at loggerheads with Cargiant since the dealership scrapped plans to move off its site south of Willesden Junction, where it employs 800 people, in 2017.
The development company today confirmed that it is no longer seeking to acquire the land.
The planning inspector said stripping the site from the wider plan cuts the number of homes that can be delivered from 20,100 to 14,200, and the predicted number of jobs created from 40,400 to 37,590. The original plan had forecast 25,500 homes and 65,000 jobs.
READ MORE
Instead, the OPDC said it will now focus on unlocking a range of sites where “substantial numbers of new homes and jobs can be developed quickly”.
“These sites are primarily in the ownership of HS2 and Network Rail and offer huge scope for major regeneration opportunities, building on the extraordinary connectivity provided by the new interchange,” it said.
As a result of no longer planning to acquire the Cargiant site, the OPDC will also no longer be able to use £250m of funding from the government’s Housing Infrastructure Fund.
David Lunts, interim chief executive of OPDC, said: “This new approach to delivering the amazing potential at Old Oak and Park Royal makes good sense given the dramatic changes in market conditions over the past year or so.
“With the price of industrial land shooting up four or five-fold in as many years, earlier plans to bring forward Old Oak North are unfortunately not currently viable. But this in no way undermines our ambition for thousands of new homes and jobs as these can be achieved on many nearby public sector sites where we are already working closely with our colleagues at Network Rail and HS2.”
He said the new approach means it can support Cargiant and other local businesses to remain in the area and help job creation.
Geoff Warren, owner of Cargiant, said: “Cargiant is a hugely important and thriving business and we have significant plans to grow our car processing plant, creating many hundreds more highly skilled jobs and also investing in a new electrical vehicle centre to help Londoners make the shift towards electric vehicles.
“Our existing 800 staff, the thousands more employed in our supply chain and our tens of thousands of customers will be delighted that Cargiant’s highly efficient mega car plant is staying in situ in north-west London and our expansion plans will enable us to bring forward an even wider range of cars, all delivered to an excellent standard and at the very best prices.”
