Berkeley Homes' plan for Peckham Town Centre is great. Currently, the site is a low density shopping centre with a vast, drab, car park. This scheme will improve the character of Peckham and deliver 750+ essential new homes.

Sign this petition to show Southwark’s councillors that this proposal has the consent of the people who live, visit and work there. 

 

• London has a profound housing crisis. To build the homes we need, we must maximise the amount of homes delivered on large brownfield sites that are suitable for redevelopment. Peckham is in Zone 2 and is a major public transport hub. Developments like this are essential for us to tackle the housing crisis. 

 

• The scheme is still being finalised but it is likely that at least 35% of the development will be affordable and social housing, available for rent or shared-ownership for those on low to medium incomes. 65% of the homes will be sold at market rate and the sale of these homes will fund the affordable housing. A lower density application would mean fewer market rate homes, which would mean fewer affordable homes and likely, a smaller percentage of affordable homes on the overall site. 

 

• The properties that are sold at market rate may be unaffordable for many, however they will still be purchased by people to live in. House prices are unaffordable to so many because he have not built enough homes in London and the SE over the last 30 years to keep up with increased demand. Fundamentally, not building these homes will only worsen our housing unaffordability crisis.

 

• New market rate homes in an area are proven to free up more affordable homes. If this application isn’t built, wealthy people don’t disappear - they just outbid lower income households for older housing stock in the neighbourhood. Gentrification is caused by us not building enough market rate homes to keep up with demand and not building new social housing stock homes to replace stock lost under right-to-buy. 

 

• The new development will bring hundreds of new residents to the area ready to spend their income in the local economy, boosting well-loved local businesses and providing investment for the the town centre as a whole

 

• Densifying our urban areas and building dense new developments near public transport hubs, is crucial to fighting the climate crisis. Urban living is green living and adding urban infill does more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions than pretty much any other policy that can be instigated at a regional or a local level.

 

• Across Europe it is common for families to happily live in flats. New one and two bedroom flats will provide accommodation for young people so they may move out of HMOs and thus free-up family homes in the area. Developments like these, mixing one, two, and three bedroom apartments is the answer to our housing crisis. 

The redevelopment of the Aylesham shopping centre has been years in the making. Planning applications move at a glacial pace. A scheme delayed is a scheme denied. 

We demand:

1. That the Berkeley Homes plan for Peckham is built ASAP.