04 Jul Community issues formal complaint against £1bn health fund for putting “profit before people and the planet”
The Foundation (together with its partners Stanhope and the US hedge fund the Bauhope Group) plans to build and enormous office development in a “heritage hotspot”, close to the Palace of Westminster and Lambeth Palace. It would be the largest single office development ever seen in the London Borough of Lambeth.
Michael Ball of campaign group Save Waterloo’s Paradise (comprising local residents, small businesses and the Waterloo Community Development Group) said “We support the design-led and sustainable plan originally proposed by Lambeth’s Planning Dept, which would avoid causing major harm to significant heritage assets and public amenities. It would facilitate the Foundation’s aspiration of converting a few offices into medical laboratories, as well as providing some much-needed housing. Instead, the Foundation wants to go ‘Office-Max’ and maximise every possible square metre of office space on the sites.”
SWP’s Matthew Demwell said “The Foundation’s Office-Max plan is needlessly destructive and seems to be entirely profit-driven regardless of the human and environmental cost. It will damage people’s mental wellbeing by destroying and degrading heritage and public amenities; and it will harm the planet by razing and re-building existing buildings – releasing a tsunami of CO2 into the atmosphere – when they could easily be retrofitted; and on top of that, the Foundation misleadingly claims that the project is net-zero.”
Mr Demwell continued “What’s most shocking is that this vandalism is being carried out on the watch of charity Trustees who claim to care about public health, carbon neutrality and heritage. When we ran a detailed check through the Foundation’s charitable aims, Office-Max bulldozed through one after the other of them. And when we tried – twice – to raise our concerns with the Trustees, they spurned repeated offers to meet, fobbed us off with copy-and-paste platitudes, and said they were “proud” of their plan.”
Damage to heritage assets and public amenities will harm mental wellbeing
Lambeth Council has admitted that Office-Max Plan will damage heritage and the community but the Foundation’s communication with SWP only mention purported benefits: the campaigners say that the Trustees seem blissfully unaware of the significant downsides of Office-Max.
SWP’s Candice Desmet runs Act’In Theatre, which offers drama, improvisation and cinema workshops for all in French or in English based in Old Paradise Yard. Ms Desmet said “Old Paradise Yard is a unique and characterful enclave which houses small businesses in the creative, arts & crafts, design and technology sectors. It includes historic Victorian school buildings from 1847 – the oldest remaining in Lambeth – which even used to house a Tibetan Monastery.”
Ms Desmet continued “Any Inner London Borough would love to have a space like this. It inspires innovation, creativity and community engagement. The developers say there will be alternative affordable workspace but they haven’t told us what the rent would be. In any case, no corporate modernist space could be anything like as inspirational as this special place that they intend to bulldoze. Once it’s gone, it’s gone forever.”
A string of respected national and international heritage organisations lined up to lodge formal objections with Lambeth against Office-Max. UNESCO advisers the International Council On Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) berated the “phalanx of tall buildings” which would have a “highly adverse impact on the setting of the Westminster World Heritage site”. The Foundation’s Trustees ignored ICOMOS’ warning but UNESCO may take a more rigorous line and strip Westminster of its WHS status (as it has previously threatened to do and as it actually did to Liverpool in 2021 in similar circumstances).
Government heritage adviser Historic England objected to the impact on the 14th century Lambeth Palace, home of the Archbishop of Canterbury, stating that the “wall-like appearance of this scheme” would “harm the significance of the Palace of Westminster and the Westminster World Heritage Site, the Lambeth Palace Conservation Area and the Palace”, noting that “the Palaces of Westminster and Lambeth are both of exceptional significance.”
SWP say the development would loom over the historic Archbishop’s Park [see before and after pictures below] – the only community park in Waterloo – a vital resource for local residents, most of whom don’t have their own outdoor space, as well as staff and visitors at St Thomas’ hospital.
The campaigners have also questioned the setting up of a Jersey-based company to shelter the profits of Office-Max from UK tax, thus reducing the funding available to support the NHS.
The Foundation’s Trustees: on the ball or out to lunch?
The campaign’s formal complaint challenges the Trustees to explain:
• what due diligence they did on the Office-Max plan;
• what assessment they did of compliance with the Foundation’s charitable objectives;
• whether they challenged the property developers and explored alternatives, or just waved Office-Max through;
• whether they are aware that, while Office-Max will cause known and guaranteed harms, the main benefits it claims are not guaranteed, and whether they sought any guarantees;
• how they think facilitating tax-dodging is consistent with the Foundation’s aim of “reducing inequalities, with a special focus on health equity”;
• whether they are aware that the community’s concerns raised in consultation were largely ignored;
• how they decided it was right to ignore bodies like ICOMOS, Historic England, the London Historic Parks & Gardens Trust, the Twentieth Century Society, SAVE Britain’s Heritage, and over 43,000 people who have signed a petition against Office-Max;
• how they can feel “proud” of an Office-Max plan that breaches ten local and London planning policies and, as Historic England pointed out “does not meet the requirements of the NPPF [the National Planning Policy Framework 2021]”; and
• what evidence the Trustees can provide to demonstrate the suitability of their governance around Office-Max.
Mr Ball said “Office-Max is riddled with acknowledged harms, policy breaches and procedural flaws. All the while, there’s a perfectly feasible alternative that’s supported by the community. The damage is so egregious that Lambeth cannot unilaterally force Office-Max through: it has to be referred to the Secretary of State for approval and it seems likely to be referred to a costly and time-consuming Public Inquiry. The Trustees could have avoided all this if only they’d been prepared to listen – really listen – to the community.”
Mr Demwell concluded “Developers will benefit richly from a tax-dodging Office-Max but taxpayers can’t afford the untold cost of the damage to irreplaceable heritage, public amenities, mental wellbeing and the environment. The Foundation’s Trustees won’t meet us, hear from people whose mental wellbeing these vital public assets are helping, and see the unique and irreplaceable public assets that they plan to bulldoze. They’re like drone weapon operators, sitting in an office and wreaking destruction without daring to see the places they are about to destroy or meet the people whose lives they are about to blight.”
