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Swimming and tennis on roof over Battersea
Ruth Bloomfield07.09.09
Residents of a restored Battersea Power Station would be able to play tennis or go for a swim at a rooftop sports centre under revised plans for the Thameside landmark.
Proposals include leisure facilities in the shadow of the four famous towers, developers Treasury Holdings said.
The latest blueprint to save the Thirties masterpiece comes after it emerged site owner Real Estate Opportunities lost £200million in the first half of the year and is £1.6billion in debt.
But Treasury Holdings, which is 67 per cent owned by REO, insists it is pressing ahead with plans.
The developers have already spent millions of pounds shoring up Battersea.
They say that if the scheme does not go ahead the building is doomed.
The planning application for the £4billion project will be lodged with Wandsworth council in the next few weeks. It features a green roof and a riverside walkway.
It involves 3,700 homes, 140,000sqm of office space and 46,000sqm of shops. A hospital and hotel may also be included.
Rob Tincknell, UK managing director of Treasury Holdings, said: "The park at the front has been simplified considerably. We have put a tennis court on the roof, as well as a swimming pool."
He expects work will not start until 2012, and be completed by 2020, recession allowing: "You can't start something like this until you start pre-letting office space and pre-selling flats."
It is the latest of a series of attempts to redevelop the power station, which is Grade II-listed, since it was decommissioned in 1975.
REO has seen the site's value slip by 15 per cent over the past year, but a spokesman insisted the financial position of the firm was safe.
Reader views (2)
Why not flatten it, sell of the bricks to anyone that is interested and build something new and useful. Whilst it is good to preserve history, there are limits and it is after all just a slab-sided old power station.
- Nobby Clark, Perth, the Scottish one
They've been coming up with these grandiose plans for Battersea Power Station ever since I moved to London in 1983. Nothing ever comes of it.
While it's an impressive building, its surrounded by eyesore concrete. Lets sort it out once and for all, or just demolish it and build something practical in its place...
- George, London
