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There is a mismatch between the hyperbole surrounding Nine Elms and the document intended to guide its growth.
On the one hand the location is London's greatest opportunity. On the other, the Opportunity Area Planning Framework is sober and modest, offering sensible ideas like a linear park, and better buses. Its most striking feature is the cluster of towers near Vauxhall.
There isn't yet the conviction that this zone will really change. As the endless failure to get anything built at Battersea Power Station shows, it is tough to make things happen in Nine Elms, largely because of the lousy transport links.
If Boris was really serious about changing things he would pay for a Tube link, except he lacks the funds.
There's also little sense of what this great new quarter could actually feel like, the only images offered being generic collages. Yet it is possible to draw and plan in much greater detail. Such planning is not usually the British way. Here it's left to developers to colour in the outlines created in planning frameworks, resulting in standard developers' architecture.
But this site, the last place left where London could create an exceptional waterfront, is too important to go that way. Just this once, the planners should invest in showing us what a great place Nine Elms could be.
Reader views (2)
Can nothing save Nine Elms from the blight of Fortress America? The new embassy's security requirements, dictated by Washington, apply world wide and assume a "worst case" scenario of armed attack. The resulting stockade mentality, resonant of 19th century frontier defences against plains Indians, will contribute nothing towards making the area a more accessible, human-scaled place. Americans like me wil be embarrased by it. Londoners will shake their fists at it. Critics will reverently discuss its architectural qualities. The civility of an 18th century square in central London will have given way to an alien presence worthy of science fiction CGIs.
The Power Station was doomed when Wandsworth Council failed to safeguard it from the collapse of John Broome's scheme and English Heritage washed its hands of it. As an architect, planner and Wandsworth Council's former Conservation Officer I read the writing on the wall more than 20 years ago. Each increasingly overblown scheme has raised site value, followed by the inevitable sell-off, while the Colossus of Battersea rots and will probably end up as ballast or dumped in the sea like the Euston Arch.
Regeneration? Don't make me laugh. With the "shaving can" of the Vauxhall Tower and other approved mega structures within spitting distance, adding a "cluster of towers" was only to be expected. Just more examples of regenicide- killing off a place in the name of regenerating it
- Jack Warshaw, Bordon, England, 28/10/2009 14:05
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Does Boris even know that in this 'inhospitable' area is a community of 20 or so boats, on Nine Elms Pier. I had the pleasure of living there for a year and part of the appeal was being in Zone 1 yet feeling away from it all. To the right was MI6, the gargantuan St. Georges Wharf and to the left, the Albert Bridge; a glorious sight at sunset. Hidden behind an industrial estate in the shadows of Battersea Power Station, the pier and its residents are very special and unknown to most. The regeneration of the power station looked reasonably hopeful with the promise of a new underground station and the residential pier was still a feature in their regeneration 'model'. But with the American Embassy, with their gross exhibition of high security and barriers, set to move into the building left vacant by Securicor, what will happen to the secret community of Nine Elms Pier? A new wobbly bridge certainly won’t help save it.
- Stephie Davenport, Regents Canal, UK, 27/10/2009 21:32
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