Affordable housing scheme in London left unfinished for seven years now needs recladding

Jerry Flynn, part of campaign group 35%, which has been raising awareness about the long-empty buildings, said: “This is a long sorry saga. It shows that developers need much tighter control – we simply can’t rely on them to build what they say they will.”

However, a PA spokesperson said the association now understands the scope of the work needed to “rectify the issues and complete the development”.

They added: “Restarting works at this development has taken much longer than we would have hoped and we realise how frustrating this is for people in need of affordable housing in Camberwell.

“Our revised planning application, with these works included, has now been submitted and we hope to be back on-site early next year, subject to the council’s planning approval.”

This week, Southwark Council opened an enforcement case into the development, but said that if PA is able to resolve the problems, there would be no further action. It described the situation as “immensely frustrating”.

Crown Street was sold by Southwark Council in 2004 and developer and contractor Parritt Leng obtained permission in 2013 for 69 flats across four buildings, including 28 market units, 24 shared ownership, 10 affordable rented and seven social housing units. 

That year, Asra Housing Association went into contract with the developer. But soon after construction work started, concerns emerged that what was being built did not match up with the original plans. 

Work on the development ground to a halt in 2015 after Parritt Leng went into administration and the buildings were left incomplete.

In 2016, when PA Housing (newly formed through a merger of Asra and Paragon Community Housing) took possession of the site from the liquidators, it found fire safety issues and undertook a manual survey to review the buildings’ height against the original plans.

According to one officer’s planning report, it revealed some of the buildings were constructed nearly a storey higher than they should have been. Amendments were submitted, and a year later approved to make the built scheme lawful.

However, in the latest development, PA said it had undertaken a GPS survey, which showed that its original manual survey was wrong and the building heights are actually marginally lower, rather than higher, than in the original plans.

Its new planning application now seeks to amend the measurements to reflect the actual height of the buildings.

When PA took ownership of the project, it changed the scheme’s tenure to 100% affordable and increased the number of social homes from seven to 14. But Mr Flynn said the percentage of social housing should be higher, considering it is on former council land and received funding from the mayor of London.

“Southwark desperately needs social rented homes above all else and it should demand of more of these from the developer,” he said.

James McAsh, cabinet member for the climate emergency and sustainable development at Southwark Council, said: “This development and the freehold are not the council’s. The situation is immensely frustrating, and the council has been, and still is, working hard to investigate and resolve it – although we remain limited in our powers as it is not ours.

“The original, unscrupulous developer abandoned the site after partially developing it, then [fell] into liquidation. The buildings were not built entirely to plan and require amendment before they can be occupied.

“Paragon Housing Association is taking steps to resolve this. We would prefer that action was taken quicker, but accept that they were let down by the developer.

“We will ensure that the latest application is made ready for a decision and take action to enforce if the application is refused. If the application is permitted, we will follow up with Paragon to ensure that it is implemented as soon as possible.”

PA owns and manages more than 23,000 homes across the Midlands, London and the South East.

Earlier this year, the landlord’s grading for financial viability was downgraded from V1 to V2 after increased investment in its stock, such as fire safety work, led to pressure on its finances.