Campaigners call for rejected MSG Sphere site to be turned into social housing

A spokesperson for Stop MSG Sphere London told Inside Housing its members were “gobsmacked” and “over the moon” about the decision.

They added: “Newham has the highest rate of homelessness in England. Residents would be served far better by building social housing on the site.

“It’s not often that David wins against Goliath. It feels like the decision was a real testament to the power of residents and grass-roots campaigns. It felt like a real vindication of all the work we have done over the last nearly six years.

“We are delighted Sadiq Khan has listened to everyone who opposed this development, something MSG Sphere never did, until now.

“Local residents have endured nearly six years of stress and uncertainty over the possibility that this deeply damaging development would be built right next to their homes. They can now get on with their lives in peace.”

The venue would have been twinned with the massive Sphere project in Las Vegas, which opened in September with a performance by U2.

Technically, plans to build the London edition could still go ahead. Housing secretary Michael Gove has the right to call the planning application in for a final decision.

The London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) acts as the planning authority for the area around and including the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

An LLDC spokesperson said: “The mayor of London has directed LLDC to refuse the MSG Sphere planning application.

“The secretary of state has issued an Article 31 notice, which restricts LLDC from issuing a decision until he makes a direction or otherwise decides to call in the application.

“LLDC’s planning committee came to its decision after carefully weighing a considerable amount of evidence presented to it in a highly complex and long-running application. The independent committee considered those issues in light of all the relevant planning policies and felt that the benefits of the scheme were such that planning permission should be granted.”

Nate Higgins, a Newham councillor, said: “A lot of work has got to be done by the LLDC to re-earn the trust of residents, and frankly those who pushed this through when the problems were so apparent and residents were so against [it] should be considering their position.

“We’re going to keep fighting for a positive outcome, which would be the use of the site to provide a genuine benefit to our community, as new social housing would.”

Rokhsana Fiaz, the mayor of Newham, also welcomed the decision as “monumentally significant” for residents.

She said: “We have always argued that the unprecedented scale of the proposed scheme requires robust scrutiny, because the intrusion of the MSG Sphere on the lives of our people will be huge.

“It will have a massive impact on the quality of life of our residents living across our Stratford, Maryland and Stratford Olympic Park neighbourhoods, because of the scale of noise and light pollution the MSG Sphere will produce.”

In response to the decision, Sphere Entertainment said: “While we are disappointed in London’s decision, there are many forward-thinking cities that are eager to bring this technology to their communities. We will concentrate on those.”