OPDC planning inspector flags ‘show-stopping’ delays at Old Oak

Further uncertainty has been cast over the future of the £26bn regeneration of Old Oak in west London after a planning inspector highlighted potentially “show-stopping” matters at the public hearing. The inspector has requested further information regarding the Old Oak & Park Royal Development Corporation’s sustainability and viability strategies in its local plan. The OPDC must provide greater detail of the proposals for early phases and respond to  new information regarding waste from the Draft London Plan. It must also examine long-term trends in industrial land values and the potential impact on viability, specifically requesting a “valuation feasibility study” of the 46-acre Cargiant site. In a highly unusual move, the planning inspector has also called for an additional hearing in June, dedicated to issues raised by Cargiant. The landowner has long-argued that the enormous costs of either relocating or extinguishing its car processing and sales business makes any development of the site unviable. Documents detailing the matters arising from the hearing sessions point to specific problems around the impact assessment, viability and exclusion from the mayor’s strategic industrial land, to be reviewed. The report comes just two months after Cargiant’s scathing attack on the OPDC, in which it called for “an immediate halt” to the development agency’s plans and HIF bid. Cargiant argued that the unviable scheme posed an “outrageously high cost to the public purse”. At the time, managing director Tony Mendes said: “This is an absolute scandal and Old Oak Common is fast becoming known as Old Oak Cock-Up.” A spokesman for the mayor of London immediately hit back, saying: “These comments are barely worth the paper they are written on. The mayor would be letting down Londoners if he allowed private sector vested interests to get in the way of the homes and jobs that Londoners need.” Last month the OPDC was awarded a £250m grant from the Housing Infrastructure Fund. This requires a number of standard and “bespoke” conditions that the OPDC will be held to. The saga is now set to continue with the meeting to be scheduled for a day in the first two weeks of June. Advisers at Turley will review the OPDC-commissioned evidence on the cost of remediating the site and the viability of the site for a variety of SIL and non-SIL uses and the OPDC will be given the opportunity to respond. To send feedback, e-mail emma.rosser@egi.co.uk or tweet @EmmaARosser or @estatesgazette