Fiona Parry, Lend Lease
Minutes:
Rob Deck, Project Manager at Lend Lease, informed the meeting that the project team was moving to Hannibal House and would manage the Trafalgar Place and the One Elephant projects from there. Full construction on Phase 1 would start from Monday 1 July 2013, and would include 500 new homes, which would come on-stream at the end of 2015, while Elephant One would come on-stream at the end of 2016. For Trafalgar Place, Lend Lease had found their affordable housing partner in L&Q. There were two newsletters available, one for One Elephant (green) and one for Trafalgar Place (orange).
His team were also progressing the master-planning for the Heygate Estate, and had had feedback from Wansey Street residents, who wanted to things happen as soon as possible. 360 homes were in the process of being developed on the north side of Wansey Street and into Rodney Road, but this would need to wait until the demolition work of the first phase had been completed. This process was not due to be concluded until September. The design consultants had been appointed, and there would be further consultation on the design of the 360 homes in July. A planning application would probably be lodged in September.
As part of the above projects, £2m worth of contracts had gone to Southwark companies, and six long-term unemployed Southwark residents had been employed with the management team, or consultants. Lend Lease also had a £25,000 Community Fund to award to local community projects. The assessment panel for the next round of funding would be formed shortly. There were currently 37 live applications for the next round. Another funding round would be coming up in the autumn. The focus was on older people, young people and activities which benefit the community in the area. The art works box units were also up, and running and would provide space for local people for arts and crafts, and specialised food services.
Rob explained that he would be leaving his job, and that his colleague Pascal Mittermaier would be continuing in his role. In answer to questions from the floor, Rob explained that he did not know the exact reason behind the name of his company, but that it had been founded by a Dutch entrepreneur in Australia in the 1950s, in order to provide accommodation for workers constructing a hydro-electric plant. He went on to explain that 600 local jobs would be created across the three projects.
Note: At this point, Councillor Neil Coyle joined the meeting.
In answer to further questions from the floor, Rob explained that Lend Lease would try to preserve as many trees on Wansey Street and on the Heygate estate as possible. The construction would include planting new trees, so that there would be as many trees pre-development as post-development. To off-set the smaller stature of the new trees, additional trees would be planted in the surrounding areas. In terms of the occupancy of the box units, Rob said he did not know what would happen, if these were oversubscribed, as it was not Lend Lease managing that process. At the moment, the team only collated expressions of interest, and would turn these around quickly. The chair said that this could be a topic for a future meeting. The meeting heard that the funding for the community projects had been announced at the 7 March 2013 Community Forum meeting, and had been publicised via various networks. The closing date had been 31 May 2013. Rob said that they would look at improving the way information about this funding was circulated. The chair said that, in future, the information should also be distributed through the council’s community engagement database. The funding would be made available once a year by Lend Lease for the foreseeable future. Lend Lease would also look at making the fund self-sustaining. It had been oversubscribed this year, with 37 applications. The grants awarded ranged in size from £250 to £5,000. The fund was independently and professionally administered.
The chair thanked Rob Deck for attending, and asked residents to address further questions to him in the break.
NOTE: At this point the meeting adjourned for ten minutes.