Boris Johnson decision on Earls Court flats ‘is social engineering’, say angry residents

Boris Johnson’s decision to approve the demolition of Earls Court exhibition centre and two nearby housing estates was met with fury today.

Residents condemned it as “social engineering” which would force locals to make way for expensive flats. They urged Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles to call in the planning application and said they would go to judicial review if he refused.

This could delay the £8 billion redevelopment of the site, including the West Kensington and Gibbs Green housing estates, by many months.

The Mayor said he was “acutely aware” of the concerns of some residents but added: “I’m reassured by the measures being taken by both councils and the developer to make sure the needs of local people are properly addressed.” He said the project would “deliver huge benefits to the area and beyond for years to come”.

The plans for the 32-hectare site were passed to Mr Johnson after being approved by Conservative-led Kensington & Chelsea and Hammersmith and Fulham councils last year.

Developer Capital and Counties want to build four “villages” and a high street and say the plans will create thousands of permanent jobs and 7,600 homes.

Ten per cent of those will be new affordable homes — way below the Mayor’s 40 per cent target. A further 10 per cent will be replacement homes for the 761 existing residents.

Diana Belshaw, 51, a nurse from the Gibbs Green estate, said Mr Johnson’s decision showed that “he just doesn’t care about us”. She added: “They just want to get rid of social housing and working-class people.”

Labour MP Andy Slaughter said: “This is the Tories’ biggest social engineering project, uprooting thousands of low-income Londoners and replacing them with 10 times the number of high-rise luxury flats for overseas and City investors.”

The developer has invested in Olympia exhibition centre to help keep business after the art deco Earls Court centre is bulldozed. But Green Assembly member Darren Johnson claimed the project would “wreck the UK’s leading position in the events industry”.

Hammersmith and Fulham council leader Nicholas Botterill said: “We are offering estate residents some of the best terms ever negotiated in any regeneration scheme in the country.”