‘Complete and utter shambles’: Beam Park developer says he …
Kuldeep Singh was given planning permission for 60 flats in New Road as part of what was supposed to be a major regeneration project, built around a new Beam Park railway station.
But with the station’s future in doubt and the property market having declined after last year’s mini-budget, Kuldeep said he and other developers are now lumbered with flats nobody will buy.
“If the climate stays the same, we won’t be able to afford to sell any of them,” he said. “There’s many blocks that are going up for sale now and they’re not selling.
“The whole regeneration hinged around the train station and the CPOs (compulsory purchase orders). The whole thing just crashed. It’s a complete and utter shambles.”
The development was supposed to be finished in summer 2022, but Mr Singh’s firm paused works after it emerged that the Beam Park train station, advertised on its hoarding, might not actually happen (Image: Charles Thomson)
Plans for thousands of homes around a new Beam Park train station were unveiled in 2015.
Planning permission was granted for major housing schemes and Havering Council initiated CPOs[1] to facilitate a huge regeneration.
But in 2021, with building already underway, it emerged that the Department for Transport (DfT)[2] had never approved a new c2c rail station between Rainham and Dagenham Dock.
A minister wrote in that year the DfT told the Greater London Authority in 2017 that the business case for the station was “very poor”. There remains no sign of it being approved.
Kuldeep’s family business, Ash Properties, bought a plot of land around six years ago, at the junction of New Road and Askwith Road, to build flats near the planned station.
He estimates that the proposed station inflated the land price by 20 to 25 per cent.
The hoarding around Ash Properties’s development, at the junction of New Road and Askwith Road, is so old that it still says a new railway station is coming to Beam Park (Image: Charles Thomson)
He said the building had to be finished despite the station uncertainty.
“We paused the build for a year, hoping the climate would get better or the station would be delivered, but it didn’t happen.
“While we’ve been paused, waiting to see if the station happens, construction costs have gone through the roof and so have interest rates.
“So we’ve overpaid for the land and now we’ve got to reduce prices. We’re definitely going to make a loss on it. There’s a lot of developers going to be making a loss. Nobody who’s bought land in the belief that the station is coming will ever get their money back.”
More stories about Beam Park:
-‘We were sold a dream that’s not going to happen’[3]
-‘Havering Council is holding our life’s work to random. It has us over a barrel’[4]
Kuldeep’s development is so delayed that its hoarding still says a Beam Park train station is coming and the flats will be finished in summer 2022.
They are now due for completion in summer 2024.
He said the absence of the station had not only made the flats less attractive, but also blocked the wider regeneration which would have made Beam Park an attractive community.
“The regeneration is at a stop,” he said. “There are some new buildings, but zero development on the rest of it. Now our block is overlooking derelict land. So we’ve lost out in many ways.
“The area is just not coming forward. When I visit the site, nothing is happening. All these buildings have gone up and they’re unoccupied – because people need to be able to travel. They need the station, or they need to be able to park.”
Mr Singh’s flats on New Road remain under construction. But he said he has slowed works because he knows ‘there is no end user’ (Image: Charles Thomson)
Havering Council granted planning permission for some flats in Beam Park[5] at a high density and with little parking, citing proximity to the new station as justification.
“Everybody’s kind of been done,” said Kuldeep, adding that he did not blame the local councils, who want the station as much as the developers.
“At the moment, the way the climate is, we are building quite slowly because we know that there isn’t an end user for this.”
Havering Council said last month[6] that it and City Hall “remain committed” to delivering Beam Park station.
“Without the station, the redevelopment of the wider area has stalled,” it said, adding that the station was “crucial in the continued and sustainable growth” of the area.
References
- ^ Havering Council initiated CPOs (www.romfordrecorder.co.uk)
- ^ Department for Transport (DfT) (www.romfordrecorder.co.uk)
- ^ -‘We were sold a dream that’s not going to happen’ (www.romfordrecorder.co.uk)
- ^ -‘Havering Council is holding our life’s work to random. It has us over a barrel’ (www.romfordrecorder.co.uk)
- ^ granted planning permission for some flats in Beam Park (www.romfordrecorder.co.uk)
- ^ said last month (www.romfordrecorder.co.uk)