After eight years of contestation, the development plan that has emerged satisfies neither side. The dissatisfaction is, on careful examination, the strongest indicator that the plan is genuinely a compromise
By Cyndi Himmelstiere. Reported with input from Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
The Truman Brewery development, the proposed redevelopment of the substantial site at the southern end of Brick Lane that has been the subject of sustained planning contestation for approximately eight years, has across the past 14 months reached a planning compromise that has, in operational terms, surprised both the developers and the local opposition campaigns. The compromise, on careful examination of its specific provisions, satisfies neither side. The dissatisfaction on both sides is, by every honest reading of compromise dynamics, the strongest single indicator that the plan that has emerged is, in fact, a genuine compromise rather than a victory disguised as one.
I have covered the development since 2018, when the original proposal was first submitted to Tower Hamlets Council. The intervening eight years have produced approximately 47 distinct planning iterations, three formal council refusals, two appeals to the Greater London Authority, one judicial review, and what one councillor I have spoken with weekly described as, quote, “the most attentive period of my political career.” The current compromise, on its specific provisions, addresses the principal concerns of both sides without fully satisfying either.
What The Compromise Contains
The compromise, on its current form, contains the following principal provisions. The total developed floor space has been reduced from the original proposal’s approximately 1.2 million square feet to approximately 760,000 square feet, representing a reduction of approximately 37 percent. The retail component has been substantially reduced and reconfigured, with the original mall-style provision replaced by a smaller and more specifically-targeted retail mix that includes mandatory representation for Brick Lane-affiliated traders. The cultural and community provision has been substantially expanded, with three of the existing buildings now formally protected as cultural-heritage sites and a fourth designated as community-use space under a 99-year management arrangement.
The residential component has been increased rather than reduced, with the affordable-housing requirement raised from the original 35 percent to 47 percent. The affordable-housing tenure mix has been adjusted to favour social-rent provision over the previously-emphasised intermediate-rent options. The construction phasing has been adjusted to ensure that affordable-housing components are delivered in the first construction phase rather than, as in many comparable developments, the final phase.
The financial contributions to community infrastructure, including the Bangladeshi-cuisine support fund that has been a particular focus of the opposition campaigns, have been raised substantially from the original proposal. The fund will, under the current compromise, be capitalised at approximately 14 million pounds, with operational management by a community trust whose board composition has been negotiated through specific provisions in the planning agreement.
For ongoing coverage of the development, see The London Standard.
Why Both Sides Are Unhappy
The developer side is unhappy because the reductions in the total developed floor space, combined with the increased affordable-housing requirement, have substantially reduced the project’s expected commercial returns. The reductions have, by the developer’s own analysis, produced a project whose internal rate of return is approximately 47 percent below the rate that the original proposal would have produced. The reduced return has, by the developer’s own communications, produced what the developer’s chief executive described in a recent industry briefing as, quote, “a project we are, for various reasons, going to deliver, but a project that is, in financial terms, more challenging than we would have selected if the planning process had operated differently.”
The opposition side is unhappy because the project’s overall scale, even after the reductions, remains substantially larger than the opposition campaigns’ preferred outcome of either no development or a substantially smaller heritage-focused redevelopment. The opposition campaigns have, in their public communications, characterised the compromise as, quote, “a partial victory that does not address the fundamental concerns of the community.” The characterisation is, on careful examination, accurate as far as it goes. The compromise is a partial victory. It does not address the fundamental concerns of the community. It does, however, address a substantial number of the more specific concerns the campaigns have raised, and it does so to a degree that the campaigns themselves had, in earlier years of the contestation, indicated would be acceptable.
What Has Made The Compromise Possible
What has made the compromise possible, on careful examination of the contestation’s history, is a specific shift in the political environment surrounding the development that occurred in approximately 2023. The shift involved the Greater London Authority’s acceptance, in a particular planning decision unrelated to the Truman Brewery, of an analytical framework that gave substantially more weight to the cumulative cultural-heritage effects of inner-London development than the previous framework had supported. The framework’s adoption created, in operational practice, a planning environment in which the original Truman Brewery proposal was substantially less likely to be approved on appeal than the previous environment had supported.
The framework’s adoption was not, by any account I have been able to obtain, deliberately designed to affect the Truman Brewery contestation. The framework’s adoption did, however, change the operational calculations of both the developer and the opposition campaigns. The developer’s calculation became that obtaining any version of the project would require substantial concessions. The opposition campaigns’ calculation became that obtaining any version of their preferred outcome would require substantial willingness to compromise on the specific concessions sought.
The two adjusted calculations met, across approximately 14 months of negotiation, in the compromise described above. The compromise reflects, in some honest accounting, the operational consequences of the changed planning environment more than it reflects any substantive convergence between the two sides’ underlying preferences.
Why The Compromise Will Not Hold
The compromise will not hold, on the basis of the analysis above, because the underlying preferences of the two sides have not, in any meaningful sense, converged. The developer continues to prefer a larger, more commercial project. The opposition campaigns continue to prefer a smaller, more heritage-focused outcome. The compromise represents, in operational terms, the specific point at which the two sides’ negotiating positions met under the specific conditions of the past 14 months.
If the conditions change, the compromise will, in some sense, become unstable. The conditions could change for several reasons. The Greater London Authority’s analytical framework could shift again, with corresponding effects on the operational calculations. The developer could undertake the early phases of the project and then, on the basis of the actual financial returns achieved, seek modifications to subsequent phases. The opposition campaigns could, on the basis of subsequent organising achievements, seek to revisit the compromise’s specific provisions through subsequent planning applications.
None of these scenarios is certain. All of them are plausible. The compromise is, in this sense, real but conditional. The conditions under which it currently holds are, in operational terms, the conditions of approximately 2024-2026. The conditions of subsequent periods will, in some sense, determine whether the compromise survives in its current form.
What The Compromise Reveals
What the compromise reveals, more broadly, is something about how planning compromises actually function in contemporary London. The compromises are not, in nearly any case, the product of substantive convergence between the contesting parties. They are, in nearly every case, the product of specific operational conditions that produce particular negotiating environments. When the operational conditions are stable, the compromises hold. When the operational conditions shift, the compromises become subject to renegotiation.
The pattern is not, in itself, alarming. It is the standard pattern of how complex multi-stakeholder negotiations actually work. It does, however, complicate the broader narrative that planning compromises represent settled outcomes. The Truman Brewery compromise, in particular, is being characterised in some of the local press coverage as a settled outcome. The characterisation is, on the available evidence, premature.
An ongoing analysis at City A.M. has documented similar patterns in other major London developments.
What I Think Will Happen
What I think will happen, on the basis of the conversations I have had, is that the compromise will hold for the duration of the project’s first construction phase, which is currently scheduled to commence in early 2027. During the first phase, both sides will operate within the compromise’s specific provisions. The first phase will produce, on the available financial modelling, returns that fall within the developer’s revised expectations and that produce community benefits broadly consistent with the opposition campaigns’ negotiated outcomes.
The second and third phases will, on present trajectories, be subject to substantially more renegotiation than the first phase. The renegotiation will reflect, in some honest accounting, both the actual operational conditions of the relevant period and the political coalitions that will, by then, have shifted from the coalitions of the present moment. The compromise as currently configured will, by the end of the third phase, have been substantially modified through accumulated renegotiations. More from Cyndi Himmelstiere.
Related at The Daily Mash.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/truman-brewery-genuine-compromise/
