Campaigners hold Elephant film-night fundraiser in bid to challenge proposed redevelopmentof Elephant & Castle shopping centre
BY YANN TEAR
yann@slpmedia.co.uk
Campaigners bidding to mount a legal challenge against the proposed redevelopment of the 75-year-old Elephant & Castle shopping centre are holding a fundraising film night to further their cause.
The Up the Elephant group is determined to fight the £2billion development – saying it makes no allowance for the need for greater social, rented housing in the area or the livelihoods of 100 displaced traders.
Following a fundraising party last year, the protesters say they are now taking the next step in their bid to force Southwark council to bin the shopping centre scheme.
They have engaged the services of lawyers and are hopeful that they can quash the planning approval in the courts, even though the Greater London Authority has already approved the plans.
The Up the Elephant campaign say not enough social rented housing is to be provided and that the delivery of social rented housing is not properly secured by the legal agreement between the council and developers Delancey.
Tomorrow’s Love the Elephant film night at Draper Hall, Howell Walk, includes a 20-minute documentary by film-maker Emile Scott Burgoyne called Why Does the Elephant Keep Developing?
It charts the conflict between the developers and local opposition.
That will be followed by a short film by the Rainbow Collective film crew, which looks at what they say is social cleansing in Peckham, Canada Water, the Aylesbury Estate, the Heygate Estate and the Elephant and Castle shopping centre, giving a platform to the local people most affected.
A Q&A and discussion will follow with the film-makers Scott Burgoyne, and Hannan Majid, from Rainbow Collective.
Scott Burgoyne said: “The actions of those with power that have carried out the regeneration of Elephant & Castle are so appalling it’s difficult to feel anything but anger.
I hope my film can help people laugh at their scrambling incompetence and blatant greed. “There’s nothing men in suits hate more than not being taken seriously.”
This latest event follows a near three-year long community campaign, which saw students from the London College of Communication, a partner in the deal, occupy their university in objection to the destructive plans being carried out in their name.
The community also organised a fundraising party, four demonstrations and more than 2,000 objections to the various planning applications.
Tanya Murat, of Up the Elephant, said: “We’ve always said that Delancey doesn’t want social rent tenants in their scheme, and it doesn’t want most of the independent traders either.This is now obvious.
“ Our campaign has shamed them into improving their scheme, but only at the margins. We have to quash it and fight for social housing and a scheme that protects our community.”
Jerry Flynn from Elephant Amenity Network said: “This development does not secure the delivery of social rented housing.
We are not getting enough, we will have to wait 10 years for it and we may not get any at all. The community deserves better than this.”
Emad Megahed from Elephant and Castle Traders Association said: “The current relocation package is nothing but a garden full of dynamite and a trap to terminate the current traders.”
Opponents say the developers are only interested in profits but Delancey insist they have built a positive consensus after talks with all the parties affected.
They are unimpressed with the firm’s promotional video which states: “It was a huge risk trying to unsympathetically [sic] land a new shiny town centre into a place that already exists and the skill for us as a developer is to knit it in an authentic way into the fabric that already exists.”
