Mr Joseph Ward, a Development Viability Advisor in the Planning Department at the GLA, quoted from a report that stated 67% of unit sales at the comparable Brentford Project had to date gone to foreign buyers.

Add to that the Teddington Riverside Project , also a Reselton development, which still has 50 units of 217 unsold since completion in 2021. In a private communication the Chief Executive of City Developments Limited, of which Reselton is a wholly owned subsidiary, said that he expected those properties to have been sold by March 2025. To whom one might ask?

Late Evidence News

Counsel for the developers said in the course of his cross examination of Mr Ward that his clients, Richmond Council and, it may be assumed the GLA, are working on a new s106 agreement (the fine details of the project) which should be ready over the next few days. The Inspector made it clear that he did not wish to be presented with serial draft agreements.

The key point which emerged was that the s106 agreeement might well include a without prejudice offer to increase the affordable housing to 13%. So it could be that an agreement would be reached which excluded the local community from any discussion of this crucial aspect of the case. Plus ca change.

Meanwhile there was some clarification of the value of the property to be applied in reaching a decision about whether the project was viable. At least from the stance of the developers. Counsel identified the concept of Existing Use Value, which led to a current value of approximately £36 million, largely agreed by Reselton, Richmond and the GLA, rather than the actual purchase price of £158 million.

Please someone issue a correction if necessary. That seems to mean that a developer can pay for land at an inflated price to ensure that he makes the winning bid. Then years later and having miscalculated on delays and negative headwinds, he can persuade the local planning authority to give permission for the development in a way which still ensures that it is the community and not he which suffers the loss.

And that is why there should have been an open debate on which the local community was properly consulted and not a concert party from which it was excluded. Is that what Councillor Roberts meant when he told a local meeting to ‘Get Real’?