It’s a year since Boris Johnson put the closure of ten of London’s 112 fire stations into effect amid accusations that he would end up with “blood on his hands”. The mayor’s view was that the fire service would not be weakened because there are now half as many fires in London as there were ten years ago and that selling the sites would raise money to fill a funding gap and modernize the service. Who, though, should the sites be sold to?
The mayor is keen for two of those yet to be sold - the ones in Bow and Southwark - to be made available for new schools, which booming London certainly requires. He has urged the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA) to look kindly on bids for two of the now former fire station sites from the government’s Education Funding Agency, the body that purchases land for free schools to be built on, even if that means accepting a lower price than could be extracted from, say, a major property developer.
As Mayorwatch reports, this intervention has displeased both Fiona Twycross, who is the London Assembly Labour group’s spokesperson on the fire service, and her fellow LFEPA member Green Party AM Darren Johnson. Twycross contends that it is a public duty to get as much money as possible for the sites and wants the mayor - who is entitled to tell LFEPA what to do - to keep out of the process. Darren Johnson thinks his namesake is pushing his luck legally. LFEPA officers are seeking advice to see if he is right.
Setting aside any issue about the law, what is the right way to dispose of these sites. There’s more than one right answer, both of which might be thought a bit wrong. Twycross is no doubt right that London’s fire service needs the cash, but there can be a downside to going for the highest bid. London also needs affordable homes. Generally, the higher the price a developer pays for land, the lower the “affordable” component of the housing that eventually gets built on it.
As for the free school case, the Conservative mayor isn’t alone in advancing it. Southwark Council’s Labour leader Peter John wants the Southwark site to host a new secondary school to meet growing local demand. The free school model might not be Labour’s ideal, but that’s the type of school on offer. “For me, it’s an opportunity for a prime site to have a lasting community use in SE1,” John says. In the Southwark case, the mayor is officially “minded to direct” LFEPA to take that route.
The whole situation is another sobering example of how London’s mountainous land values are helping the city meet the costs of austerity. From Scotland Yard to Earls Court, the sale of public land by London’s public bodies is paying for future public service provision, be it policing, transport, the fire service or schools. With no party promising an end to spending cuts, the capital’s top line politicians are restricted to debating processes and priorities.
Another LFEPA member, Liberal Democrat AM Stephen Knight, is critical of what he calls the “eleventh hour” timing of Mayor Johnson’s move, but supports the principle of former fire and police stations being used to meet community need for such as affordable housing and schools. He’d like these land assets developed “both for social purposes and as a much-needed source of ongoing revenue income”, the latter being Transport for London’s approach. He’s against them being quickly sold for lump sums, which is the option preferred by the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, albeit with one or two interesting exceptions.
These are genuine dilemmas and Knight’s template for resolving them seems to me to be the right one. But what a pity they arise at all.
