Elephant and Castle area

Independent Businesses are represented in green on the map above. Below is a table that summarises the field work conducted in December 2018, providing evidence of the those operating at that time. However, Latin Elephant has revealed an email sent from Southwark Council in which they reported there were around 130 independent businesses in 2017. This could mean that over 30 businesses were already displaced as of December 2018.

We submitted a Freedom of Information request in February 2019, and Southwark Council responded with a database showing 79 businesses. See below the original document:

We have marked in light green on the map those businesses that have been omitted in Southwark's response (see above). We believe this list falls short of over 20 businesses:

There are 3 relocation sites offered by either Southwark Council or Delancey: Perronet House (12 units), Elephant One (8 units), and Castle Square (up to 26). The three of them total a maximum of 46, yet Latin Elephant has recently discovered that the developer Delancey is only offering 20 units in Castle Square. Traders have first refusal option in these three sites.

The possibility of 30 pitches in East Street market was also raised by Delancey in their covering letter of the Castle Square planning application (page 3), though it is yet to be clear if this becomes a real relocation alternative.

Besides the above, Southwark Planning Officers also reported to Councillors that Independent Traders in the Elephant and Castle area could be relocated in Elephant Park, the new development by Lendlease in place of the former Heygate Estate. After looking into all related documents on the Southwark Planning Portal, we discovered in the 'Affordable Retail Unit Strategy' report that this development offers 1,356 sq m of affordable retail floorspace, yet only 793 sq m would be available for immediate relocation in 2019, when the demolition of the existing Shopping Centre is intended to begin.

The remainder floorspace would be completed from 2021 to 2025. This essential information about the delivery timescale was in fact omitted by Southwark Officers in their report to the Councillors.

The location of the units are stated on page 11 of the 'Affordable Retail Unit Strategy' written by DP9, the planning consultant of Lendlease (same as Delancey). In this document, it is said that the intention is 'to concentrate all discounted rent units along Sayer Street'. This reduced substantially the possible combinations to only those units located on that street (see map above).

To find out the exact number of discounted rent units that would be available for Independenet Traders in Elephant Park by 2019, we conducted mathematical simulations to calculate all possible combinations of retail unit areas that total 793 sq m. In fact, we worked on the hypothesis that Delancey maximised the number of retail units to the nearest 793 sq m. In this scenario, which accommodates the highest number of traders, we discovered that only 8 is the upper limit.

We looked at the phasing programme submitted by Lendlease. As of December 2018, the latest update was made on 15 February 2016 and was elaborated by DP9. Below you can see a screenshot of the construction programme and what each phase entails.

Masterphase 1 (MP1 in red) comprised of plots H13, H10 and H6 (see map above); MP2 (blue), plots H3 and H2 (see map); MP3 (green), plots H4 and H5 (see map); MP4 (orange), plots H11a and H11b and finally, MP5 (grey), plots H1 and H7. The next two plots to be completed in 2021-22 with 5 market-price retail untis are H4 and H5 on New Kent Road.

The information stems from different sources. Below we show a table:

Due to time constraints, we have been unable to reach out to all traders but we have visual evidence of their presence. Some have already been displaced, but we aim at completing the missing information soon. This research is intended to be open source, and we are happy to finalise the database with your contribution and corresponding citation. Please get in touch with us if you want to share the information.

Yes, but only if it is used for non-commercial purposes. If you intend to publish it, please bear in mind we have limited resources and we would appreciate a citation. Please send us an email and we will give you a copy of the original geoJSON files.