V.N.E.B.
Vauxhall • Nine Elms • Battersea
VNEB - a planners neologism - runs adjacent to the Thames from Lambeth Bridge to Battersea. In a city desperately short of affordable housing, the visitor finds what we have been gifted by a sequence of c21st mediocrities is a lacklustre Dubai, a Ballardian landscape in which place has been substituted by property as investment, identity as consumer choice.
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Now then, let's get you up to speed on this hotbed of post-QE sloppy money, under resourced local government, vainglorious political ambition and global kleptocractic hidey-holes:
'Penthouses and poor doors: how Europe's 'biggest regeneration project' fell flat'
Oliver Wainwright, The Guardian, 2Feb21
There's an audio version with an introduction by the author here
Here's another good piece if you feel the need for "how, what, why?"
'Liberalise planning rules to fix a housing crisis – sounds logical, but it won't work.' -
Anna Minton, The Guardian, 6Jul21
The @ballymorehell Instagram account is a good source of despair and incredulity.
If only there were some rhyme or reason:
'Boris Johnson's dire legacy for London'
Rowan Moore, The Guardian, 10Apr16
Oh bum, who'd thunk
‘Every square inch monetised’ – is Battersea Power Station now a playground for the super rich?
Oliver Wainwright, The Guardian, 5Oct22
tl;dr
As they say in the parlance, it's a shitshow.
Still, VNEB has been shit for years, now it's just a different shade.