The back page of The Times (27 Feb 2017) carries an intriguing item claiming that the plans by Redrow and The Jockey Club to bulldoze the entire Kempton Park estate might be reversed.
We have several comments:
If this contains any grains of truth then it indicates just how un-thought-through this whole plan was to build 3000 + homes on the estate in the first place. To make a major “strategic decision” like this (The Jockey Club’s words), and then reverse it in a matter of weeks, does not reflect well on the top management of The Jockey Club.
The article mentions that a new plan might be to rather build 1200 homes on the eastern half of the Kempton Park estate which is not taken up by the racecourse. As we already know, of course, their original plan was to build, not 1200, but 2000 units on that site. The 1200 figure simply does not ring true. (Click here to read the evidence for that.)
We’ll believe it when we see Redrow withdrawing their application, through Spelthorne Council’s Call for Sites, for the Green Belt status to be lifted from the whole of the Kempton Park estate.
Ian Harvey – Leader, Spelthorne Borough Councillor
“An hour before the Jockey Club made its announcement I was contacted by agents for Redrow saying they had put the whole site forward but that we shouldn’t panic as it wasn’t their intention to seek development of the whole site. Lo and behold, the Jockey Club then announced it does want to build on the whole site. If I’m being polite I’d say that from the very beginning the Jockey Club has been disingenuous.”
At last someone is pointing out the fallacy, relentlessly being put about by developers, that building more houses will reduce house prices.
“Rising earnings and falling interest rates, rather than insufficient supply, drove the boom in house prices between 1996 and 2006.” (Oxford Economics Report, Section 1.3)
Click here to read the Redfern Review Press Release
SUNBURY, ENGLAND – JANUARY 17: Runners and riders on their first lap in the Matchbook Traders Conference Handicap Stakes at Kempton Park on January 17, 2017 in Sunbury, England. (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)
Is the planned sale of Kempton Park for housing the Jockey Club’s idea of a sick joke?
Keep Kempton Green 
