Charles Style speaking to Southwark Council Planning Committee on the 5th of June.

Charles Style on Affordable Housing in Block D

On the 7th of March, 2007, after I had criticised the problems at the Jam Factory to a public meeting here in Lewes, Nick Williams, the publisher of VivaLewes.com and I went up to Charles Style's house and spoke to him and his wife. Our intention was to hear his side of the story. During the interview, Mr. Style said something that directly contradicts what he and his consultants later told the Southwark Planning Committee about affordable housing in Block D.

As I originally understood the Jam Factory story, Angel Property had built Block D "as marketable flats", in such a way that no affordable housing could be located there.  And now Southwark Council had to choose between the affordable housing they had been promised and the limits on density that Angel had agreed to in 2000.  I asked Mr. Style repeatedly if he had not thereby backed the planners into a corner.

But Mr. Style surprised us by saying no, the affordable housing could go into Block D.  He said a number of times that while he and the Guinness Trust preferred to put them in Block E, the space in Block D was sufficient and there was nothing about the building that precluded its flats being sold as either "market rate" or "affordable".

Nick Williams and I were thrown by this.  I changed my approach and wrote the article Jam Yesterday on PastDevelopments.com with no accusation that Angel's Block D could not be used for affordable housing.

So I was surprised then to hear, in Southwark Town Hall this 5th of June, Mr Style and his consultants tell Planning Committee members that placing affordable housing in Block D was an almost impossible feat of architecture.  Speaking in support of Angel Property, a representative of Alan Camp Architects reminded the committee that his firm had been the third to attempt it.   Angel implied that, whatever the mistakes of the past, the promised affordable flats now required a large Block E.

Below is a link to the inteview with Mr. Style here in Lewes. The tape recorder was turned on and off during the interview which lasted over two hours, and some of the African music it over-wrote was inadvertently left behind. So the large sound file below (charles_style_7_mar_2007_A.mp3) was meant as notes for me, and not as a perfect record of everything that was said. But it does provide context for the short clips I have posted alongside it, which contradict what Mr. Style and his consultants later told the Planning Committee in Southwark.

If you have trouble accessing any of these files, a CD can be obtained by writing to me at the email address below.

David Burke
14 June 2007