A legal dispute is the latest setback to hit the regeneration of the Elephant & Castle area of south-east London.
Following the cancellation of its funding by Southwark council (HT 13 June, page 15), Elephant Links Community Forum has sent a letter to the council, indicating that it is in breach of its contract with ELCF.

In the letter, the forum鈥檚 lawyer said: 鈥淚n spite of the requirements for mediation [between the council and ELCF] the authority has ignored ELCF鈥檚 requests for mediation鈥�.

But in a bizarre twist, the chairman of the single regeneration budget partnership committee, Richard Graham, dismissed the letter as 鈥済arbage鈥�.

The council and ELCF are both partners in the board set up to administer the 拢25m single regeneration budget funding awarded to the 拢1.5bn scheme more than two years ago.

Since then, the project has lurched from one crisis to the next, with the preferred developer, SLR, being sacked by the council in April over disagreements about profit-sharing arrangements.

Community forum director Richard Lee said: 鈥淩ather than sort things out, it appears that Southwark would rather dissolve the single regeneration budget partnership.鈥�

Lee added that without a swift resolution of the lack of funding for ELCF, the future of regeneration of the Elephant & Castle seemed bleak.

Source

Housing Today