When I started this site I had two goals. Firstly to uncover the kinds of practices that allow a small group of people to make vast amounts of money off the financial misery of the majority of Londoners. Second I wanted to do something about it. I was perhaps driven by a slightly naive belief […]
A year in ourcity.london
A year ago, I started this website. After having grown up in London, I was becoming increasingly concerned about the way in which our city was being exploited. One particular frustration was the way in which property developers were undermining the rules designed to protect our communities and our built environment (and making absurd profits in the process), […]
Pie in the sky – Vauxhall Sky Gardens
OurCity.London reveals more evidence of how leading surveyors cook the books in order to remove affordable housing from a luxury housing development. I first wrote about this case three years ago. Frasers property had been granted planning permission to build a quite specularly ugly tower in Vauxhall in 2008. The original planning permission came with […]
Marking the homework – How developers pay for ‘independent’ checks on their affordable housing deals
After writing my last article on how surveyors appear to be deliberately manipulating valuations in order to reduce the affordable housing obligations on their clients, a number of people commented that those figures are supposed to be checked by financial viability consultants employed by the council. Surely, if the developer is trying to game the system, it […]
Recent Comments