'Squashed Strawberry' Creamed

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Credit crunch forces developer to halt work on office block

Work on a major Hammersmith office project has ground to a halt as the credit crunch begins to bite. Reportedly the developer has been unable to obtain financing to continue the project which was described as looking like a 'squashed strawberry' by local residents.

Development Securities said it was attempting to refinance the 30,000m2 office scheme, directly opposite Hammersmith tube station. The project was given planning permission by the Council in November. Their statement saids that while it had assembled long-term equity partners willing to finance the transaction, the “lack of any currently available bank finance for the development stage left our original equity co-investors unable to proceed with the project as originally planned”.

Residents feared the development would have dwarfed the surrounding residential areas, including the newly-revamped Lyric Square and will cut across Beadon Road, increasing traffic congestion.

Richard Winterton, of Brackenbury Residents Association (BRA), said: “The development is too large: the single unrelieved mass of building is out of scale with the site surroundings, and would create an overbearing presence which would dominate and spoil the views in the area. The building will dwarf the Lyric Theatre – we will have not Lyric Square, more Blob Square.”

 

September 5, 2008