High-rise blocks should not be the future, says Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins
Whatever the outcome of this battle between developer and local authority, high-rise blocks should not be the futuredemolition of two new apartment buildings
More than a third of Mast Quay’s 204 units have reportedly now been rented – a two-bedroom flat is around £2,000 a month – with 126 still empty. Like towers across London, the block could well lie mostly empty as an asset on a company’s books until the market improves. But what Greenwich may have envisaged as a luxury riverside hub for young urban professionals is now plainly not what it expected. The council is understandably eager to put things right.
‘Wandsworth has been cramming a mini-Hong Kong into Battersea and Nine Elms.’ New tower blocks in the Nine Elms area of south London.Towers later returned to favour in the private sector, largely as city-centre investments and for young urban professionals without families. Unlike the streets they supplanted, they were not flexible. They could not convert to shops or studios, or easily reflect shifts in the property market, for instance between renting and owning.
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