Colliers Wood Residents' Association Tower briefing note Text kindly supplied by Siobhan McDonagh, MP for Mitcham and Morden, February 2010

The Tower was built in the 1960s, designed in the style of the then-fashionable Chicago School, which used dark-grey cladding and pre-cast concrete. It is 17 storeys, plus a functional plant room on the roof, and provides 7,576 sq m of office space. Even at the time it caused considerable controversy. When being built, it had reached the third storey when an error in construction was discovered and it was demolished to begin again. Many people saw this as a bad omen! The Tower was voted the ugliest building in London in a 2006 BBC poll, and one of the twelve ugliest in the UK in a 2005 Channel 4 poll.

First named the “Lyon Tower”, it was originally the headquarters of property company Ronald Lyon Holdings, but it has also been known as “The Vortex” and the “Brown & Root Tower”, after the American engineering firm Brown & Root Halliburton who occupied it on a long lease from 1971 to 1995. Golfrate and other related companies have been the owners since they bought the Tower more than 10 years ago. It is currently owned by a company called the Asif Aziz Charitable Trust – Mr Aziz is the man behind Golfrate. Aziz is the Head of Golfrate Ltd and also the CEO of Criterion Capital. According to him, his primary skill is in “stock selection and creating value through active hands on asset management.”

Golfrate is notorious in our area. For instance, they ran the car park in Mitcham that became front-page news when shoppers were clamped or towed away for going into the “wrong shop”. Motorists were fleeced for hundreds of pounds a time. They also own the Colliers Wood Library building, parts of which are also run down and boarded up. Tooting residents also complain about their practices.

“Another Asset Acquired By Golfrate”
So reads the sign above The Tower's entrance, January 2009. Since then, the sign has disappeared, possibly indicating the company's embarrassment at the state of the building.

Recent History

London Green Developments (LGD) approached Golfrate in 2005 to buy The Tower. They put in a planning application to turn it into flats, with a hotel and some office space. Local Councillors and Mitcham and Morden MP Siobhain McDonagh organised several meetings with LGD, and they agreed to include a library, a local police office and a public park, along with retail units and a café. They also promised to replace the car park. We were promised that the building would have a facelift, with new cladding to put an end to the black exterior.

Planning permission was granted in December 2005. However, the deal between Golfrate and LGD unravelled and ended up in the High Court. Golfrate’s subsidiary company, Yewbelle, had exchanged contracts with London Green for £13.75m, but only as long as negotiations with Merton Council on what are known as Section 106 were agreed. (This is the compensation a community gets when there is any planning gain from a new development, and would have benefited our area by nearly £2M). However, Yewbelle claimed talks with the Council failed, and backed out of the deal with LGD. This debacle took years and finally went to Court and ended up at the House of Lords. During this time we had to stop campaigning and await the outcome the Judge’s decision. The case is now over and Yewbelle have kept ownership of The Tower and not LGD so we are back to square one. Since then, although planning permission has been granted, Golfrate has not attempted any building work. They now have submitted a new planning application, which we need to see.

The building’s exterior is falling apart so we got the Council’s surveyors in to see if it was dangerous. The Council were weak. Instead of getting proper improvements they agreed Golfrate could simply board the place up and put on the green netting.

Why can’t we knock down the Tower?

The Tower has a legal owner so it would be against the law for anyone to knock it down without the owner’s agreement. The only way it can happen is for Merton to agree that the Tower is structurally unsound and to serve them with a Notice. The Council refuse to do this as they argue the structure is not in imminent danger of collapse.

Alternatively, demolition could take place if the Council compulsory purchases the building, and then knocks it down. To do this Merton would need to pay Golfrate £10-£12 million to buy the building, plus the cost of demolition. This would lead to a charge of £148 on all Merton households. This is clearly a cost that most residents living in Raynes Park, Wimbledon Village, Mitcham and Morden are not prepared to pay.

Engineers argue demolition is technically difficult because the building is over the Northern Line. The A24 would need to be closed for months whilst work was taking place. However, we have never challenged these arguments and to ask for surveys, as we can’t get past the problem of finding the £10-12 million to purchase The Tower!

Siobhan McDonagh addressing a packed meeting of local residents that she called to discuss The Tower at the Guardian Centre on 11^th February 2010

What options are available to us?

There are a range of avenues that could still be open to us.

For example, Councils have powers under the Buildings Act 1984 and the London Building Act 1939 to force a building’s owner to make it safe. The owner of any structure that becomes dangerous is responsible for all costs involved in making the structure safe and if the Council has to carry out emergency works any costs can be charged to the owner. It has been suggested installing green netting and boarding windows is the bare minimum that could be done, and was only a temporary step. It may be possible to argue that the building will only be completely safe once it is entirely re-clad. To do this we need to find independent money to pay for structural surveys that will challenge Merton’s surveyors.

Councils also have powers under Section 215 of the Town & Country Planning Act 1990 to force owners to look after sites that are becoming detrimental. This gives Councils the power, in certain circumstances, to force owners to clean up land when its condition adversely affects the amenity of the area. Under Section 219 Councils can also do the work themselves and recover the costs from the owner. Again we need to find away of getting Merton to use these powers.

Under the Environmental Protection Act 1990, Councils have to investigate any complaints about a “statutory nuisance”. If they are satisfied a statutory nuisance exists, they are obliged to serve an abatement notice against a building’s owners. Under the same Act, an individual living locally can also apply to a magistrate to serve an abatement notice. We need to find out more about how we could do this and our likelihood of success.

Next, it’s not clear if the consent Golfrate says Merton Council gave to install green netting was intended to last as long as it has – over a year. Also, if Golfrate intends to keep the netting in place on a long-term basis is this compatible with previous planning decisions? Of course, nobody wants anyone to get killed by falling masonry, so it is hard to object to anyone putting nets in place as an interim emergency measure. However, are the owners allowed to keep such ugly netting up indefinitely without applying for planning permission?

As an alternative to the law we need to see again if the media would be interested in taking up our campaign to get something done.