A Tory donor is drawing up fresh plans for a controversial property scheme that was at the heart of a lobbying row involving a senior minister.
Richard Desmond, the billionaire former owner of the Daily Express, has submitted new proposals for a huge housing project in east London, with almost twice the amount of housing envisaged under the original plans.
The development, called Westferry Printworks, on the Isle of Dogs, caused political turmoil for the government in 2020. It emerged that Robert Jenrick, then the housing secretary and now the immigration minister, intervened to approve an early version of the scheme after Desmond lobbied Jenrick to speed through its approval. The pair had also sat next to each other at a Tory fundraising dinner and Desmond donated £12,000 to the party during the period.
Documents from inside the department later suggested Jenrick had taken an interest in the development and its timing, with officials stating that he was “insistent” that the scheme be approved before a local charge worth about £40m was imposed. Desmond had urged him in a private message: “We don’t want to give Marxists loads of doe [sic] for nothing!”.
Jenrick, who had overruled the government’s own planning inspector to approve the development, later accepted his decision was unlawful, but denied any bias. The development was later rejected by the government.
New proposals have now been published for the development, which has been drawn up by a company that is part of Desmond’s Northern & Shell business empire. They involve a five-storey secondary school and 1,358 homes, including a 31-storey and a further 15-storey block.
Some “significant concerns” have already been raised by planning officers, who said the new plans had been in the works since June. A full planning application has yet to be submitted. In particular, they raised concerns about the height of some of the development. A council report also states it “does not propose policy compliant levels of family housing”. It states the plan “notably increases the density” of the scheme.
It comes soon after Desmond confirmed that he was taking legal action against the UK’s gambling regulator after he failed to win the contract to run the national lottery. He is said to be seeking damages running to £200m after the contract was awarded to the Czech-owned company Allwyn.
He said that he spent millions on trying to win the contract and believed there were serious flaws in the process for awarding the lottery. Northern & Shell first made its legal claim last year, but told the Financial Times earlier this month: “We didn’t think the process was fair.” He added that it “was in [the regulator’s] interest to have a number of applicants on the card”. Northern & Shell declined to comment.
