At last a bit of sanity has arrived on site
The obvious question is: why didn't this happen 20 years ago? Battersea Power Station and its surroundings have never been the place for theme parks or entertainment-cum-retail complexes or eco-domes or any other fantastical idea. It is a place for a large number of homes.
The power station itself can house offices perfectly well. This may seem like a boring conclusion, but the presence of the gigantic old icon means this is never a boring place. At last, the owners of the site have worked out that flats and offices is what they need to do. The arguments produced a few months ago in favour of the 300-metre glass chimney now turn out to be baseless. It is not needed to attract attention — the power station does that — and the difficulty and cost of building it would have been an obstacle.
It is also possible to achieve high levels of sustainability without it. What is proposed now makes more sense, and the distribution of streets, parks and blocks, making the site more accessible, is also an improvement.
The blocks, of up to 16 storeys, will be massive, and the uniform treatment will need to be tempered if it is not to be too monolithic and overwhelming. But this is a site that can take big buildings, and what is shown are only designs.
It is not all plain sailing from here. Hundreds of millions of pounds still need to be found to restore the power station and build a Tube link. But at last a bit of sanity has arrived, and with it the prospect of something actually happening.
