Mamma Mia! The Party

In a country and city where there is a shocking shortage of GENUINELY affordable rented and social housing we fought a VITAL and URGENT campaign to secure a precious vacant area of land in Waterloo which was sold to the current Landowners Coin Street Community Builders (CSCB) at a hugely discounted price by the GLC (Greater London Council) in 1984 on the condition they built social housing.

After such a hard fought community campaign and the rare victory against huge developers, 34 years later they completely failed to meet their home building quota obligations not having built a new home in 17 years. Five sites remained undeveloped and were exploited for commercial gain.

Their most recent proposal for part of the site was for an ABBA Themed Party Venue which was cancelled recently by Bjorn Ulvaeus due to an outcry by Waterloo residents. This was not before Mamma Mia! The Party Ltd (despite local opposition) had applied for and obtained planning permission for part of the site originally intended for social housing.

One local resident even asked for a Judicial Review (at great personal financial risk) of the decision by Lambeth Council to grant the planning permission, blatantly ignoring covenants attached to the site, as this would permanently affect the nature of permitted developments and meant this precious land would have been effectively lost to social housing.

This is one of the most important issues of our time, with many UK Cities being bought up as investments by rich overseas buyers and lying empty while local people (including essential workers) cannot even dream of living in their own city.

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