The Draper House Refurb

Seems to be well on the way now, scaffold going up!

What's the plan for the refurb? Is it paid for via Section 106 money fron Strata developers?

There was a big contribution for that, the plan is pretty conservative (in a good way) application is on the Southwark planning page, best described as restoring everything there to 'as new'.

Im looking forward to watching, I think it's going to look great - sadly the shop unites are not included and quite a bit of work to do there...

Great news. I think that Draper House is quite an attractive building and a good example of 60s Modernist architecture.

Just needs a bit of a general spruce up and in particular the side cladding cleaned in my opinion, so glad to hear that nothing more fundamental is being done.

It's one of the best buildings in The Elephant. It's gonna look nice, one hopes!

Hold on, Draper never got a single penny from Strata, just a five year delay on its work to 'decent' standard.
It was slated to start before Strata, was built, then during construction, but Brookfield said:
'NO !'
Even the current scaffolding was delayed, as the Strata management wrangled over access to 'their' car park.

Graham,
I wonder who's responsible for the latest delays with Draper refurb... Strata or Southwark Council?

My bet lies firmly with Southwark Council as they had three years to get their paperwork in order whilst Strata was built, then they took another year of planning refurb after Strata was completed only to encounter that no legal agreements had been drawn up with Strata when they wanted to start with works July 2011. This added another 6 months of delays. So my guess is Southwark Council simply does not know what they are doing!
But please, feel free to prove me wrong on this one.

Thankfully, Cllr Bowman has been very helpful in supporting me in my continuos chase of LBS over the last few years to make sure this long awaited refurbishment is finally happening. By now I think probably everyone at LBS knows about the protracted refurbishment attempts to Draper House. From all our ward councillors, to LBS housing director to cabinet member for housing, tenants organisations, Leaseholder organisations etc.

As for Section 106 contribution:
Strata was made to contribute about £1.2 million for the new landscape around Draper House.
Sadly the contribution to the refurb was actually a tiny one at only £50,000 - the scaffolding costs alone will be a multiple amount of that. But I guess 50K is still better than nothing - every little helps. So thank you section 106.

As for looks, I am glad that finally some people start to realise that behind all that dirt and neglect Draper House is actually a rather well designed and attractive building. And the flats are really fantastic too in my opinion - maybe I should invite a few interested people for tea one day....
Now we just have to make sure that the quality of workmanship and materials is good and longlasting and that the council doesn't costs cut all the nice original design features out. Unfortunately councils think in regulations and adhering to guidelines, but importance and impact of good design they sadly don't seem to understand in this time and age at all.

oh, and for the shop units.... They were sadly sold off as Freehold a long time ago. Of course they only ever should have been sold as leaseholds...

I understand the individual cost to each Draper House leaseholder will be in the region of £36,000: some leaseholders will have to take out a second mortgage to meet the cost.

This makes one realize that the £50,000 contribution from Strata is laughable, particularly since making Draper House more attractive will increase the value of homes in Strata Tower...

TAK wrote:

As for Section 106 contribution:
Strata was made to contribute about £1.2 million for the new landscape around Draper House.
Sadly the contribution to the refurb was actually a tiny one at only £50,000 - the scaffolding costs alone will be a multiple amount of that. But I guess 50K is still better than nothing - every little helps. So thank you section 106.

And that S106 £1 million was wasted on removing all their character from the area in front of the shops and making a bland wasteland with a ridiculous mini plot of grass with a tree stuck in it.

What ever happened to the nice old arrangement of 12 pieces of rock to resemble a clock that was there before this sterile boring refurb?





That little clock monument remembers Clock Place around the corner which at one point was Clock Passage but gradually over time become a mini-pathway through. It also acted as a remembrance of the Clock Tower that was over the way in St Mary Newington's Old Churchyard that was pulled down in 1971.

Now the area looks totally dull