On Monday, we ran a piece highlighting how the Brixton Project had teamed up with Hondo to lend credibility to the company’s bid to build a massive 20 storey tower block that contravenes Lambeth’s own planning policies – and we’ve now learnt that they’re being directly financed by the US-backed property investors who are headed up by a DJ socialite millionaire.
The proposed development is hugely unpopular in Brixton; to date, nearly 1,200 objections have been registered on Lambeth Planning – with just 12 comments in support – and a petition started up in opposition to their plans has received over 6,000 signatures.
Who are the Brixton Project?
The Brixton Project was incorporated as a ‘Community Interest Company‘ in April 2019 and seems to essentially be a rebranding of the Brixton Design Trail, who enjoyed support from the other recently-arrived, super rich patrons, Squire & Partners.
Their buzzword strafed website describes their role as “participatory placemakers” who “connect business, citizens and creative networks to bring the positive power of creativity to the heart of local communities.”
They claim:
Creativity is key to ensuring our urban environments adapt and grow as inclusive and welcoming spaces that bring joy to residents, visitors and workers alike.
From community resilience to environmental issues; inclusion to equity, working together ensures change happens with us, not to us.
Our projects invite people to get involved and feel at home – whoever you are wherever you’re from. The community that plays together stays together.
Paid by Hondo
We’ve since learnt that Hondo are directly paying The Brixton Project, although they’ve refused to tell us the sums of money involved:
Brixton Buzz: Have Hondo given the Brixton Project any support for this initiative (money, materials, expertise, advice)?
Brixton Project: Of course they’ve paid. You think we’d do this job for free?
When pushed on the specifics, we were told that their funding was of “no concern”:
Brixton Project: …you’re also wanting to know where else Brixton Project gets its work/funding from. which is no concern of yours.
Tucked up tight
The Brixton Project’s name is also all over Hondo’s planning application, and it’s obvious that they’re tucked very tightly into bed with the developers:
…Provision of 2,000 sqft of community space in a prominent location on the first floor, collaborating with key local groups on how to run it, including the Brixton Project.
This space will be integrated within, (but additional to) the affordable workspace offer, and will be managed in conjunction with community representatives (The Brixton Project) to curate a community led programme of events, activities, and creative initiatives with significant social value.
Brixton Project will ensure that it is local groups and charities that celebrate and promote Brixton’s culture and heritage that will have access to this space for activities, training and events. The focus
of this space will be for these groups to build capacity around key areas: Youth and Education, Employment, Music and the Arts, Food and Health and Wellbeing.
In order to ensure this continues, Brixton Project will help manage the community liaison group, which will have a clear capacity, management and governance to the collective of Brixton’s social organisations.
The intention is to enable them to shape and deliver an innovative collaboration with appreciable benefits to the wider community. This will go beyond the simple community space and will ensure that local people have better access and input into opportunities within the Market, the central space and within the affordable space strategy.
Behind the scenes: The Brixton Project & Hondo
The Brixton Project has recently been sending out letters and invitations to a selected group of individuals, inviting them to contribute their thoughts via a survey as to how the relatively microscopic amount of community space in the proposed enormo-tower could be best used to their advantage.
Obviously we, and a growing number of Brixton community groups opposed to Hondo’s plans, were not included in this select club, but a third party forwarded us the mesages and it made for interesting reading.
The email declares how the Brixton Project will be “stepping into” this “controversial space” to form a “community co-creation group” and create a “community engine that supports the infrastructure of the town centre” which will be “led and managed by local people.”
Given the secretive nature of this survey, it would appear that those elected to ‘lead and manage’ the space will exclusively come from a specially invited group – the very same small pool of well-connected entrepreneurs, community activators, coach-mentors, creatives and business-minded people who seem to have benefited from their professional connections with Brixton.
Normally, Brixton Buzz isn’t too bothered by all this kind of stuff – business people do what business people do – but to see this freshly minted organisation snuggling up to Hondo in an attempt to both legitimise the development as some sort of community gain and to earn themselves influence within the project is beyond the pale.
And much as we personally like some of the names involved in the Brixton Project, we’re prepared to get our hands dirty to protect the Brixton we love from ruthless commercial exploitation and having its historic landscape blighted by this truly monstrous carbuncle.
Open letter to the Brixton Project
In response to our story on the Brixton Project, we had a letter from one of the directors complaining that we were “doling it out to The Brixton Project without actually speaking to anyone,” and inviting us to meet them privately.
We think there’s already far too much happening behind closed doors, so we’ve elected to have the conversation in public – with the Brixton Project given full right of reply here – and we’ll kick things off with an open letter:
First off, we contacted you over three months ago on Twitter and invited the Brixton Project to participate on a dedicated urban75 thread about your involvement with Hondo.
No one bothered to respond, reply or even acknowledge the invite.
@BrixtonProject Some locals have expressed their concerns with you guys getting into bed with Hondo, so it would be great to hear your side of the store – the discussion is here https://t.co/vL7oO9Rjlm
— mike urban (@urban75) July 17, 2020
As we see it, the Project deliberately chose to exclude Brixton Buzz/urban75 from any ‘community/stakeholder consultation’ from the beginning, and that’s been underlined by the fact that we weren’t even included in your recent email mailout and survey.
It’s not about our egos being ruffled. Like it or not, both sites have an immense reach in Brixton and are widely read by the community, so to continually exclude them from any dialogue seems baffling: the Brixton forum on urban75 has over 365,000 posts discussing local issues, with over 340 posts about the Hondo tower alone.
Brixton Buzz recently passed the landmark of ten million page views, and the two sites have a combined Twitter following of nearly 28,000 accounts. We can’t help feeling our exclusion is not just an oversight.
We’ve now seen the email and survey you mailed out, and find them incredibly divisive and self selecting, with buzzword jargon guaranteed to alienate anyone who’s not in your touchy-feely, new media circle.
It feels very much like a tightly closed club for the well connected, the privileged, the opportunistic.
Could you be transparent about how much you, your companies and all the individuals involved in the Brixton Project stand to gain from your involvement – directly or indirectly – with Hondo? That would be a good start.
What grants and funding has the Brixton Project received to date? And could you also tell us, for example, who’s earmarked to deliver the £80,000 public art project as part of Hondo’s plan?
The Brixton community has made its voice heard very loudly about whether it wants this tower or not, so why aren’t you listening to them rather than ingratiating yourselves with Hondo?
Hondo aren’t about people. They’re not about community. They’re about profit.
We thank you for the offer of a private meeting but we can’t see much point – we’ve now got a good understanding of the Brixton Project’s aims from the emails that we’ve seen and we’re not seeing a lot of common ground.
Put simply: we don’t want the tower built and we’ll oppose anyone who helps Hondo progress their plans.
However, once again you are invited to join in with the dedicated discussion about the Brixton Project and Hondo on the urban75 forum, or you are welcome to send us an article which we can publish as a guest piece.
Join the discussion
Join in with the forum discussions on the Brixton forum:
- Hondo’s huge plans for Pope’s Road, Brixton (over 350 posts)
- The Brixton Project (formerly Brixton Design Trail) and Hondo
- Brixton Village, Market Row, Pope’s Road, Lost In Brixton and Hondo Enterprises’ Brixton empire (over 380 posts)
Have your say about the development
- Make an objection on Lambeth’s planning site
- Fill in an online objection postcard
- Petition: Stop Hondo Enterprises building a 20-storey tower in the central Brixton heritage area
- How to object to a planning application – an essential guide to getting your voice heard
- Follow @NoHondoTower on Twitter
Background
- Brixton Recreation Centre User Group voices their opposition to the Hondo Tower
- Fight The Tower: over 1,000 planning objections and 5,000 signatures registered against Hondo’s proposed 20-storey tower in central Brixton
- Brixton Project ‘community’ group team up with developers to facilitate construction of unpopular 20-storey Hondo tower block
- Grade 2 listed Brixton Recreation Centre ignored in planning assessment for proposed 20-storey tower in central Brixton
- Brixton’s Hondo Enormo-Tower: where a structural column becomes ‘an interactive fireplace’ and an ‘art piece’
- Hondo tweak the design of their Brixton 20-storey Enormo-Tower with groovy happenings and foliage galore
- Hondo start soliciting signatures in the street to support their unpopular Brixton Enormo-Tower
- Lambeth Planning Committee votes 5-2 in favour of deferring Hondo Enormo-Tower application for Pope’s Road in Brixton
- Brixton MP Helen Hayes urges Lambeth Planning to reject the proposed Hondo Enormo-Tower
- Historic England slam Hondo Enormo-Tower’s ‘significant harmful visual impact’ on Brixton ahead of Lambeth Planning meeting
- Lambeth Officers recommend approval for controversial Hondo Enormo-Tower along Pope’s Road ahead of Planning Applications Committee
Who’s behind the development?
The planning application says that the scheme “is a joint venture by AG Hondo Pope’s Road BV who have an agreement to purchase the site, currently occupied by Sports Direct and Flannels.”
It goes on to claim that Hondo is part of a property development company who have a “longstanding presence in the borough having purchased Market Row and Brixton Village” in, err, “March 2018.”
Housekeeping DJ and socialite Taylor McWilliams – the sole director of Hondo Enterprises who own Brixton Village and Market Row – is also a director of AG Hondo Pope’s Road BV, along with Robert Tieskens, a director of the Netherlands arm of the monster New York based investment company, Angelo Gordon.
Read more
- Brixton for sale: who are Hondo Enterprises, owners of Brixton Village, Market Row, Club 414 and more?
- Privilege, wealth and power: Brixton landlord Taylor McWilliams and his Housekeeping DJ Collective
- Brixton anti-gentrification crowdfunder raises over £10,000 in one day, as locals decry landlords Taylor McWilliams and Hondo
This really sucks. The Brixton Project make out they’re some sort of community group but in fact they’re the lackeys of Hondo. They’re in it for the own gain and they’ll directly benefit from the tower being built. Funny how they’ve never made that point clear. Real community whitewash.
I’m a long term resident of Brixton (35 years) and am struggling to understand the objections to the project. Yes it is large, but there are many Towers in the surrounding area. Aren’t they planning on building another tower block where the pub was? It isn’t taking away greenery, it isn’t taking away residential shops, it isn’t blocking light – so what is the objection. Is it simply a case that its Honda why there is an objection.
Personally I would have like to have seen a claus introduced which required them to invest large sums of money into the community. The Brixton Rec is in desperate need of renovation (the roof is constantly leaking, and is literally falling apart). I strongly appose lambeth selling the site, as it if for the community and was introduced to provide a safe place for locals to exercise.
But why can’t they be asked to invest properly in the community that they want to be a part of. Yes we need social housing in the area, but just like the Edge and other residential flats being built they are anything but affordable for local residents and continue to push house prices up, and are not going to provide genuinely affordable housing for residents – just more gentrification and pushing out of locals.
The objections to the project, aside from the fact it is ugly and out of character for the place, is that clearly there will be no market for office space post Covid so the developer will be making use of the legislation the government is pushing through to convert this into luxury flats.
Also, we don’t like being lied to by “the Brixton project”, a division of hondo AG.
Good I’m glad you’ve asked them about their funding. After your last piece I asked them in a tweet who they were funded by and needless to say I got no answer.
Hats off to the Brixton Buzz for the diligent work, diggin the real facts into light and assertively invite dialogue. Leading by example!
This appears as deception at best and pure fraud at worst.
The Brixton Project have put themselves forward as some sort of group representing the community, but in fact they’re essentially a patsy for the super rich developers where both parties gain from this nice little behind-the-scenes deal.
Why didn’t the Project own up to being back by Hondo from the start? And why won’t they say how much they’re being paid? It all feel really underhand and dishonest.
So essentially the Brixton Project are claiming to represent the community whilst using Hondo to fund their own ‘community’ projects. Brixton Project do not represent the community, no, Have they carried out any public engagement…nope.