Lambeth orders compulsory purchase at Clapham Park, part of a 2,532-home rebuild

Lambeth's Director of Regeneration, Assets and Property approved a compulsory purchase order over land at the Clapham Park estate on 4 August 2026, the council's decision record states. The order would take the property interests the council has not bought by agreement on Site C03, one plot in the estate's rebuild.

A compulsory purchase order lets a council buy land without the owner's consent, once a minister confirms it. The decision record authorises the director to make the order under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and to submit it to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government for confirmation.

The Greater London Authority's planning datahub records the permission behind the scheme, reference 17/03733/FUL, as approved on 20 December 2019. It covers "approximately 33 hectares of land comprising the demolition of buildings (864 residential units and 614 sq.m (GIA) of non-residential floorspace) and the construction of new buildings comprising 2,532 new residential units".

The datahub record gives an affordable housing figure of 46.13% for that permission. Its unit-level tenure fields return only a partial breakdown, 45 homes for affordable rent and 110 for market sale, so the record does not show how the 2,532 homes divide by tenure.

The decision record does not state how many homes, or how many leasehold and freehold interests, the Site C03 order covers. That list sits in Appendix 2, the schedule of interests, one of seven appendices published with the decision.

The decision also authorises a compulsory purchase indemnity agreement with Metropolitan Housing Trust, the housing association named in the record. The decision page gives no value for that agreement and no figure for the compensation the council expects to pay.

Lambeth has taken other statutory steps for the scheme. A separate officer decision of 4 January 2023 approved publishing a notice to stop up part of Headlam Road on the estate, under the heading "Clapham Park Regeneration - Stopping Up of Headlam Road", with a 28-day period for objections.

The 2026 decision lists an appendix titled "Appendix 6 - 28 Plummer Road - Final CPO Timeline". The decision page does not say what that timeline covers. Lambeth's registers of officer decisions from 2020 to 2024 record no earlier compulsory purchase order at Clapham Park; the only other entries naming the estate are the Headlam Road traffic order and a conservation area appraisal logged in November 2023.

The decision record gives a publication date of 27 July 2026 and a decision date of 4 August 2026, and records the item as not a key decision and not subject to call-in, so councillors have no window to refer it back for review. The order now passes to the Secretary of State, who decides whether to confirm it. The record gives no date for that stage, and none for when the council would take possession.