Veterans take aim at millionaire pair threatening to block their view
FRom the window of Room 190 of the Union Jack Club, D-Day veteran Peter Kent can take in all of south London and beyond to the Surrey Hills and Kent Downs.
Since the 1970s, veterans like him have been coming to this military ‘home from home’, where they can soak up the finest views of the capital as a small token of their service.
But now a millionaire New Labour darling has lodged plans to build an ‘oppressive’ 20-storey office block just 15 metres from this refuge for British war heroes. The project is set to further enrich Robert Bourne, 73, who partied with Peter mandelson and was embroiled in a cronyism row over plans to buy the millennium Dome.
Sketches show how the huge development by Waterloo Station will leave the Union Jack Club ‘in the shadows’, blocking daylight for 60 of the 261 rooms.
‘It’s wrong. They ought to leave it be,’ says mr Kent, 98, one of the last survivors of the Normandy landings, who has been coming here for more than 30 years. ‘This is a special place. It should be protected from development like this.’ The Navy veteran, who skippered a landing craft in June 1944, is not alone – more than 2,500 people have written to the council objecting to the plans. only 28 have written in support.
But the local authority, which, along with the Greater London Authority, stands to gain more than £14million in financial obligations and levies from the deal, signalled last october that they will wave it through.
London mayor Sadiq Khan refused a request to call that decision in for review in February, before Housing minister michael Gove rejected an appeal to central government last week.
Without an extraordinary intervention from the Prime minister, a change of heart on the council, or a successful judicial review, the tower block will forever loom over the club, which first opened in its original building in 1907.
The victory would, however, add to the extraordinary wealth of mr Bourne, who ultimately owns the applicant, Grandseal Ltd, and his son Benjamin, 32, who runs Bourne Capital, which owns the £73million land.
They have been greatly helped by the fact that the Grade II* listed old Vic theatre nearby has not challenged the project.
This is something that has raised eyebrows with club members, not least as mr Bourne and his wife, Sally Greene, 69, were directors of the The old Vic Theatre Trust until stepping down last April. The old Vic sent a detailed objection against a smaller plan nearby in 2021.
mr Bourne and his wife, a New Labour power couple worth £120million, were major donors to Blair’s party and are no strangers to controversy.
He once angered French locals by buying a zoo on the Riviera, relocating 500 animals, and selling the land to a Russian.
The Union Jack Club says it has been wrongly categorised as a ‘hotel’ so its bedrooms – often used by those with PTSD – are not so strenuously protected.
Phil Botes, development director of Bourne Capital, said it is ‘ impossible to develop in an urban location… without any impact, which has been mitigated by the substantial amendments made during the course of our engagement with the UJC.’ He said: ‘The proposals have been scrutinised by Lambeth Council, local resident and business amenity groups, the GLA, English Heritage / Historic England and the Secretary of State.
‘With the exception of the Union Jack Club and its members, the development has not received any significant opposition, which is unusual for a development in an inner urban location.’
A Lambeth Council spokesman said its planning committee ‘carefully considered all concerns’ and there will now be ‘no delay in bringing forward a comprehensive range of public benefits on this key site in Waterloo’.
A spokesman for The old Vic said the building ‘stands to positively enhance the area of Waterloo for the local community, the theatre and beyond’.
The Bourne family declined to comment on the matter.
‘The place should be protected’