Elephant and Castle’s £4bn 'glow-up'

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1:30Nestled beneath London Southbank, Elephant and Castle has patiently been awaiting its glow up. So what's in store for Zone 1's latest redevelopment scheme? Hi and welcome back to the Standard Podcast. I'm Tamara Cormorning. For all the latest news, head to standard.co.uk. Coming up, Elephant and Castle's 21st century glow up.

2:11Home to Ministry of Sound, the Imperial War Museum and the Southwark Playhouse, Elephant and Castle is not short of cultural gems. However, its poorly planned giretory and brutalist housing that surrounds these institutions leaves a lot for the imagination. In today's episode, I'm joined by podcast regular Jonathan Prynne, who is the business editor of The Standard. He's covering the£4 billion regeneration scheme, promising to turn the area into a desirable destination in itself. Here's my chat with Jonathan.

2:51hi Jonathan welcome back to the standard podcast it is great to have you as always hi Tamara great to talk to you really looking forward to talking about not my favorite part of London elephant and castle how it's changed yeah well this story really caught my attention because when I think about elephant and castle I think of well I think of being about 18 19 going to Ministry of Sound at uni. And it was this, just, it was a very exciting, but also kind of grotty, grimy place that, you know, made it, you know, a perfect venue for really, really, really late nights. Yes. Well, interesting. You have a lot more exciting and glamorous recollections of Elephant Castle than I do, because my main sort of impression of it was just this vast, gyratory, terrifying kind of roundabout of traffic going round this bizarre pink shopping centre, this kind of spaceship almost that had landed in South London with this bizarre equally pink elephant on top or by the side of it.

4:03I can't quite remember, but it was very eye-catching at a time when you really had to focus on the road. He kept trying to sort of look at the elephant on the shopping centre. Never mind the elephant in the room, the elephant on the road. Exactly, yeah, the elephant on the road could have caused all sorts of trouble. Anyway, it didn't, but it was very eye-catching. It had a sort of turret, castle turret on its back, which is a reference to the castle bit of the area's name. um so yeah you're that but that's my main kind of memory of elephant castle has been a not not a place that you wanted to spend any time in and get out as quickly as possible yeah and Jonathan before we start talking about uh the regeneration of the area can you paint a picture for listeners of the area going back you know 20th century and even before that I did a bit of digging for this piece and who knew, but references to the elephant go back as far as Shakespeare's time.

5:05In fact, in Twelfth Night in Shakespeare's comedy, there's an exchange between two characters where they're talking about places to stay in South London. And Antonio says to Sebastian, he advises, in the south suburbs at the elephant is best to lodge. and that was written in 1612. So that's the earliest known reference to this lovely part of South London that we have. Presumably it was just a tavern or an inn or something in the outer suburbs. This is a good pub quiz question, by the way. Five or six underground stations that are named after pubs. Elephant Castle is one of them. And then after the war, the whole area was badly bombed.

5:51It was very poor. some pretty grim housing estates went up in the years after the war and the young Michael Caine grew up in Elephant and Castle in the 40s and 50s so but yeah I mean historically it's been known as quite a poor gritty urban part of South London but very close to central London. When I googled is elephant and castle the suggested word to follow that on google was safe oh really yeah that's interesting um yeah it probably didn't have the best reputation for crime i should think historically i walked around elephant and castle a few weeks ago to as part of the research for this piece i mean admittedly it was broad daylight but i felt no sense of threat or any more kind of level of criminality than any other part of London.

6:48So maybe, but these reputations tend to linger on a long time, don't they? And when you went for your site visit, what did you think of the regeneration works that have already taken place? Well, I mean, overall, there's£4 billion pounds of investment going into Elephant and Castle, admittedly over a long period, 20 odd years in total. But there's no doubt that the area has changed for the better, in my opinion. It definitely feels calmer. It definitely feels less intimidating from the traffic. It feels there's investments gone in. There's some nice new buildings that they're creating the old Haygate housing estate, which is one of the biggest post-war housing estates built in London.

7:421 ,200 families lived there, I think. That's gone. So it definitely feels like it's getting a glow up. And I think once the regeneration is complete to be finished sort of by the end of the year, then it really will start to feel like a much nicer part of London.

8:08we'll take a quick break here coming up i asked jonathan about the changes we can expect to see in elephant and castle as early as june up to the end of next year we'll be back in just a moment

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9:44Welcome back. Let's get back to my chat with Jonathan.

9:52them for people that have maybe outgrown ministry of sound or have only been to micato metropolitano uh definitely definitely referring to myself you know what's the draw to elephant and castle now yeah well very good question i mean i think it's still a work in progress. What they've done so far has kind of mainly been on the housing side. What this phase is doing is opening up a new kind of town centre, which they're calling The Elephant, which has got a lot more kind of nice shops and cafes and restaurants and anchored with a food-only M &S, which they're very excited about, the developers, to attract M &S to Elephant and Castle.

10:40a cinema, five screen cinema. So there'll be, you know, lots of entertainment going on and a new campus for the London College of Communication. So there'll be thousands of students there as well. Students always bring vitality and, you know, the youthful energy to any area. And they're giving the Northern Line station as well, a bit of a bit of love. That's going to be much nicer. And there's talk about extending the Bakerloo line, which currently terminates in Elephant Castle further down into Lewisham and southeast London so it'll be very well connected so I think it it will hopefully be quite a nice place to spend time to visit it'll attract more people from outside the area which I don't think in the past part from you clubbers at Ministry of Sound not that many people would sort of go to Elephant and castle maybe as a day out you know that might change now um so we'll see but certainly i i i watched the glossy corporate video that the developers have put together the developers company called get living it's sort of set at sunset there's lovely glamorous people wandering around going to bars going to the cinema going into shops it looks idyllic but uh whether that comes to pass we shall see.

12:05And Jonathan what will happen to the famous pink elephant of Elephant and Castle? The elephant lives on fortunately the elephant has got a preservation order on it so the elephant I mean the shopping centre has gone the gyratory has gone but the elephant survives and at the moment I don't think it's visible but the plan is to put it opposite the entrance to the Northern Line station. So every person who gets out at Elephant and Castle, literally the first thing they see will be the trademark pink elephant that it's always been so famous for. Well, I'm quite excited to actually go to Elephant and Castle in the day and be surprised by what I find.

12:50I think you will be. I think you're, compared with the days of stumbling out of the Ministry of Sound at four in the morning or whatever. I don't know. You know, I think it feels to me from my walk around and what I've seen and what I've spoken to the developers that it is going to be a much nicer place to spend time in. Already is, I think, for the reasons I've spoken about, particularly taking away a lot of the traffic. So, yeah, I mean, it's a place who's getting their moment in the sun, like all these regenerated parts of London, Stratford, King's Cross, Battersea and so on. One by one, they're getting the investment that they've been deprived of for a long time and becoming nicer places to visit.

13:38And that's got to be good for London. Well, thank you so much, Jonathan. It's been great to have you back on. Oh, it's been a pleasure.

13:54And that's The Standard. For all the latest news, head to standard.co.uk. If you're new here, hit follow and give us a rating. If you'd like to get in touch, email us at podcasts at standard.co.uk. We'll be back here tomorrow morning. See you then.