Regis Road 

AFFORDABLE housing, a new college for film and TV, and Hollywood-grade film studios – the investors behind a scheme to build a new film production complex in Kentish Town have this week laid out the timescale for plans that could radically alter Kentish Town.

Yoo Capital director Lloyd Lee, who is behind the project to convert eight acres of light industrial land in Regis Road, told the New Journal that a top priority was to build 400 affordable homes – 50 per cent of the 800 projected for the site.

He said early feedback from residents and the council’s own priorities had underlined the importance of genuinely affordable homes, and they were locked in talks with a housing association to manage the new homes at council-set rents.

He added that this would be at the top of the to-do list – and would not be left as an afterthought once the big ticket money-making elements of the project were done.

He said: “If you say we need affordable housing, that is the first thing we will do.

“It sends a serious message about our intentions and shows how we aspire to be good partners. If we are going to be partners, then we need to listen. The way we aspire to do business is very important to us. “You cannot be planning with a community if you do not listen to them and reach out. They live here, it is their home.”

The group are in talks with the Berkshire-based Film and TV School to set up a London branch.

Mr Lee said: “Part of it will be educational – we will provide space for the Film and TV School and I feel confident this will happen. It will ensure when we bring the commerciality into Camden with the framework, we are doing so in a way that creates new opportunities for young people.

“It will bring that vibrancy.”

He added that deals with two major landowners had been successful, and that they were currently drawing up a more detailed masterplan for what is being dubbed “Kollywood”. Other businesses – including the Post Office and UPS – who have yet to sell.

He added: “We have met with a number of landowners and many of them have tried to do things on their own sites. Flexibility is important, so we can evolve the masterplan. We control enough of the area to be meaningful and to prove the model.”

The developers – who are behind a revamp of Shepherd’s Bush Market, Olympia Conference Centre and the Saville Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue – say Regis Road is a unique opportunity that could change the face of NW5 for the better. Currently, the entrance off the northern end of Kentish Town Road is the only access.

The masterplan will look at ways to create new through routes from Gospel Oak – mimicking mothballed plans for the Murphys Yard site, across the railway tracks form Regis Road. It would mean people travelling from Gospel Oak would be able to miss out the heavily congested blue light route along Gordon House Road.

Mr Lee said: “It is very unusual to have an industrial estate just off a high street, and we feel it is time this area gave something back to the community. Our aspiration is to open it up.”

A series of consultation events are planned for April, and architects are working on laying out aspirations for the eight-acre site.

Mr Lee said: “I think we will get a detailed planning application in by the end of the year. The build time could be around 48 months.”