The credit crunch – could it be good for Waltham Forest?

2:57pm Wednesday 13th August 2008

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I'm sure the credit crunch is bringing misery to millions. And I feel really sorry for neighbours currently buying or selling their properties. Or for those right on the breadline, when the price of a loaf has just shot up. But for now, until I go to the wall under rising costs, I think it might be good for Waltham Forest. Why? Well, I'm about to tell you, of course.

Right in my back garden, St Modwen and the council have suddenly gone very quiet over the eighteen storey monstrosity planned for the Arcade site on the corner of Walthamstow's Hoe Street and High Street.

The Primark was controversial enough – whatever you think the merits are of the cheap-as-chips chain that sources clothes from, well if not sweatshops then lets call them clammy shops, there's one thing you can't deny – its arrival in Walthamstow would have trashed a sizeable proportion of market stalls and High Street shops.

Worse still eighteen let me repeat that, eighteen storeys of housing dwarfing every other building in Walthamstow, even the ugly block that's sprouted opposite the tube station. The massive majority of local residents oppose it. But did the council or St Modwen care? Not one bit. But now… now's a different story.

Firstly, Boris Johnson being elected as Mayor on an anti-tall building platform hasn't helped the council and its developer. Worse still, Primark and other large chains are getting very nervous of making any commitments in a climate of shaky consumer confidence. Worse than that, buy-to-let and the entire housing market has not so much fallen through the floor as started to excavate a tunnel to the centre of the earth.

What profit is there to be had now in an eighteen storey folly? And what risk? Cllr Wheeler says he expects a planning application within six months. But the application was already meant to be coming in spring this year. I won't hold my breath unless the economy radically recovers. And right now, I'd rather have a big hole and blue hoardings than an eighteen storey tower.

I'm hoping that this will prompt a rethink of plans to make them smaller, less risky and more in keeping with the findings of the Prince's Foundation report and with what the local community actually wants.

It's not just greedy developers and their community-unfriendly schemes that are being wrong-footed by the credit crunch/recession/housing crisis/whatever you want to call it. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the world's tiniest violin for estate agents and buy-to-let landlords.

The housing boom years meant a double whammy for the roads round Walthamstow. Most homebuyers couldn't afford even a small flat in Walthamstow – so ludicrous were prices. And estate agents didn't need to work to earn their commission, they simply put a board up and flogged to a buy-to-letter.

Meanwhile, those buy-to-let properties in our road were invariably left to a succession of short-term tenants by landlords who were chasing a quick, easy buck but didn't care a jot about maintaining their properties or about dealing with the tenants they rented to. While they counted the rent money versus a low-interest mortgage, tenants were often left with trashed properties and neighbours with the inevitable results of short-let neighbours who had no reason to care about the place they were staying or the road they lived on.

Now, landlords are scrabbling to find reliable tenants and having to look at property as a longer-term investment once more. And lower house prices mean people who want to own, live in and look after their properties can hopefully afford to again.

On top of that, rising fuel costs, while a pain in the backside for us all, are apparently achieving what thousands of information posters and nagging green messages have failed to do – get us out of our cars.

Cycling's booming even more than before – and the reason is for many it's simply become too expensive to drive. Sad, but a much-needed green win. And hopefully many of those new cyclists will find out how reliable, healthy and fun cycling is, even in London, and stay on their saddles even if fuel prices drop again.

See – every cloud has its silver lining.