The Hackbridge Regeneration project was proposed in 2009, to improve the Hackbridge suburb of the London Borough of Sutton. According to the official numbers presented, 90% of the residents of Hackbridge actively supported the Regeneration project. This reporter wanted to see if, or how, the £150 million price tag and almost a full year since the plan was first proposed has changed people’s views, and why.

“I’m keen for the Hackbridge Regeneration,” says one resident, “£150 million for a site that big seems reasonable. It is a brown field after all. However, I’m concerned as to whether it will help the schools that back onto the site. There seemed to be no plans to expand the school onto the site, and the schools are over packed at the moment,” The resident, who has lived in Hackbridge for over two decades also added, “There has been plans like this before, even when I moved in, but I’m hopeful they will see this one through,”

Another resident, of 57 years, seemed less positive towards it. “I am in the local Nature group which has heard suggestion there might be a waste plant, possibly an incinerator, which I am not at all happy about.” However, Savills seems to have released no literature concerning such a plant, and does not seem to tie in with their claims to create an ecologically friendly suburb.

One train of thought that seemed to be mirrored was that, regardless of what happens, it will be an improvement on the desolate brown field site that currently stains Hackbridge. One Carshalton resident felt that “the current area was misused and looks odd in a residential area,” and this view is mirrored amongst many of the residents asked about the site.