An exclusivity agreement between Bromley Council and the ZhongRong Group will not be extended, the council said. It added that there was no longer any realistic prospect of reaching an agreement.
The agreement lapsed earlier this month. The council gave the Chinese developer two weeks to meet certain conditions, but this too has now lapsed without an agreement to extend the exclusivity period further.
The original Crystal Palace was designed by Joseph Paxton for the 1851 Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. It was the largest glass structure in the world. In 1854 it was expanded and relocated to south London but burned down in 1936.
In March 2013 ZhongRong Group, headed by billionaire Ni Zhaoxing, put forward plans designed by Ove Arup for a £500m reconstruction of the original Crystal Palace and restoration of the surrounding park. (See our previous report here.)
Bromley Council leader Stephen Carr said: “There is a major opportunity here to do something that might really improve the park and provide much needed regeneration locally too. This was why we were prepared to properly listen to what ZhongRong had to say but we were never going to simply say yes to absolutely anything as we need to get this right. Now, we will meet with community stakeholders as we have done all the way along this process to review options going forwards. Importantly too, we are continuing to progress plans to improve Crystal Palace Park with an investment in excess of £2m.”
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