League One side Millwall "won a significant stage victory" in its attempt to "resist Lewisham council's compulsory purchase of land around The Den," a move the club believes will jeopardize its "future existence," according to Barney Ronay of the London GUARDIAN. The council’s scrutiny committee voted "overwhelmingly" to call back in the CPO on Millwall’s land for further consideration. Council Chair Alan Hall delivered a "devastating verdict," citing "insufficient grounds for a compelling case in the public interest." The committee also "raised concerns over the ownership and finances of Renewal, the increasingly mysterious offshore-owned property developer Lewisham insists is the only party capable of delivering the scheme." The council "intends to sell land" currently occupied by Millwall to Renewal, which in '11 gained planning permission for a £2B New Bermondsey-branded regeneration scheme around The Den complete with 2,400 homes, a church-mosque complex and a "business incubation and creative space." The decision on Tuesday represents "a huge step forward for Millwall." Lewisham has "repeatedly refused to consider the club’s own plans for the area," a scheme that involves more affordable housing, offers 50% profits to the council and would maintain the club’s place at the center of the community. There were mass protests before the original CPO this month, "with 25,000 people signing a Defend Our Den petition, and anger at the club’s exclusion from redevelopment on their doorstep." Land-grabs, housing density, mixed-retail schemes, business hubs: "at the heart of Millwall’s current struggle is a wider question over what function football’s grand old community clubs, glossed and burnished, menaced by the wider transformation around them, can hope to retain their familiar old geographical space" (GUARDIAN, 9/25).
