30/01/2017 Inside Out London

Hello there, I'm Matthew Wright.

You're watching Inside Out London.

Here's what's coming up.

With 400 new tower blocks in the pipeline we ask is London

becoming the new Dubai on Thames?

The boom in skyscrapers is not something that really improves

the lot of average Londoner.

The flats are much too expensive.

We uncover the secrets of a deserted island littered

with old human skeletons.

Rather a large...

Oh, it could be a leg bone, couldn't it?

Wow!

That's a thigh bone.

A thigh bone, and some more, are they ribs there?

And how London's newest museum is wowing crowds.

It's the first time we've had our collection available

for free for the public.

There is a thirst for design and design is growing

and moving into other areas.

London is continuing to go up in the world,

and with hundreds of new residential tower blocks in the pipeline,

our world-famous skyline is going through its biggest ever change.

While this new development, potentially, means thousands

of new homes, but is the building frenzy doing anything more

than pushing up property prices and rewarding one foreign investors?

Mark Jordan investigates.

For 250 years Saint Pauls was the tallest building in London,

then came the 1960s.

Now the Post Office Tower is soaring to 620 feet.

But look what we've done since then.

Today BT Tower is not even in London's top ten tallest.

As we climbed 60, 70, 80 floors high.

In London over 80 high-rise buildings are currently under

construction over 20 stories, and there's permission

for another 233.

This is the scariest part of going over.

More and more buildings going up all the time.

It's like, we'll never be out of work.

80% of the new towers are residential, London's

skyline changing for ever.

And this is going to be the most spectacular plays in London.

The new high life, for a mere studio flat could cost over 1 million.

We're now looking at the casino element of property,

we are going to end up with an oversupply of property that

nobody wants to buy.

Whoever imagined there'd be a penthouse in Stratford

selling for 15 million.

What a view!

This is 42 stories high in Stratford, something

that just a decade ago, would have been unimaginable.

It's a big day for Manhattan Loft Gardens, they've reached the top.

Founder, Harry Handelsman, has the Midas touch,

he brought lofts to Clerkenwell and Bankside, when no

one thought uncool.

Now it's high-rise in Stratford.

High-rise living has become very much a part

of the London skies seen.

But, to be honest, it's one skyscraper next to another

skyscraper, but most of them are a patch for developers

to make money.

And for those that speculated at the right period

of time to make money.

I really wanted to see how we can redefine the high-rise living.

So this will be a high-rise garden?

This will be a garden.

And it will be a communal garden for the residents,

Stratford is actually a fantastic example for buildings like this.

Studios here start at half a million app to ?15

million for the penthouse.

So many won't be able to afford it, does that trouble you?

It does trouble me.

I think, you know, I don't think what makes London great as the rich.

The wealthy.

That's not at all.

As clients enjoy these views, 15 miles away at Richmond Park

protesters gather to mourn how this Stratford tower turned

their historic Saint Paul's view from this, into this.

This is a very sad day.

Seeing the view destroyed in this way.

Turns out the one granting planning permission for the Stratford

tower considered this historic, protected view.

This is a 300-year-old view, we would love for the building to be

taken down, but realistically that's not going to happen.

Skyline battles are being fought across London, built in 1695 these

Wren designed Whitechapel almshouses face being overshadowed

by a Sainsbury's development.

The proposal now is to build on the site behind, an array

of towers, 28 stories high.

It's wrong.

I think everyone in Whitechapel should boycott Sainsbury's.

The only reason they want a tower is because they want the luxury

apartments with incredible views of Central London.

Good evening, everybody.

Decision time at the council.

The man from Sainsbury's warns them if great tower is refused the entire

redevelopment will no longer be viable, along with the promised

127 affordable homes.

We will return for the vote later.

And then the neighbours came out quite a way.

Architect Barbra Weiss believes councils are being bulldozed

into the 436 proposed new towers for London.

Borrowers are strapped for cash, the way it goes is a developer

suggests building a certain height of building, in exchange

they offer facilities, and the facilities could be

a school, they could be a swimming pool, it could be a library.

And then there's a lot of trading that goes on,

and the local residents have very little say.

Such deals are totally legal.

The boom in skyscrapers is not something that really improves

the lot of the average Londoner.

The flats are much too expensive.

Our suspicion is that we will have whole areas where there are just

a few flats that are going to have lights on at night.

They can resell them as new in a few years down the line.

This is one Blackfriars in Southwark, where the Council

aspires to 35% affordable housing in new projects.

Yet, here, 50 stories of pure luxury, a one bed studio

sells for 1.15 million.

Not one single home in this tower is affordable, instead,

the developers gave the council ?29 million to build that type

of home somewhere else.

That is only 6 million more than they are asking

for one single penthouse.

But the regeneration has created 1000 jobs on a site

derelict for over a decade.

With the biggest problem with developments like this,

is that they stated aim is to increase the value

of property in the area.

And that's not a good thing, because people already struggle

to find somewhere that they can afford to buy around here.

It's going to make it even worse.

Double whammy is the fact that the council will take the money

for the affordable housing and spend it on the south of the border,

so people who would social housing in this area will have to move.

That's just not fair.

Up river in Vauxhall, here's what developers want.

A recent investigation into this 50 story luxury block found its 214

flats had only 60 people registered to vote.

While, someone out there it's even been reported that one oligarch has

imported his own Russian Orthodox chapel into his ?51

million penthouse.

The developers wouldn't talk to us.

But George Turner tries to keep track.

Great blows away the myths that the development industry has

been peddling that this high-rise boom has anything to do

with delivering the type of housing that London needs.

Probably, the majority of homes in this building don't have people

registered on the electoral roll, which means they are highly likely

to be used as either a holiday homes or by and leave homes,

or as an investment opportunity.

I think the only hope we have is that these developments

are so speculative and so crazy from an economic point of view

that the turning market will wipe a lot of them out.

These proposed towers are worrying some investors.

Very few people will lose any sleep over a multimillionaire foreign

investor losing money on property, but the concern is that it may well

infect the wider market.

Confidence is everything in the housing market.

And if we see the top end of the housing market

start to topple that could have wider implications.

While most developers remained camera shy,

others point out that they deals with councils still provide most

new affordable housing, even with their lawyers often having

the upper hand.

Local authorities need more resources.

The average pay for a planning barrister is ten times

what a local plan gets.

What's not so obvious is, you know, the of affordable housing that gets

provided off the back of these schemes.

The scheme we are right here in dollar Bay has allowed

39% affordable housing.

And finally, we are back to Whitechapel.

Sainsbury's warned if their high rise was refused, 127 affordable

homes would be lost.

Can I see those who are in favour of the refusal of this

application please?

That is unanimous.

One last tower, over 400 more still in the pipeline.

Mark Jordan reporting there.

Now then, still to come on to make's show.

Once you come off the park, which is amazing, you go

through the museum doors and then you are into this

incredible cathedral.

It soars up.

You see the underside of the sweeping roof,

and different floors where you might want to visit.

Spine tingling tales of a mysterious uninhabited island

concealing dark secrets.

That might sound like something ripped from the pages

of a Gothic horror novel, but they really is just such

a place, and it's only 40 miles from central London,

by the most of the Thames.

Natalie Graham has the spooky story, but I should warn you that some

viewers might find parts of this film disturbing.

I've heard stories about this eerie island off the coast of Sheppey,

so I've had to come here and see it for myself to find out

whether the truth is stranger than fiction.

I'm going to the small harbour town of Queenborough which sets

just across the water from the mysterious island.

When I stopped at the hostelry for the night I was told that

others had come before me.

They'd heard the story about the hound.

The hound?

The hound.

The hound with the red death staring eyes.

I've not heard that story yet.

Well they had heard it.

There were bodies buried without skulls.

And people said that the hound had eaten the skulls, you see.

And they were rowing away into the darkness and the farm

and they suddenly hear the sound, and they look, and there

are two red eyes gleaming.

So what did they do?

Scarpered?

Scarpered!

This talk of supernatural devil dogs is obviously just myth.

I am a bit sceptical, I have to say.

But there is a more serious claim about the island.

That it is littered with human remains.

Because it's a boneyard, it will have an atmosphere

that is sad and lonely.

You must make sure that you feel you can't take that.

OK.

Thank you for the warning.

An island solely populated by the dead.

The story seems to have been handed down from generation to generation.

# From Sandgate Creek to dead man's aisle.

And the name of this macabre place is dead man's island.

The locals were keen to prove there was more

to this island band myths, soaking up the very next morning

the rowing club agreed to take me to Dead Man's Island themselves.

Hello.

The island is a site of special scientific interest,

owned by natural England.

Hi, everyone.

It's out of bounds for visitors due to the birds that make it their home

at certain times of the year.

But we've received permission for a special visit.

This is it, Daphne?

I've arrived at Dead Man's Island.

At what is known, chillingly, as Coffin Bay.

What i saw will stay with me forever.

This island was covered with human remains.

That's definitely a piece of the coffin.

And there are two bones there.

There is another one here.

Yes, you are right.

There's a vertebrae.

There's the Coffin, Natalie, that's just broken away.

So if we come up a little bit.

Rather a large...

Oh, my!

Could be a leg bone, couldn't it?

That's a thigh bone.

A thigh bone and some ribs there.

So here we have, clearly, two pairs of human legs in a wooden box.

In a wooden box, yes.

Where do these bodies come from?

Well, over two centuries ago the waters around here were a very

different place indeed.

They were home to floating prisons, known as the prison hulks.

They were dark, and they were forbidding.

The prison hulks were former warships, stripped of their masts,

rigging and sales.

Big gun ports were covered with bars, and they were given

fitting names like justice, retribution and captivity.

Lots of crimes carried the death penalty.

But as a way of being humane, and also to inhabit the colonies,

it was decided it would be a good idea to transport convicts.

Also, there wasn't much space in prisons.

But, this, has some effect on the inhabitants

of Dead Man's Island you tended to find that if people were not

considered healthy enough to take the voyage to Australia they'd be

left in the hulks.

I was going to ask would be kind of crimes these people

would have committed.

There were people who picked pockets, including ten-year-olds.

Who had been sentenced to 15 years transportation

for picking a pocket in London.

So we're not talking about mass murderers?

No, no.

No these were the people who were suffering from the Draconian

penal laws of the period.

And when those prisoners died they were buried in unmarked graves

on Dead Man's Island.

And Ireland which is now slowly eroding.

Once you start looking, you start to see what might be

be Coffins everywhere.

This is where you can see the depth of where they were buried.

Yes, six feet, pretty much, isn't it?

They were buried properly and steeply.

With the major problem, really, was that you had

a lot of men together, a lot of boys together,

and if an epidemic began to occur then it would spread.

This was particularly important in the early 1830s

when Retribution was here, because they was

the cholera epidemic.

And I suspect a lot of the people out there died in that.

I was joined on my trip by archaeologist Doctor Paul Wilkinson

who could help me find out more about the remains.

Here's a human pelvic bone.

A young male.

And, obviously, died in some disease, that's

why he's buried here.

Can you tell that, you, we are surmising because

of the circumstances?

What makes you think that's disease?

The holes in it?

The holes in it, but also this particular island was retained

for the people who died of contagious diseases.

And so the policy was to actually bury them here, that's

disease wouldn't then erupt through the prison ships

and the local populations.

It really is Dead Man's Island.

We've certainly seen some of Dead Man's Island's secrets,

but the longer you spend your looking out across the mud,

the more you start thinking about the hundreds of other people

lying beneath the surface who will no doubt be exposed

over the years to come.

You start wondering what kind of society dumped them

all here with no name, no number, on their Coffins.

It would be more right if there was a proper memorial

to these poor souls, these have nothing.

They just have an island named after them.

Dead Man's Island.

The tide began to rise faster than expected, so we had to leave.

It seemed as if the islands didn't want to give up too

many secrets too soon.

That was an extraordinary place we visited today.

It wasn't quite the way some people described it.

For me, it wasn't particularly frightening or didn't seem to be

a place inhabited by monsters, for me it was incredibly still,

and actually quite magical.

And I wonder if those myths and legends that have grown up over

the years have done the inhabitants of Dead Man's Island a favour

by warning the rest of us away and allowing them to rest in peace.

It's been over 35 years since Sir Terence Conran set

It's been over 35 years since Sir Terence Conran set

up the design Museum, and justly few weeks ago it

reopened in a spectacular new West London home.

The ?85 million site is one of London's most 1960s

buildings come back to life, and can hold its head high

amongst the capital's other world-class museums.

Kensington, home to a cluster of capital's finest museums.

Dedicated to science, natural history, and the decorative arts.

And now London's Museum quarter has just welcomed its latest arrival.

It's incredibly exciting to be curating in this new building,

no one's ever done these exhibitions here before.

Or use these galleries before.

It's the first time.

We have a collection that is available for free for the public,

there is a first for design.

Design is growing and is moving into other areas that

its previously not engaged with.

This is a place which inspires another generation of designers.

Those who are going to be the creative underpinnings

for London's economy.

The design Museum has come a long way since it started life back

in the early 80s as an exhibition space in the V's basement.

It was then known as the boiler house project, and the brainchild

of Sir Terence Conran.

Ride just launched habitat is a public company,

and for the first time in my life I had a mountain of money.

So I thought I'd like to finance something which looked at design

in a contemporary way and looked at the future.

The museum moved to its first permanent home in 1989,

a former banana ripening warehouse.

But in 2006 the search began for a bigger, bolder location.

I was hired by the design Museum almost ten years ago with a brief

to find somewhere we could move the museum to which would be larger,

more accessible and put us on the map, quite literally.

So we talked, in the early days, to the Tate about buying

some land behind them.

We looked at King's cross.

We looked at a City Hall.

But finally the idea of bringing the Commonwealth Institute back

to life, that building, I remember as a schoolboy was

the most modern landmark in London.

Bringing it back to life from its state of decay

seemed irresistible.

The Institute built on the edge of Holland Park was used

to showcase exhibits from across the Commonwealth

until its closure in 2003.

Since then though, like other buildings from the post-war era,

its design style has come roaring back into fashion.

In the same way that Victoriana got transformed from being a joke

and an eyesore into heritage, so now we see the 60s

very differently.

Being one of the first to bring back to life building from that period,

I think we're setting some kind landmark.

The architect was selected for the job after an

international competition.

By removing audience to's old balconies and platforms

he was able to dramatically open up the space.

Once you come off the park, which is amazing, you go

through the museum doors and you are into this

incredible cathedral.

It's all up and you see the underside of the sweeping roof.

He replaced most of the building's exterior, but retained

the Institute's copper roof, a classic mid-20th-century design.

In the 50s and 60s engineers have developed a form

which they called hyperbolic, which is a fancy name for something

that looks a bit like a saddle.

The soaring inside is spectacular.

The transformation of the common institution took for

long years and threw up many technical challenges.

A 2-storey deep basement had to be excavated,

and the roof propped up why the old floors were removed.

Last November, after a two-year delay, the museum was finally ready

to open its doors to the public.

We've grown to three times the size in this new building.

It's the first time we've had our collection available

for free to the public.

That's really important because it helps us to tell the story

about what design is, and make the point of how important

design is to people.

The free collection includes a crowd sourced wall featuring over 200

popular consumer items chosen by the public.

We have many thousands of exhibits, and they've been built up

over the past 25 years.

Instead of showing things chronologically, we want to show

things thematically.

So, anyway, the whole exhibition is a big story.

We look at things like motorway road signs in the 60s,

by taking it out of context it enables people to look

at it with fresh eyes.

Bill Muggeridge, who is a British designer, he designed

the first ever laptop.

So it shows how this technology that was previously out of touch

for the common consumer is slowly trickling down and becoming part

of the everyday objects.

London has always been a place which is good at design.

No design collection is complete without a map

of the London Underground.

Sadiq Khan has selected a London transport round for our collection,

and I'm going to give a preview of the new generation

tube rolling stock.

As well as the free collection the museum is currently hosting

a brand-new ticketed exhibition running until April 23.

Fear nd love is an exhibition about what design is today

and what its role in the world is.

It picks up on a mood of anxiety and uncertainty,

and designs place within that.

There's a lot of uncertainty about what design is as well.

And we invited 11 designers from around the world to come

to the museum and make an installation about an issue

they feel strongly about.

The designers came up with some intriguing exhibits,

the pan-European living room is furnished with a piece

of design from each of the 28 EU member countries.

Other highlights include a series of 3-D printed death masks,

and piles of recycled fibres taken from 1000 discarded woollen jumpers.

And then there's this.

I was tasked with coming up with a response to automation

and robotics, and some of the challenges we are currently

facing and will continue to face in the future with how humans

and robots are going to work together in society.

I wanted to turn the robot into a creature, a companion that

you can have an empathic relationship with and gets to think

of as a, not a thing, not a tool, but something

you will have a two-way relationship with.

Is more ambitious exhibitions lined up for this year and beyond,

the design Museum is poised to claim its place as a new

cornerstone of the museum quarter.

This really does raise it on to a global stage.

The museum will be the home of design, debate, discussion

and some of the best exhibitions in the world.

The museum certainly reflects how reliant the design industry

is an international influences and cooperation, and that

couldn't be more timely.

I think the Brexit certainly makes it important that we as

manufacturers use design in the export markets.

We talk all the time about Britain being the most creative nation,

and we want to demonstrate that design is part of this creativity

that infuses the nation.

I remember visiting the Commonwealth Institute along

time ago when I was a kid, it's great to see what they've

done with that place.

That's nearly all for this evening, before we go, let's have a quick

look at what's coming up next week.

Can the name harm your job chances?

In their minds they have a link between Islam and terrorism.

Maybe that's playing a role behind wavy look at a Muslim name and think

this is somebody I don't want to emply.

Widely Brexit vote has led the future of our European ministers

hanging in the balance.

The NHS is already gravely understaffed.

So if you take away the EU nurses it will be mayhem.

It will be chaos.

And the American fish invading our waterways.

It was recognised that these crayfish they thought were immune

from the plague, carried it.

That will kill any non-American crayfish within two or three weeks.

That's all from Inside Out London.

If you missed tonight's show and would like to catch up

on the iPlayer then had to our website.

The address is on screen, just click on London.

Thanks for watching, and see you next week.

Hello, I'm Riz Lateef with your 90-second update.

Hello, I'm Riz Lateef with your 90-second update.

Protests in Downing Street tonight against Donald Trump's travel ban

on several Muslim countries.

More than 1.4 million have now signed a petition calling