Irish economy may have missed out on £7.4bn Battersea windfall

THE Irish exchequer may have missed out on an estimated £7.4billion through the premature sale of London’s Battersea Power Station.

NAMA sold the iconic building — which has since become one of London’s most prized properties — for £400million in 2012 but a spokesman for the derelict power station told The Irish Post that the site could be worth an estimated £8billion once developed.

The multi-billion pound profit represents more than 10 per cent of Ireland’s first bailout drawdown of €67.5billion in 2010.

It would also pay for over 97 per cent of Ireland’s yearly education budget and would cover the Government’s Emigrant Support Programme (ESP) grant to Britain for the next 1,400 years at the rate of last year’s grant, which was £5.4million.

Edward Moore, an agent for the Brunswick Group who head up business communications for the power station, said: “It’s a hugely iconic building that has been lying derelict for 30 years but a number of things have happened to help its development.

“The people who have bought the site are willing to put money into it, there’s the wider development of the site in conjunction with the development of Nine Elms and then the expansion of the Northern Line on the London Underground network.”

The latest house prices index shows that the average price of a home in Britain increased by 8.8 per cent in 2013 with economists predicting a further surge of eight per cent this year.

And Irish property developer Paddy McKillen, who invested in London hotels The Connaught, Claridges and The Berkley, has described NAMA’s decision to sell the site as “probably one of the most devastating decisions for the Irish economy”.

“My view is that the site was sold for a steal and the new owners probably made a billion within a few months and will most likely make billions on the development. I feel the sale also caused catastrophic damage to Treasury Holdings, an Irish company,” he told a national newspaper in Ireland.

The south-west London site was purchased by a Malaysian Consortium — SP Setia, Sime Darby and the Employees’ Provident Fund.

Previously, the asset was held by Richard Barrett and John Ronan’s Treasury Holdings.

Brunswick Group  anticipate that the first phase of development, which will combine residential and retail properties, will be completed in 2016/17 with a final completion date on the project of 2024.