Spot the difference? Three years, 60 jobs and a whole lot of cash

The battle to win permission to develop 28 apartments in the shadow of London's Tate Modern at Hopton Street is not over yet, as residents this month lodged their latest appeal. But London Town is now convinced that it has won the war, and that the Appeal Court action being mounted by residents is the final shot in their locker.

Even if it is, the struggle with locals residents has left London Town reeling. The company is a project manager and relies on investor backing to fund its schemes; that backing has been hit badly by the battle for Hopton Street. "It has been massively damaging to our investors, shareholders and staff," says Peter Harris, former director of development with the company, and now retained as a consultant to deliver the Hopton Street project. "London Town was never a large company in terms of cash and resources, but worked with investors to develop sites. Through that period nobody would invest because we couldn't deliver the sites."

Harris resigned from the company a year ago, along with chief executive Jonathan Buchanan, indirectly as a result of the Hopton Street battle. By the time he left, Harris had already had to go through the sorry task of making many of his colleagues redundant – the company reported a pre-tax loss of £3m for 2002, and two-thirds of staff lost their jobs.

"We were too small a company to take such a large planning risk. The likes of Berkeley could have seen it through easily, " says Harris. "But it is only 28 flats." He repeats this line several times throughout the interview, as if he still can't quite believe that such a small scheme could have generated so much heartache.

The company had not reckoned on encountering such strong opposition from local residents, who formed themselves into the pressure group, Bankside Residents For Appropriate Development (BROAD) and have consistently argued that the site should not be developed at all, but should rather be made into an open square for public use. There was also vociferous opposition from Sir Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate, who was against building in his own backyard – he claimed it was "the equivalent of building a tower block in the forecourt of the British Museum".

All this has taught me many things, corporately – dealing with the press and the planning environment. Personally, I feel a much better person for it

Peter Harris

When London Town bought the site in December 2000 it was a slightly bullish upstart on the London property scene with some highly regarded projects under its belt. It appointed high-calibre architects in the form of Philip Gumuchdjian and Kevin Dash Associates to generate a design for a glass-fronted, slender tower. "We expected it would take 18 to 24 months to get consent," says Harris. "We knew we were proposing something novel. But we didn't expect to get the reaction we did from the Tate and specifically from Sir Nicholas Serota." London Town amended the design, securing the backing of English Heritage, the City of London, the Greater London Authority, Southwark council planning officers and Cabe. That did little to change Serota's opinion – despite his being a Cabe commissioner – and he continued to oppose the scheme, leading demonstrators in a public protest last year.

Southwark planning officer support was not enough to win the scheme planning approval either, as the planning committee voted against officer recommendation. That was a disappointing moment, says Harris: "When there are complexities to a site, like rights of light and daylighting, planning officers are the only people with the time and knowledge to go through them properly. When committee members ignore officers to such an extent I feel let down."

Nonetheless Harris, who is an architect by training, defends the rights of local residents to question development. "The residents, and BROAD specifically, were well-organised and well-represented. We didn't object to the residents forcing an appeal and to the public inquiry – the public inquiry opened [the development] up to stringent investigation. But it was unnecessary to go to the High Court, and for the Tate to support that was wrong. It shows that objectors can force a refusal at local authority level. If you want to frustrate the process further, you can do so for as much as two years on spurious grounds. The enablement of development seems to have been missed. Now it is all about stopping development."

Pending the decision in the Appeal Court, Hopton Street is still on hold. "The planning inspectorate will benefit from a precedent being set in the appeal," says Harris. He is confident that the company will finally be able to claim victory when the appeal comes to court later this year.

Unfortunately for him, BROAD is equally confident of winning. "The residents are united in believing that this site represents a unique opportunity to create a rare public space," says David Lough, chairman of BROAD. "We are represented by Richard Clayton QC, one of the country's leading experts on the Human Rights Act. He will be pressing home our case that the rights of surrounding residents would be unfairly harmed if the proposed tower went ahead."

Looking back over the past three years, Harris doesn't believe that London Town could have done anything differently to counter the fear and enmity of the local community. "We had at least 10 public consultations. We couldn't have involved the public more," he says ruefully.