London’s Sky Pool: An Extravagant Display of Luxury or Class Divide?

It can be easy to dismiss London’s Sky Pool as excessive luxury gone mad; disappointing, but beyond the realms of anything the majority of us will ever be affected by. In reality, these humorously ridiculous displays of wealth are inherently dangerous examples of gentrification.

On June 1, the world saw swimmers enjoying London’s heatwave in a brand new ‘Sky Pool’, believed to be the world’s first transparent pool suspended between skyscrapers. It is situated in Embassy Gardens, becoming the latest addition alongside the private cinema, indoor pool, gym, and rooftop lounge bar that wealthy residents there can enjoy. The Sky Pool is part of the £3 billion Nine Elms regeneration zone – a zone focused on bringing increased prosperity and economic growth to an area that was previously a motionless post-industrial area in the east of Battersea.

It also happens to sit in the heart of a city in which over an estimated 170,000 are homeless, and more than 600,000 children are living in poverty. For many, the sky pool is a representation of everything that is wrong with London’s current housing boom.  Highlighting the class division, labour councillor Maurice Mcleod tweeted:

This is in my ward…in which more than half of children officially live in poverty. Just saying. https://t.co/RQGVwBu9mt

— Maurice Mcleod (he/him) (@mowords) June 1, 2021

Writer Jason Okundaye also took to Twitter, sharing the reality of so many residents in the area:

This is 5 minutes away from the estate I grew up on in Battersea where the council abandons social housing tenants with damp, silverfish and no central heating in their flats for months but rubber stamps luxury developments like this on our doorstep https://t.co/ZyYCtRWAZR

— Jason Okundaye (@jasebyjason) June 1, 2021

In February, a Guardian long-read highlighted the fact that the shared-ownership residents living in Embassy Gardens were not allowed access to the Sky Pool, the front door, or any of the other lavish features in the building. Instead, they must use what has been dubbed as ‘poor doors’. Even though they live there, their lack of private ownership means they simply aren’t considered quite up to scratch. It’s worth noting that the affordable apartments in Embassy Gardens can come with an astonishing £750k price tag – far beyond the realms of what many would class as affordable.

In the eyes of those soaking up the sun, suspended 115 feet in the air on a warm summer’s day, it’s harmless fun. For those living in the surrounding areas, they must look out their windows and receive a stark reminder from the floating pool that it will never be for them. 

June the 14th marked the fourth anniversary of the Grenfell Tower Tragedy, in which 72 residents lost their lives as flammable cladding rapidly spread the fire. On the 7th of May 2021, firefighters tackled a blaze in New Providence Wharf, a tower block that was described as being covered in Grenfell-style cladding. In June, an article in The Times revealed that flat-owners are now receiving extravagant bills to make their homes safe – with the price often exceeding the value of their property. Four years after the Grenfell tragedy, more than 3 million people are still caught up in a nationwide building safety scandal. Perhaps most disturbing is the fact that Ballymore –said to be the developers responsible for New Providence Wharf – are also responsible for the Sky Pool. Whilst investing in luxury, a warped housing system has left hundreds living in a fire hazard for years. 

The Sky Pool is simply a reflection of a much bigger issue, far bigger than the Nine Elms regeneration project alone: gentrification. 

“Gentification […] means being pushed out of areas they have lived all their lives”

A report exploring gentrification within London noted that “gentrification does not mean artisanal coffee shops and new wine bars; it means being pushed out of areas they have lived all their lives, losing local spaces, and the fracturing of communities.” Whilst Nine Elms doesn’t appear as an act of displacement in a simple sense (they were after all developments on empty industrial land) it was still the loss of what many are describing as an opportunity area.

Labour councillor Aydin Dikerdem spoke to this, tweeting:

That’s why what’s happened here is so upsetting. We’re never again going to have all this abandoned industrial space which could’ve transformed the lives of people in a borough where thousands are statutorily homeless or spending half their income on private rent.

— Aydin Dikerdem (@AydinDikerdem) June 1, 2021

This was a rare opportunity to build reasonable, affordable, and above all safe housing. Instead, it’s been replaced with what is both physically and metaphorically transparent luxury. 

Just as the eyes of Doctor T.J Eckleburg in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby stare down from the billboard over The Valley of Ashes, judging the moral and social decay that came from the uninhibited pursuit of wealth, so do the eyes of those swimming in the sky. 

They stand in the pool, perhaps unaware of the various petitions to try and save local swimming pools across London that are underfunded and under threat. It is not the fault of those select people you can see bobbing up there whilst you go on your daily commute. It is the fault of those in power. Their pool in the sky is a physical metaphor of privilege looking down on all else.

Sky Pools for the rich, and flammable cladding for the poor (which in this instance, often means anyone who falls outside of the elite). It is a stark and shameful poster of the unjust housing crisis that exists across Britain, but also an igniting reminder that the fight against the class divide is far from over.

---

Featured Image courtesy of Geoff Henson on Flickr. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.