Michael Caine's 'rotten' estate to be transformed

A NOTORIOUS sink estate in south London is finally to be transformed after councillors gave the go-ahead for one of Europe's largest regeneration projects to begin.

Twelve years after it was conceived, the £1.5 billion scheme for Elephant and Castle now looks set to become reality after Southwark council's cabinet agreed terms with a commercial developer.

It will see the dilapidated and crime-ridden Heygate Estate - which Sir Michael Caine called a "rotten place" that "should never have been built" -bulldozed and replaced with 2,500 new homes. At least 625 will have to be affordable housing.

There are also ambitious plans for a new town centre and shopping complex that would "pull the centre of London southwards", although details are yet to be finalised.

The Heygate, a concrete development finished in 1974, was the setting for Sir Michael's bleak 2009 thriller Harry Brown, about a pensioner standing up to murderous gangs plaguing his estate.

The Oscar-winning actor, who grew up in Elephant and Castle, lent his voice to a longstanding campaign to flatten it as he told of his fears for those growing there.

He said last year: "I come from this. I'm on these estates with these guys and they're talking to me like I'm one of them and I think, 'There but for the grace of God go I'.

"The families have let the children down, the educators have let the children down. We've put them in rotten places like the Heygate estate ... which fortunately is being pulled down. It should never have been built."

Virtually all the 2,000 residents have already been rehoused, although a handful are stubbornly refusing to move out.

The planning process is expected to take a further three years, but demolition of some blocks will begin within months, and construction is due to be completed by 2025.