Charging London's creative sector

While it waits for development, a derelict London landmark is making £2million a year as a home for film, events and parties.

Battersea Power Station has been used to shoot music videos and album covers for The Jam, Razorlight, Annie Lennox, David Gray, and Rhianna.

It famously featured on Pink Floyd’s 1977 album “Animals’. And it’s been used in films like Hitchcock’s Sabotage, Oscar winner The King’s Speech, Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky, and Monty Python’s the Meaning of Life.

A famous London ruin
All this tells you that it hasn’t had a proper use in a while. A mistaken flirtation with becoming a theme park in the 1980s saw it lose its roof, internally decay, and then become too expensive to convert. But as it’s a listed building it can’t just be demolished.

It’s also huge - so any solution needs to be serious. Inside the turbine hall you could fit two of the Tate Modern’s.

The developers are struggling to find the funding for a major residential development around it, having been hit hard by the financial crisis. It looks likely to stay empty for a while.

How to solve a problem like Battersea?
But with costs mounting, the Power Station has become a core part of London’s creative industries. Thanks to proactive marketing and management, it’s become a major event space and filming location.

This weekend it hosted Freeze, a major winter sports expo. This summer, it was host to London Fashion Week catwalk shows, and it will soon be the venue for Feast, a huge food festival.

The showreel for the space gives a good indication of what’s been going on.

Battersea Power Station events and film locations - a history from industri on Vimeo.

And to capitalise on this attention, they’ve added an adaptable, semi-permanent marquee. The Boiler House can hold 1,000 people and while it's not too exciting itself, it gives a great view of the inside of the Power Station.

All this has reportedly made them £2 million a year - and they’re aiming to double that. This is barely enough to keep up repairs on the chimneys, but helps the creative industries find cheap space in a central location.