A day after the company that owns Battersea Power Station was put into administration, Terry Farrell has said Rafael Viñoly’s masterplan should have been scaled back as soon as the recession struck.

Last week, Farrells revealed details of a cut-price alternative (pictured) which would leave a semi-demolished power station retaining only the front and back of Giles Gilbert Scott’s building.

Yesterday, site owner, Real Estate Opportunities (REO) was put into administration after its banks lost patience with its attempts to repay its £324 million debt.

Viñoly was appointed to masterplan the south London site in 2007, but Farrell said the “ambitious” scheme was too dependent on a new tube station being built.

“The problem is not whether it will be built,” he told BD. “The problem is it will take at least 10 years to get through financing, planning and construction and meanwhile the power station is crumbling away. It is the kind of solutioneering that can only be conceived of in a boom.”

Farrell added that cheaper transport alternatives could be built such as a tram to nearby Vauxhall.

He said Battersea should instead be redeveloped piecemeal because developers did not have enough cash to do it in one go.

“An incremental plan is better suited to the period we are living in,” he said. “The full restoration of the power station could be done at a later date in more favourable economic times.”

He admitted the current building was a “blight” and needed to be tidied up ahead of people moving into new homes. “[This will] make it easier to sell flats one phase at a time.”

Farrell said he his firm had been drawing up an alternative for weeks, having already been working on a masterplan for nearby Nine Elms as well the Vision for Vauxhall scheme for Lambeth Council. “It [Battersea] was not rushed out and we have been working on it for some time,” Farrell added.

Ernst & Young has been appointed administrator for REO which in October valued the site at £500 million. It has planning permission for more than 3,000 homes.