Barratt gain approval for 871 homes at Crown Wharf development in Canning Town
Plans for 871 homes at a site in Canning Town were approved by Newham Council shortly before the festive break.
Located beside the A13 and River Lea, seven new buildings will rise ranging from 8 storeys to 30 storeys in height.
Barratt Homes are behind the project situated a short distance to the west of Canning Town station, with the site isn’t too far from a distinctive blue tower which has risen over the past year.
Red brick features on blocks inland while yellow and brown feature beside the river. It’s all very much as expected; generally flat roofs and clip-on balconies.
A slight nod here and there to an industrial past.
The tallest block seems an enticing mix of brown, dark grey and lighter grey. Lovely.
There’s no way that won’t look anything but beautiful beside the A13 and visible for miles around.
Contributions to Newham Council from Section 106 income will see “£60,000 towards the Highway’s Feasibility Study for the A13 Underpass Improvements in a long term” and “Cycle Docking Station: a financial contribution of £220,000, payable prior to occupation of the development”.
Shorter term changes to the area around the underpass beside the development are also proposed including a “Highways Scheme for Stephenson Street, Bidder Street, Wharf Street – all associated work, including improvements to Bidder Street/Stephenson Street junction improvements; Public Realm improvements for Bidder Street, Key journey link improvements Bidder Street/Stephenson Street, new Accesses, renewal of footpaths, removal of redundant crossovers, TMOs for road signs and road markings etc”.
Affordable housing
The site contains 35 per cent “affordable” housing but of that just 88 homes are London Affordable Rent aka the closest thing to council housing. That’s just 10 per cent out of 871 in a borough with 4,500 households living in expensive temporary and emergency accommodation.
Newham are yet another council who seek to purchase extremely expensive existing homes instead of using said funds to build new homes at a level anywhere close to what is needed, which simply shuffles the problem and doesn’t solve the underlying issue.
Purchasing an existing home (at extremely high cost in London) in turn means that’s one less available for private renters in an area seeing fast-rising population growth – and so more people then require temporary and emergency housing. The cycle just goes on.
Using funding for an increase in newly built homes (at times in partnership with developers) provides for those in temporary housing and in turn doesn’t see an existing home lost for other private renters or even first time buyers. This may all seem blindingly obvious but current policy is not helping to any great degree on a wider level.
