Major flood hits new Lewisham Gateway development as 450 residents forced out

Flooding on a major Lewisham development has seen hundreds of residents forced to leave shortly after moving in.

Lewisham Gateway between the station and town centre saw a number of fire engines on site in recent days pumping out water after a burst pipe.

A visit to the site revealed pumping still underway with the main pedestrian through-route fenced off.

Around 400 residents in “The Filigree” building who were living in build to rent flats owned by Get Living have been forced to move to hotels.

A failure of a water pipe is given as the cause. The area sits around rivers and long been susceptible to flooding.

The basement of three buildings is flooded cutting water supplies and electricity to homes.

Developers Muse are behind the project built by Balfour Beatty.

Whilst in the area I also had a wander around the site to look at any possible shop openings. Not much to see with most units still empty.

There’s also no news on any potential cinema operator (if there is let me know).

It’s probably fair to say this project hasn’t been a great success so far. It took an age to build with the site sitting empty for many years. During construction a contractor walked off the job delaying completion.

Now it’s open almost all commercial units are empty many months later and now the flood has hit. For such an important site linking the station and town centre it’s not been a good.