Stratford High Street tower and music venue set for approval
Plans for high rise residential tower and a music venue look set to be approved when they go before Newham Council next week.
Planning officers have recommended approval for a 27-floor block with a shorter 11-storey neighbour both comprising 355 homes.
The venue will double as a community centre and is let at £10 per square foot (including service charge) which is 50% of market rate according to the council’s report.
The so-called “affordable” housing is set at 23.38% on a unit basis and 25% by habitable room. Social rent is 14 per cent of the total.
In terms of the building’s design a hefty thing and that isn’t helped by horizontal banding and square windows. They have tried to alleviate that (slightly) with some step backs.
Location
The proposed site is a long vacant bit of land situated between Bow Back Rivers and Stratford High Street. Over the road is the 1,200-home Sugar House development.
The last occupant was a Porsche dealership which shut a decade ago.
Plans were approved in 2012 for 173 residential units but never built.
Transport
A short distance away is the ABBA arena with Pudding Mill DLR station being closest.
TfL sought £400,000 for transport improvements but after discussions an agreement of £250,000 was made.
A potential bridge may be on the way across the Bow Back River to improve connectivity, though the report states “funding of this bridge is currently un-secure, the applicant has safeguarded a 12m wide strip of land in the eastern end of the site for a potential future bridge. In the interim, the land would be used as soft landscaping providing a beneficial interim use.”
The developer is The Pickstock Group while architects are Pollard Thomas Edwards. Pickcock claim: “The Group also owns a strategic land bank of c. 1,500 residential units and is currently delivering c.100 homes/year through its residential house builder Pickstock Homes.”
