New plans to build 405 homes on the former Ford car plant in Dagenham have been submitted.
The plans outline the next phase of the Beam Park development in New Road, which when completed will be made up of some 3,119 homes in total.
Housing developer Countryside Homes says the new plan “continues the momentum of Beam Park’s development, creating a vibrant, sustainable, and well-connected community for residents”.
Plans submitted to Barking and Dagenham Council say the new homes will be a mixture of flats and houses.
Two blocks of flats will contain 341 homes, mostly one and two bed flats, although there will be 82 three-bed apartments and four, four-bed apartments. Plans say that 47 of the flats will be for “affordable rent” and 160 will be for “intermediate” rent or sale such as a shared ownership scheme.
One of the blocks will be up to ten storeys, and the other up to 14 storeys. The plans say they will “wrap around” central public amenity spaces.
There will be 64 houses, all for private sale, with none of them designated as affordable or intermediate housing. Of these, there will be 16 two-bed houses, with the remaining 48 split evenly between three beds and four beds.
An affordable housing statement submitted to the council along with the plans say that in total 51% of habitable rooms will be “affordable”, although these will be a mixture of affordable rent and “intermediate units”.
The Ford Dagenham plant opened in 1931 and employed 40,000 workers at its peak in the 1950s. The site was reduced to only making engines, rather than vehicles, in 2002 and now employs around 2,000 people. A group of striking female workers in 1968 famously led to the first equal pay legislation in the UK.
Initial plans for the Beam Park development, on part of the former vehicle factory site spanning the boundary between Dagenham and borough border with Havering, were first approved in 2018.
The new 405 homes make up the second phase of development.
Countryside Homes says some 1,158 homes have already been built across other phases, while a medical centre, supermarket, nursery, café, primary school, leisure centre and community centre have also been built.
Another primary school, in Walkerville Road, will be built by the council.
Plans for the second phase were submitted to the council on Wednesday, 20th August, and are pending consideration.
