Plans to build 871 new homes in Canning Town were given the green light by Newham Council last night (Monday, 18 December) however not a single one will be used as social housing.
The council’s strategic development committee unanimously approved the plans, which will see hundreds of new homes built across seven tower blocks ranging from eight to 30 storeys high as part of the Crown Wharf redevelopment from Barratt London.
Of the 871 homes, 630 will be for the private sector while 241 ‘genuinely affordable’ homes will be split into 153 shared ownership homes and the remaining 88 will be used for London Affordable Rent.
However, the development will deliver zero social housing, which Labour councillor Charlene McLean chair of the meeting, said she was ‘quite saddened’ about.
Cllr McLean said: “I don’t know whether this would really be classed as ‘genuinely affordable’, not in the Newham sense anyway of what we would be called ‘genuinely affordable’.
“I’m just really quite saddened that there is no social housing within the development, I understand about viability but I just wanted to put on record that I was quite disappointed that there couldn’t be slightly more.”
This comes just days after the mayor of Newham, Rokhsana Fiaz was quizzed on her promises to deliver and ensure that 50% of homes built in the borough are genuine social housing.
Meanwhile, the borough currently has more than 34,000 households on the waiting list and thousands of families living in temporary accommodation.
Green Cllr for Stratford Olympic Park, Nate Higgins, had probed the Labour-run council during a full council meeting on 11 December to ‘redraft’ the Local Plan after raising concerns that the 50pc council homes commitment had been amended and replaced with 50pc ‘affordable’ homes during a summer cabinet meeting.
Back at last night’s meeting, Labour Cllr John Morris was left stunned that the plans included more shared ownership homes than any other type of affordable housing.
He said: “My concern is the structure of affordable housing in this application, I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen shared ownership homes make up more affordable homes and I just wanted to know what’s the rationale for that as well as there being any possibility to reverse the proportions of it?”
James McAllister, a development manager speaking on behalf of the applicant, Barratt London responded and said the site had been bought three years ago which is when inflation rates were not as high.
He said: “I think taking it back three years when we acquired the site originally, it was obviously pre-unprecedented inflation interest rates and the price we acquired the site for was compliant with the affordable housing [policy] at the time.
“Obviously a lot has happened since then and we’ve had to make adjustments just to make sure this development is deliverable.”
Labour Cllr Madeleine Sarley Pontin said: “I’m a little surprised because in your presentation you made reference to our council house waiting list because that is going to be affected very little by your proposed scheme.”
However, Mr McAllister said Barratt was delivering ‘beyond’ the maximum reasonable level of affordable housing.
He said: “…what we can commit to is the delivery of 241 new affordable homes delivered as soon as we possibly can.”
Mr McAllister said the council and the Greater London Authority (GLA) can take part in an early-stage review within 18 to 24 months of the development being built which could include for scope for affordable housing.
He explained: “If it’s proven there is an additional surplus that we at Barratt can provide in affordable housing, the council will benefit and we will deliver that on-site.”
Mr McAllister said the plans had been ‘three years in the making’ and there had been ‘extensive’ pre-application discussions with council officers, the council’s design review panel, the GLA and local residents.
He said: “The currently vacant Crown Wharf site is located a short distance from Canning Town station and your Local Plan allocates it for delivery of housing, as part of a wider mixed-use development.
“Newham residents haven’t been able to access Crown Wharf for decades, our ambitious open space proposals would dedicate almost half of the site area to publicly accessible open space, this means over 6,200sqm of new park, open spaces, landscape areas and child-play spaces.”
He went on to say that a new cycle route running the length of the nearby River Lea will open ‘a whole new part of Newham’ to residents.
As part of public realm improvements, Barratt intends to open up the riverside walkway and improve the A13 underpass which is very dark and has a poor sense of security by installing new lighting, having new signage and art and painting both sides of the tunnel.
After a lengthy discussion on the plans, the committee moved to the vote, which had been recommended for approval by planning officers.
The committee unanimously approved the development.
