Plans to build 359 flats on the old Siemens factory site next to the Thames Barrier have been withdrawn after five years.
Landsec has pulled its proposals to redevelop the long-closed factory on the Charlton-Woolwich border as a development called Faraday Works.
The factory was one of the biggest local employers for more than a century until it closed in 1968. The land later became an industrial estate and is now owned by the investment giant Royal London.
Plans were first submitted by the developers U+I and Galliard in December 2019, and included 492 homes with 35 per cent “affordable” housing – a catch-all term ranging from shared ownership and homes sold at a discount to social rent. The plans included 13-storey towers and the conversion of a crumbling former wire workshop – which has sat unused for decades – as a centre for new businesses.
U+I said it hoped to emulate Caxton Works, a development it built across the Thames at Canning Town, which blends new flats with business premises.
The plans ran into trouble when Historic England listed 37 Bowater Road, one of the blocks scheduled for demolition. They were rewritten – without Galliard – in 2021 to keep 37 Bowater Road, adding three storeys to the roof, and to cut the number of homes to 374. The heights were cut down to ten storeys.
To pay for keeping the block, U+I cut the proportion of “affordable” homes to 4 per cent. This was unlikely to be acceptable to Greenwich’s Labour council, which has a target of 35 per cent.
Hopes of progress were raised last year when another revision was filed to take into account changes in fire regulations since the Grenfell Tower disaster. The number of homes was cut to 359, with just 4.4 per cent being “affordable”.
But it has emerged that Landsec, which bought U+I in 2021, finally pulled the proposals in January, after its development agreement with Royal London came to an end. It is not clear whether Royal London intends to pursue the plans itself or with another developer.
Both Greenwich Council and City Hall have long had plans to redevelop the Charlton riverside with up to 8,000 homes, but a lack of infrastructure in the area has held up plans. Unlike the other major development sites in the borough, such as the Greenwich Peninsula and the Royal Arsenal, there is no one dominant landowner in the area, with different owners having different priorities.
One plan for 771 homes off Anchor & Hope Lane was rejected on appeal by a planning inspector five years ago and now looks set to be replaced by a warehouse instead. The rise in online delivery services and the loss of industrial land for housing in recent years means that warehouse space is in demand – aided locally by the building of the Silvertown Tunnel, which can carry HGVs that the original Blackwall Tunnel can’t.
Before the general election last year the Conservative government floated the idea of Westminster stepping in to Charlton Riverside as part of plans to create a “Docklands 2.0”. There have also been suggestions that City Hall could form a mayoral development corporation – like the one that covered the Olympic Park, and the one building around Old Oak Common in west London – to buy up land, but nothing concrete has materialised.
Landsec told The Greenwich Wire: “U+I were appointed by the landowners, Royal London, as development managers for the project. Last year, U+I’s development agreement came to a close so the planning application was withdrawn. We support Royal London’s vision for the project and hope to see it come to fruition in the future.”
Royal London has been contacted for comment.
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