Plans to build council housing behind the new Woolwich Waves centre are to be scrapped to save the next phase of the project from sinking.
While the newly-christened leisure centre is expected to be finished this October, work on the housing project which was meant to pay for it has stalled.
Five residential blocks of up to 19 storeys were due to be built, containing 482 homes. Greenwich Council was due to buy 51 of the 168 “affordable” homes to use as council housing; in part to replace Troy House, a council block for over-55s due for demolition. The rest would be for shared ownership.
When the development was approved in September 2022, councillors criticised the lack of council housing in the scheme.
But changes to building regulations following the Grenfell Tower fire mean at least four of the blocks need to be reworked to include a second stair core. Hill, the developer working on the scheme, has told Greenwich that it cannot continue with the project if it still has to provide 51 council homes.
Greenwich Council’s cabinet members will be asked to approve scrapping the agreement at a meeting next Wednesday.
The 51 homes would still be used for “affordable housing”, although a public report to councillors does not say whether this will now mean shared ownership or some other tenure. Other reports have been kept secret.
Scrapping the deal means that former residents of Troy Court will no longer be able to get a home in the new development: in 2020 the 23 tenants were offered £6,500 and help finding a new council home, with the promise of a “right of return” if council housing was included in the new scheme.
While the same cabinet meeting is likely to approve buying 90 homes in the Royal Arsenal, the lack of any council housing in a council-promoted scheme in Woolwich town centre will be an embarrassment for many in the Labour-run council – particularly as there was controversy about demolishing Troy Court.
The decision to scrap council housing breaks a pledge made in 2020 by Sizwe James, the housing cabinet member at the time, to build twice the number of council homes on the site as there was at Troy Court. James stepped down from the council two years later.
The revised plans for the development are likely to have a rough ride when they return to the council’s planning board – although councillors are likely to have little choice but to back the scheme.
Uncertainty over the new building regulations has been blamed for hold-ups to building schemes across London, including Woolwich Exchange, a development of 801 homes and a cinema around the old covered market. An already-delayed start date of May 2025 has now passed with no work on site.
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