Plans for a major housing development behind Woolwich’s main shopping street breezed through Greenwich Council’s planning board, four years after another plan for the site was thrown out.
Some 930 student rooms, 425 co-living homes, 90 flats and three houses are set to be built behind shops on Powis Street as part of the Electric Works scheme, with blocks of up to 23 storeys joining the other towers rising around the town centre.
The development will help turn that part of Woolwich into a hub for student housing, a quarter of a century after Greenwich University pulled out of the area. About 300 rooms on the old Woolwich Catholic Club site opposite are expected to be ready this summer, with 120 more to come when an extension is added. Another 330 rooms have also been given permission at Riverside House.
The Electric Works land on Macbean Street was home to Woolwich Polytechnic School for Boys, which moved to Thamesmead in 1999. The site has been largely empty and derelict for more than 20 years.
A former electricity works will be refurbished and extended for new housing as part of the project, which will also include new public squares. At least 62 of the flats and townhouses would be for social rent, with the rest sold at a discount.
There will also be a new nursery, shops and offices, a new market pound, and the development will open up new routes between Powis Street and Beresford Street in land that has previously been off-limits to the public.
In 2022 plans for five blocks of up to 22 storeys were rejected, with councillors branding the size of the proposed development overwhelming and criticising a lack of “affordable” housing in the scheme.
But the new plans, with blocks set further back from Beresford Street, found favour with councillors. Another parcel of land off Macbean Street was added to the scheme, giving the developers more room.
No objections were received from the public, although English Heritage raised some concerns about the effect on buildings in the Royal Arsenal.
Co-living developments provide small ensuite rooms with shared facilities, and are largely aimed at young professionals priced out of traditional flats. The developer behind Electric Works, Re:Shape, also runs large co-living developments in Wembley and at Crossharbour on the Isle of Dogs.
Jermaine Browne, of Re:shape, said he lived locally and told councillors that he spoke “not only as a developer and an operator, but someone who knows firsthand that housing is about dignity, belonging, and also fairness”.
He pledged a “mixed and balanced neighbourhood”, and said the flats and townhouses were designed “around the real local needs of families, homes that will relieve local people from overcrowding and give children stability to flourish”.
“Our co-living officer is rooted in connection and combating loneliness because unfortunately many of us know what it’s like to go home and have no-one to go home to,” he said.
Browne said community groups would be able to use spaces in the co-living building and the renovated electricity works free of charge.
But he admitted that he had not spoken to universities about using the student rooms, saying “we are very confident we will secure a local university”.
The scheme passed unanimously in less than 35 minutes, with councillors pushed for time on a packed agenda. David Gardner, a Labour councillor for Greenwich Peninsula, said that while he was concerned about the effects on heritage buildings in the Arsenal, that was “significantly outweighed by the public benefits, particularly the affordable housing. The development is car free and we’ll bring into life a section of Woolwich, which is really neglected.”
‘Lade Hephzibah Olugbemi, a Labour councillor for West Thamesmead, said: “This is one of the first times that I’m hearing a developer talk about a community space that is going to be made open to locals to come in.
“It’s also the fact that we have larger sized homes with three beds and four beds, and we have this growing register that needs to be reduced. I’m just slightly concerned about heights. I’m very concerned about all the skyscrapers, but we have needs that need to be met.”
What’s happening elsewhere in Woolwich?
Electric Works is the latest major scheme that, if built, will transform the face of Woolwich. On either side of Beresford Street, developments at Riverside House and the old Catholic Club site will bring hundreds more student rooms to the area, while Berkeley Homes is building 663 homes at The Ropeyard.
Two weeks ago, revised plans for housing with 21-storey towers were approved for land behind the new Woolwich Waves centre, while long-delayed plans for 700 homes around the Tesco store now appear to be waiting for Greenwich Council to decide on a recently-submitted application to extend the hours of the building site.
Lagging behind is the long-delayed Woolwich Exchange scheme for 800 homes and a cinema in the old Public Market, while plans for nearly 500 co-living homes at the old Thames Polytechnic Island Site on Wellington Street are still awaiting formal sign-off, a year after they were approved by councillors. Finally, updated plans for a 23-storey tower at Mortgramit Square – the old Furlongs garage site – and 269 build-to-rent homes were submitted at the end of last year, but have yet to go to councillors.
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