Updated plans for more than 7,000 new homes in the Royal Docks have been approved – including the redevelopment of the Millennium Mills landmark into offices, shops, restaurants and bars.
The vast site, next to Royal Victoria Dock and opposite Pontoon Dock station, has sat largely derelict for decades and has often been used as a location for films, TV and music videos, as well as for a spectacular concert by the French musician Jean Michel Jarre in 1988.
Now Newham councillors have approved updated plans for up to 7,172 homes, a primary school, leisure facilities, shops and restaurants. A first block of 106 homes has recently been finished under an earlier planning permission.
But one councillor feared the number of food and drink outlets in the Silvertown Quays development, just three stops from Woolwich Arsenal on the DLR, would overwhelm the offerings in other local areas.
Jess Wallis of the developer, Silvertown Partnership, told councillors on the strategic development committee on Tuesday that the scheme would “bring this significantly under-utilised part of Newham back to life”.
Plans presented to the councillors said the development would be formed of four “neighbourhoods”.
These would include a “local centre” on the west of the site, adjoining Mill Road. It would include shops, restaurants, and offices.
The centre of the development, at Pontoon Dock, would feature more waterside bars and restaurants. The 10-storey Millennium Mills, which dates back to 1905 but has sat empty since the docks closed in 1981, would be restored along with Silo D, a listed grain silo which was built in 1920.
The north-eastern end of the development, adjoining Connaught Bridge, would have creative and workshop buildings, while the main residential area would be in the south-east, and would also have a park and a primary school with three classes per year group.
Rachel Tripp, the chair of the committee, asked council officers whether the amount of new food and drink establishments could pose a threat to other town centres in the borough such as Stratford, and whether planning conditions were enough to guard against this.
Tripp said: “I was really surprised by the quantity of food and beverage that was being proposed. The comparison of the square meterage compared to say, Westfield, felt really quite overwhelming and something that had potential to kind of skew the provision of other stuff across the borough.”
She asked: “Do you think the conditions we’ve got here are sufficient to protect what we’ve got going on elsewhere?”
Marina Lai, a Newham planning officer, said that the developer would not be allowed to exceed the approved floorspace for food and drink. She said that if the developer wanted to exceed this, it would need to provide an impact assessment and marketing evidence justifying this.
Lai said this would give the council “full control” while the development was underway and that this would mean “the development can effectively function as a local centre without compromising the existing or emerging local town centres in the future”.
A minimum of 26.3 per cent of the new homes will be designated as “affordable” housing. Of these, 60 per cent would be for social rent and 40 per cent would be for “intermediate” schemes such as shared ownership.
Although this was below Newham’s 50 per cent “affordable” housing target, council officers said that the development would still “provide a significant contribution towards affordable housing in the borough”.
Councillors on the committee voted to approve the plans unanimously.
Last month the same committee voted to delay a decision on the scheme over funding for a twisty bridge connecting the development to the Excel centre on the northern bank of Royal Victoria Dock, improving access from Custom House station.
Newham had previously agreed to contribute £6.9 million towards the new bridge, paid for with money from developers as part of other planning agreements.
Another £6.3 million from the developer was to be negotiated as part of the Silvertown Quays agreement, but committee members said they were concerned this would leave them responsible for allocating the funding.
An updated report to the committee on Tuesday said the £6.3 million would be met by reducing the developer’s contribution towards the council’s employment team.
Nick Clark is the local democracy reporter for Newham, based at Social Spider CIC. The Greenwich Wire is a partner in the Local Democracy Reporting Service, which is a BBC-funded initiative to ensure councils are covered properly in local media. Additional reporting by Darryl Chamberlain.
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