A Newham councillor said she was “dismayed and heartbroken” at the low level of social-rent housing planned for a major new development opposite the Greenwich Peninsula.

Property developer Ballymore won approval from councillors on Tuesday to build a new 1,667-home development at Knights Road in Silvertown on Tuesday, but just 153 homes for the borough’s waiting list were included in the plans.

During a debate on the plans at a strategic development committee meeting, Labour committee member Madeleine Sarley Pontin criticised the amount of affordable homes on the site, which is opposite the old coaling jetty at Tidemill Square.

Pontin said: “The majority of those private homes will be sold to people out of the borough and are  therefore not alleviating the homelessness and the need for larger homes within the borough.”

The development, which also includes industrial and commercial buildings, is set to be built at the site of a former chemical works on the River Thames. The site has also housed a petroleum depot, a transport depot and a recycling plant for construction waste materials.

Council planning officers said this meant a high likelihood that the soil and groundwater within the site was contaminated, including with asbestos, heavy metals and hydrocarbons.

Ballymore’s representatives told councillors that the high cost of cleaning up the site meant the company could only afford to allocate 9.2 per cent  of homes for affordable housing, all of which would be for social rent.

New development render
Ballymore said it had to pay for river wall works and road improvements. Image: Ballymore/Allies & Morrison

Newham’s planning policies call for 50 per cent of new homes to be designated as “affordable”, which are discounted from the market rate. However, the level provided at each scheme is usually subject to a financial viability test from the developer, which can then be used to lower the number of affordable homes.

A representative of Ballymore told councillors that 153 social rent homes was “more than the maximum viable amount of affordable homes that can be provided on this site”.

Ballymore UK’s chief executive John Mulryan pointed to “the very high cost of remediation of the sites, as well as works to the river wall and the highway works”.

He added: “The industry has gone through an unprecedented period in the last four or five years, through an extraordinary increase in costs, significant economic headwinds and the market for private housing, which has flatlined for over ten years.”

Complaining about the financial viability tests carried out by developers, Pontin said the committee was being asked to approve developments with less than 50 per cent affordable housing at “meeting after meeting”.

“We continue to be dismayed and heartbroken at the idea that under our local policy, and under the local plan policy, that developers are failing to meet the high level of social homes that are needed,” she said.

The committee voted to approve the development, with Labour councillors Rachel Tripp, Blossom Young, John Morris, Alan Griffiths and Terence Paul in favour, but Pontin against.

The scheme is one of a number that will change the view across the Thames from the Greenwich Peninsula and Charlton in the coming years. 

Last year updated plans for thousands of homes around Millennium Mills were approved by Newham councillors, while Tower Hamlets approved plans for 1,300 student rooms at Orchard Wharf, opposite the O2. Some 5,000 homes are also planned at Thames Wharf, close to the Silvertown Tunnel’s northern exit.

Nick Clark is the local democracy reporter for Tower Hamlets, 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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