Hot stuff With its Heat Network stoking the fires, the LDA is being positive about prospects for the Royal Docks. Paul Norman warms to the subject
The London Development Agency is turning up the heat on plans to regenerate east London’s Royal Docks. Literally.
The past decade has seen heady aspirations for the 1,100-acre site. Once the largest enclosed docks in the world, it has been struggling to get off the blocks.
Yet it is not hard for property people to make a compelling case for the area. After all, residents include the Abu Dhabi government’s rapidly expanding ExCel Conference and Exhibition Centre, London City Airport, the University of East London and Tate & Lyle.
So now the area’s principal landowner, the London Development Agency, has decided that enough is enough. Steve Kennard, the LDA’s director of land and development, says that in July, along with Newham council, it carried out a “visioning exercise” in which they spoke to stakeholders about how to unlock development.
“We will shortly begin selecting a consultancy team to take the next step forward,” Kennard says. “We will select these later this year, with masterplan options pulled together by spring of next year.”
What the LDA is seeking, he says, is “a very clear masterplan that outlines the drivers for infrastructure and resolves road network and heat and power issues”.
He also wants to create synergies on the back of the “impetus provided by ExCel’s expansion, as well as to focus on what can be done with the water at the heart of the site”.
The 250 acres of water, Kennard says, could be used to create an identity for the area. “This has to be commercial led, creating a new piece of the City,” he says. “We will look at visitor attractions around the docks, as well as berthing opportunities.”
However, the rabbit that the LDA is most enthusiastically pulling out of its hat is its proposed £200m London Thames Gateway Heat Network.
Seed funded by the agency, the scheme will provide an affordable low-carbon heating supply network.
Drawn from Barking power station, it will supply all new development at Barking Riverside, South Dagenham, Barking town centre, Albert Island, Canning Town, the Lower Lea Valley and, crucially, the Royal Docks.
Agreement torn up
The LDA has also been turning up the heat on developers.
In September, EG revealed that the agency had torn up its agreement with its development partner for the area’s £1.5bn Silvertown Quays regeneration.
It served termination notices on the Silvertown Quays consortium, seven years after first selecting it to develop a leisure-led scheme, including an £80m Terry Farrell-designed aquarium, on 68 acres adjacent to London City Airport.
The move was a clear signal of intent on the LDA’s part as it seeks to unravel development by focusing first on its own sites.
At its Royals Business Park, the agency will “imminently” sign a deal with partner Development Securities that will see the plans reworked to include three hotels in the next phase.
The park has struggled to land major office requirements and will now focus first on demand for hotel space generated by the success of ExCel.
Alongside DevSec and architects KCAP and Aukett Fitzroy Robinson, the LDA has been working on plans to expand the Royals from a 1.6m sq ft office campus to a circa 3m sq ft mixed-use location.
David Enticknap, director of projects at DevSec, says: “We are looking at what the right mix of uses should be in response to the hot spots created by the two DLR stations serving the site, and how we can build on Newham moving in to the first phase, ExCel expanding and the eventual arrival of Crossrail.”
But why will ambitious plans work this time when they have failed before?
Tremendous opportunity
Charlie Hart, partner at Knight Frank, is part of a team that recently closed its Thames Gateway offices in the area and moved back to Canary Wharf, partly in response to a lack of progress on expected high levels of development earlier in the decade.
Hart says that the area remains a “tremendous opportunity”, but the key will be delivering critical mass. “People clearly do not want to be wondering if they will be living in acres and acres of deserted development land,” he says.
One basic requirement is to create a sense of community in an area that is eerily quiet during the day, as residents leave to commute into Canary Wharf and central London.
Hart’s colleague Emma Goodford, head of South East offices, says that the masterplan exercise is a step in the right direction but the plans “need to be published now to bring the certainty the area needs”.
Jones Lang LaSalle director Andrew Hume says that there is a “logical ribbon of new development” with the Royals Business Park at its heart that needs to be “better joined up in the next wave of development than in the last cycle”.
A confident Kennard says that all stakeholders must be focused on mixed use, adding: “That way we will create a decent piece of city.”
Pushing plans forward
Royals Business Park By Christmas, the London Development Agency and Development Securities will lodge plans for three hotels, plus 50,000 sq ft of offices, on a 4-acre parcel of land at the Docklands site where offices had been planned. The partners plan to expand the 1.6m sq ft office campus to create a 3m sq ft mixed-use development.
Thames Barrier East Plans for 750 homes at the LDA site are being built out by Barratt and Taylor Wimpey.
Minoco Wharf Ballymore has “welcomed” talks with the LDA but is not yet pushing ahead with consented plans for 2,598 houses and 270,000 sq ft of shops and offices.
Peruvian Wharf Capital & Provident has still to decide whether to bring forward a new application for 19 acres on the north bank of the Royal Docks after its proposals for a 2.1m sq ft residential-led scheme were rejected in January 2007.
Silvertown Quays The LDA served a three-month termination notice on its partner for the 68-acre site – the Silvertown Quays consortium – in September, citing a “prolonged period without progress” after the collapse of residential values.
Ivax Quays Notting Hill Housing is planning around 800 homes and 70,000 sq ft of commercial on 13 acres at Royal Albert Basin.
ExCel London International Convention Centre The Abu Dhabi government-owned venue is undergoing a £165m expansion.
