London needs to get on building homes, lots of them. That’s exactly what joint developers Telford Homes and Poplar HARCA plan to do at Chrisp Street Market, E14, after finally submitting a planning application for the redevelopment of the site to provide 649 new homes.
Nineteen new buildings are proposed, the tallest rising to 25 storeys. Nearly 20,000 sq m of mixed-use retail, restaurant, offices and leisure space will also be built.
The plans have been a long time in the making. Documents attached to the application state that extensive pre-application discussions have been taking place with the council since September 2012. Detailed meetings and design workshops have taken place on numerous occasions since then, with a formal EIA application submitted in August 2015. At various instances through the pre-application process the schemes scope (as shown below) has been scaled back in size.
How Chrisp Street Market scheme was scaled back
- February 2014: circa 850 residential units (40 storeys)
- September 2014: circa 750 residential units (40+ storeys)
- April 2015: circa 700 residential units (30 storeys)
- September 2015: circa 650 residential units (30 storeys)
- June 2016: circa 650 residential units (25 storeys)
A main contention point between both parties, it would seem, centres around some buildings that date back to the 1951 Festival of Britain, including the Clock Tower (pictured). Tower Hamlets notes in pre-application advice that the sheer quantum and scale of proposals are out of scale with the site.
Incidentally, the market square was Britain’s first pedestrianised shopping centre, so there are important heritage aspects to the scheme.
However, if London’s planners are serious about increasing new-build housing stock, these are exactly the types of plans that should be sped up through the planning system. Four years from initial conception to submitting an application is simply too long and extremely concerning.
Some may argue Telford Homes’ acquisition of United House back in September last year may have slowed the process down, as United House had been dealing with the site previously.
Some 20% of the new homes proposed will be affordable, all for the social rental market, equal to 131 homes. However, 124 social rent homes will be demolished to make way for the scheme, with many more larger four-bedroom homes being demolished than replaced, 28 to 12 respectively.
This image below reveals how the scheme has been chopped down in size through the long and arduous pre-application process.
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