Docklands News

Morgan Sindall is set to start work imminently on the construction of a £107m, 34-storey tower block in Canning Town. The development will have 355 apartments, as wells as 8,000 sq ft of commercial and retail space. The £107.25m Manor Road Quarter scheme is being developed by English Cities Fund (ECF), a joint venture of Homes England, Legal & General and Morgan Sindall’s property development arm Muse. The tower block represents phase one. There are plans, approved by Newham Council back in 2019, for 804 homes across eight buildings eventually. It  follows on from the nearby £180m Rathbone Market development that ECF delivered in Canning Town.

The Construction Index (16/10/2021)  

Swan Housing Association has won planning for the 315-home third phase of its £500m Blackwall Reach development. The scheme forms part of the wider 1,575-home regeneration of the area around the Blackwell Reach Dockland Light Railway station, which Swan is building in partnership with Tower Hamlets council and the Greater London Authority. Swan has already built out the 340-home first phase of the scheme, with the 268-home second phase under construction; the new development replaces 252 existing homes, with half of the new houses affordable.

Building (15/10/2021)  

Affordable home building in the capital has slumped to its lowest level since 2017. Work began on only 272 new affordable homes funded by City Hall in the first three months of the new financial year, according to latest figures - the lowest for the quarter in four years. Critics say Mr Khan has been slow to spend the £4.82bn he received from the Government’s Affordable Homes Programme in 2016. That was supposed to deliver 116,000 new affordable homes by 2022, though the deadline was extended to 2023 due to complications including the pandemic.

Evening Standard (18/10/2021)  

The London Councils umbrella group has calculated that the capital faces a £98bn bill to upgrade homes if it is to hit green targets by 2030. All 33 boroughs have agreed a joint plan to cut emissions produced by the almost 4m domestic buildings across the capital by the end of the decade. London Councils is calling on the Government to announce the delivery of the £3.8bn social housing decarbonisation fund and £2.5bn home upgrade grant in the upcoming spending review. Boroughs also want new financial incentives to encourage private retrofitting, such as green mortgages offering lower rates and a variable stamp duty land tax for more energy-efficient homes. 

Evening Standard (15/10/2021)  

Borrowers are on course to overpay their mortgages by a record amount this year. An average of £1.81bn of mortgage debt was overpaid each month from January to August - nearly a quarter more than the £1.46bn monthly average for 2020. If borrowers continue to make such repayments for the rest of the year they will overpay £22.2bn; nearly 20% higher than the record £18.6bn overpaid in 2007. According to research by Halifax, Britons should capitalise on overpaying their mortgages, as the £200bn boost in the UK's savings during lockdown could cut down thousands in interest and months off a term of a mortgage. Halifax has urged individuals to take a “once in a lifetime opportunity” to redirect their cash towards mortgage overpayments. 

The Express (16/10/2021)   The Sun (16/10/2021)   The Times (16/10/2021)