Blackwall Reach housing scheme gets planning award while still being built
Blackwall Reach under construction - Credit: Swan Housing
A huge regeneration scheme giving a badly-needed 1,200 more homes to ease the chronic shortage in London’s East End has won a planning award—even though building has barely started.
Blackwall Reach under construction - Credit: Swan Housing
No sooner had the first 100 families moved into Poplar’s Blackwall Reach regeneration when it scooped the Planning for Housing Growth title in this-year’s Planning Awards.
The urban rejuvenation replaces 282 homes on the run-down 1970s Robin Hood Estate by the Blackwall Tunnel with a mix of 1,500 new private and social-rented homes.
Also included are new shops, commercial premises, community facilities, a mosque and an expanded Woolmore primary school in its newly-completed building.
Blackwall Reach under construction - Credit: Swan Housing
Tower Hamlets Mayor John Biggs said: “Blackwall Reach will help address the chronic housing shortage that we face.
“Blackwall Reach is a regeneration scheme with 1,500 much-needed family homes.
“I recently visited the first families to move into the development and saw for myself how delighted they were with their new homes.
Blackwall Reach under construction - Credit: Swan Housing
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The scheme is a council partnership with the GLA and Swan Housing Association, aimed at increasing the local housing density to help reduce one of London’s longest waiting lists with nearly 20,000 families in the queue for new homes.
Swan Housing manages former council estates in East London and Essex and manages 11,000 homes for Tower Hamlets alone, with plans for another 1,000 new homes as part of a three-year strategy
The awards are for “achievements in planning work” by voluntary and neighbourhood groups, local authorities, consultants, developers and lawyers operating in the planning system.
