Ocean estate is up for planning award for making Stepney ‘a place to live’

The transformation of the massive Ocean housing estate in London’s East End has been shortlisted for this year’s Planning and Placemaking awards.

The scheme next to the Regent’s Canal, which covers a wide swathe of Stepney south of the Mile End Road, has already completed 800 new homes since 2010.

Now it is nominated in both ‘Best housing’ and ‘London Regional’ categories.

The final phase of the redevelopment by Tower Hamlets council and East Thames Housing starting last September with three 10-storey tower blocks of 225 flats, after demolishing 120 flats built in the 1950s.

Trevor Burns, from East Thames Housing, said: “The Ocean regeneration project is an example of how entire areas can be transformed by working between local authorities and housing associations.”

The awards flag up what judges in town planning consider outstanding projects that regenerate run-down districts through community-focussed planning and construction.

The Ocean is a key stage in Tower Hamlets council’s programme of 5,590 new low-cost homes over the past five years, the highest number in the country since 2010, according to Department of Communities & Local Government figures.

It goes a little way to trimming Tower Hamlets local authority’s housing waiting list with 22,000 families on it.