The Mayor of London is poised to approve the Canada Water Masterplan in a hearing at City Hall next week, as the latest documents suggest now 9% of housing on the site could be affordable thanks to a grant.
It comes after the figure previously plunged to as little as 3% – the equivalent of as few as 100 homes out of 3,000, 9% put up to roughly 270 affordable homes.
The £4 billion regeneration of the area includes a new town centre, with more than 3,000 homes, 40 new buildings, and three clusters of high-rise towers.
The developer submitted something called a Section 73 application to Southwark Council asking to amend parts of the planning application in January 2025 in order to comply with new building safety laws.
However, towards the end of last year developer British Land wrote to the Mayor of London to make a decision on the revised planning application.
The letter included the astonishing revelation that according to their viability assessment “3% is the maximum viable affordable housing at this stage, with the potential for public funding to increase this with delivery in the next phases.”
The figure had yo-yoed over the years, with the paltry 3 per cent offer down from the 35 per cent which British Land promised to build when outline permission was granted back in 2020, and less than the 10 per cent they then suggested would be ‘viable’ back in January 2025.
Now the latest tranche of documents published ahead of next week’s planning hearing state that a grant from the Mayor has been awarded to the scheme meaning the proportion of affordable housing will be slightly higher at 9%.
A report advising the Mayor to approve the planning application states that 17% of the next batch of 1000 homes will be affordable, the equivalent of 150 socially rented homes.
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This will push the overall amount of affordable housing across the whole scheme up to 9 per cent – equivalent to around 270 homes out of 3000 across the whole scheme.
It states that this is because a grant has been awarded to the scheme.
It puts the proportion of affordable housing broadly in line with the estimation given by British Land in January 2025.
However that is still much lower than the Mayor’s own regulations requiring 20% affordable housing in new developments in London.
It is not clear what the proportion of affordable housing will be on future phases of the Masterplan, with the report stating that this will depend on ‘future viability’.
The planning hearing will take place on 27 March at 9:30 am.
All three of Rotherhithe’s ward councillors – Labour councillors Bethan Roberts and Stephanie Cryan and Green councillor Kath Whittam – are due to object to the planning application during the hearing.
There will also be representations from the Southwark Law Centre, Jerry Flynn of the 35% Campaign and Jane Seymour, a local resident.
The campaigners will state in a joint objection that there is “no demand for the huge amount of market housing proposed” on the Masterplan, where they claim the average flat would cost £915k.
“This puts the chance of buying a home beyond the reach of the great majority of Southwark residents and everyday people,” they will say.
They are calling for the developer to make 35 per cent of the scheme affordable – the amount it promised to build when planning permission was first granted for a previous version of the scheme in 2020.
35 per cent affordable housing in Canada Water would result in the equivalent of roughly 985 affordable homes.
Southwark still requires developers to build 35 per cent affordable housing – which private developers make a loss on – if they want to secure planning permission.
That policy used to be shared by the Greater London Authority, but last month the Mayor, with the support of the government’s Housing Secretary Steve Reed, said they would be slashing that requirement to 20 per cent due to a slump in housebuilding across the capital.
A British Land spokesperson previously said their amended application was “a reflection of major regulatory changes and ongoing viability challenges triggered by macroeconomic circumstances.
“Approval of our application will enable additional benefits of the Canada Water masterplan to be realised, including thousands more new homes, modern workspaces, open spaces including a town square and 3.5-acre park, local school funding and space for a new health centre.”
