Developer Queensgate Investments and Rockwell aim to redevelop the Kensington Forum Hotel in West London with a landmark new hotel, serviced apartment and conference scheme.

Designed by architect SimpsonHaugh, the Cromwell Road proposal will replace the existing 906 room hotel, recognised as a local eyesore, with a 750-bedroom quality hotel and 340 serviced apartments.

The scheme, which will rise to 29 storeys, will provide 62 genuinely affordable social rented homes, worth £90m – the first private development in London to deliver a 100% genuinely affordable homes.

A further £2.8 m will be put towards public realm improvements to the area around Gloucester Road station.

Jason Kow, Chief Executive of Queensgate Investments, who own the Kensington Forum said: “Queensgate Investments is proud that the Mayor has resolved to grant this unique opportunity to create one of London’s largest hotel and service apartment schemes, whilst also delivering for the needs of the local community and Londoners alike.”

Holiday Inn on Cromwell Road (left) will be demolished to make way for the new scheme

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has consistently failed to meet the Mayor’s housing targets in recent years, and the Mayor has pushed his planning powers to their limits in order to deliver more affordable homes in the borough.

In April, the Mayor refused permission for the redevelopment of Heythrop College in Kensington Square – which included just 3.3 per cent affordable housing – after the council had approved it.

Last September, the Mayor gave permission for Newcombe House in Notting Hill, having called it in following the council’s decision to refuse the application. After the Mayor’s intervention, the level of affordable housing was increased from 17 to 35%.

Just 105 private and public buildings over 18m have completed remediation works from the 433 identified to have been fitted by unsafe aluminium cladding.

Slow progress and lack of ambition to make buildings more resistant to fire has been thrown into the spotlight by Grenfell campaigners who have projected warnings on tower blocks in London, Manchester and Newcastle.

Also industry fire protection chiefs have warned that even the Government’s fresh planned changes to building regulations don’t go far enough.

Jonathan O’Neill, managing director, Fire Protection Association, said he wanted to see a total ban on combustible building materials on all high-risk buildings, such as schools, hospitals, nursing homes, blocks of flats – not just those buildings over 18m.

“We also want a ban on single staircases in all tall buildings, because in the event of a fire you need at least one staircase for people to be able to evacuate the building, and a second staircase for the fire and rescue services for entry,” he said.

There is also growing concern about the performance of other cladding materials like high-pressure laminates.

It is estimated that a further 340 high rises are clad with these sort of materials. Last month the Government commissioned the FPA to carry out tests on HPLs.

Also in May, the government committed to fund the remediation of high-rise private sector residential buildings with ACM but funding guidance criteria will not be published until July.

So far the government has placed a ban on combustible materials on new high-rise homes, which came into force on 21 December with a two-month transitional period.

Last week the government published consultation on recommendations set out in the Hackitt Review for a new safety regime for designing and building high-rise homes.

The 4.25-hectare site will be a new cultural and education centre in East London.

It will be home to major new buildings for the Sadler’s Wells dance theatre, the BBC, the Victoria and Albert Museum and a new campus for the University of London’s College of Fashion.

The mayor’s office also granted planning for around 600 new homes within a complex including a 27-storey landmark tower.

Mace is leading project and construction management of the commercial part of the scheme which is presently in advanced procurement.

The scheme has been designed by a collaborative team of Allies and Morrison, O’Donnell + Tuomey and Camps Felip Arquitectura.

PJ Careys has the £16m contract for substructure work on the site. Select Plant also was awarded a £5.4m contract for hire of six tower cranes on the job.

Speaking on behalf of all the East Bank partners, Lyn Garner, chief executive of the London Legacy Development Corporation, said: “This is a huge milestone for the project and testament to the hard work, and commitment of all those involved.

“East Bank will be the glue that binds together the different elements on the Park from world-class visitor attractions, high-tech business districts, thousands of new homes and wonderful parkland and open spaces.

“Now, with planning permission in place for the biggest and most exciting culture and education project for a generation, we can start to deliver on the promises for jobs, skills and homes for east London.”

The other parts of East Bank are UCL East, a pioneering new campus for UCL in the south of the Park and the V&A’s new Collection and Research Centre will be located at Here East in the north of the park.

Last year, the Mayor confirmed that at least 50 per cent of new homes across the remaining development sites on the Park – Stratford Waterfront, Pudding Mill and Rick Roberts Way – will be genuinely affordable.

The firm plans to regenerate the 6-acre Abbey Retail Park into a riverside urban-village called Abbey Quays, which will provide over 1,000 homes of mixed tenure.

Designed by architectural practice Broadway Malyan, the scheme also includes a new riverside restaurant, a Max Whitlock MBE athletes training centre and a community hall.

The site was a retail park owned by Estates & Agency Group during the 1980s who join Weston as joint developer.

Once a ‘Section 106’ legal agreement has been signed Barking & Dagenham Council will grant planning permission.

One of the biggest urban renewal projects in East London, ‘Abbey Quays’ will front directly onto the River Roding, a tributary of the River Thames

The flats will be built in 13 blocks split across three buildings, ranging from seven to 29 storeys.

These buildings will be arranged around a pair of large communal landscaped podium gardens for occupants to utilise.

Bob Weston, Chairman & Chief Executive of Weston Homes said: “The regeneration of this important Gateway site into a new waterfront urban-village adjacent to Barking town centre forms part of the Borough Council’s vision of bringing aspirational waterfront living to Barking.

“The regenerated site will provide much needed affordable local housing for local Londoners, further enhance the local community and compliment the existing centre.”

In Tudor times the site was a quay servicing the adjacent Barking Abbey and village. By the 19^th century it was a vibrant fishing village, becoming an industrial zone during the Victorian era and thereafter.