The 10-acre site, which represents the last major brownfield site around the City, will ultimately be built out in a series of 9 plots.

The full plans will provide 500 homes, with 50% affordable, as well as 1.4 million sq ft of workspace, including one of the largest single contributions of affordable workspace of any development in London.

The developers have now got clearance to start work on the first cluster of buildings on plot 1 running alongside Shoreditch High Street and Bethnal Green Road where the existing Box Park temporary shopping mall exists.

Plot 1 involves construction of a large footprint 18-storey office building overflying the Shoreditch Station box and running along Bethnal Green Road.

Formed as two connected buildings, the scheme will provide 550,000 sq ft of office floorspace and ground-floor retail.

View from Bethnal Green Road of the proposed scheme looking west

The developers have also gained reserve matters approval for the restoration of historic buildings on Sclater Street.

Designed by Gensler and Buckley Gray Yeoman, the reserved matters approval marks the next stage in the realisation of the approved scheme.

Outline construction logistics were drawn up by WSP Transport while Hoare Lea provided energy and sustainability services.

The 17-acre masterplan will retain parts of the shopping centre while allowing room for 1,700 new homes alongside 445 co-living flats in a 23-storey building and up to 660 student beds in a 15-storey building.

The new district will be built around eight-acres of green space and public realm, including an urban meadow above a central podium building connecting much of the wider scheme consisting of around 14 major building projects.

Masterplan to redevelop 1970s-built shopping complex will be a decade-long build

Landsec’s masterplan, designed by SEW, includes a detailed application for the first two residential buildings, designed by Mae Architects, Studio MULTI and Archio.

On top of a reimagined shopping centre will be a pedestrianised high street lined with restaurants, cafes and bars.

A 500-capacity live music venue will act as a focus for the area’s cultural scene.

Urban meadow on top of new podium linking high rise residential buildings

Mike Hood, CEO of Landsec U+I said: “This submission marks an important milestone to create a new green centre for Lewisham.

“For the last 20 years our team has been embedded within the community and I’m delighted that we were able to create this vision with thousands of people in Lewisham through one of our most extensive public engagement programmes.”

Demolition of the current shopping centre and the construction of the new one will start in 2026 to be delivered in phases over around 10 years.

LandsecU+I’s planning application will be considered by Lewisham council’s strategic planning committee next year.

New shopping centre below elevated meadow and public realm

The huge cost of widening the scope of buildings needing to fix fire safety problems beyond 18m tall to lower rise building of 11m height was revealed in a new report from the spending watchdog.

Between 9,000 and 12,000 buildings above this height are now estimated to need cladding retrofits.

More than 7,200 of those buildings are yet to be officially identified. And the NAO fears identifying and remediating this huge backlog could take many more years than the 2035 date presently plugged into Government spending estimates for the programme.

To make all these buildings safe could drag on into the next decade, leaving residents “living with the fear of fire and costly bills”, says the report.

Now the NAO has called on the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to set a hard deadline to complete works to all unsafe buildings. 

Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, said: “Seven years on from the Grenfell Tower fire, there has been progress, but considerable uncertainty remains regarding the number of buildings needing remediation, costs, timelines and recouping public spending. There is a long way to go before all affected buildings are made safe, and risks MHCLG must address if its approach is to succeed.

“Putting the onus on developers to pay and introducing a more proportionate approach to remediation should help to protect taxpayers’ money. Yet it has also created grounds for dispute, causing delays.

“To stick to its £5.1bn cap in the long run, MHCLG needs to ensure that it can recoup funds through successful implementation of the proposed Building Safety Levy.”

The government significantly changed the types of buildings within scope for its programmes, and its approach to remediation, as the scale and impact of the cladding problem has become clearer.

Mandatory registration of high-rise buildings under the Building Safety Act 2022 has helped to advance works and identified nearly all of the high rise buildings at risk.

But there is no mandatory registration for the thousands more medium-rise buildings of 11m to 18m.

Of the 4,771 buildings now in the government’s sight – the equivalent of 258,000 homes – remediation work has yet to start on over half, with around one third complete.

Of all the 9,000-12,000 buildings estimated to be potentially in scope, work is complete for only 12-16%. 

To keep taxpayer contributions within a £5.1bn cap over the long-term, the Government plans to recoup £700m through refunds from developers for remediation works already funded by the taxpayer, and around £3.4bn from the new Building Safety Levy.

In 2023-24 there were potential losses of over £500,000 through fraud by one applicant, which has led the MHCLG to tighten its counter fraud procedures in the management of the Building Safety Fund. 

The NAO report also said the Government needed to do more to ensure that its policies were not working at cross-purposes. 

The Government has accepted there may be overlaps between its remediation programmes and wider government priorities, from decarbonisation to building new homes.