Council gives backing to 1,300-home Isle of Dogs development four years after it was engulfed in a political scandal
PLP’s revised plans for the Westferry Printworks site in east London have been approved four years after the scheme was embroiled in a political scandal involving a Conservative party donor.
The firm’s proposals for 1,358 homes on what was once Europe’s biggest printworks were granted conditional approval by Tower Hamlets council yesterday evening.
It is PLP’s third consent for the site and comes nine years after plans for the long-delayed scheme were originally submitted by Westferry Developments, which is part of former Daily Express publisher Richard Desmond’s Northern & Shell business empire.
> Also read: PLP draws up yet more Westferry Printworks proposals
Desmond was first granted planning permission for a residential-led mixed-use scheme on the site in 2016 before a later bid to more than double the number of homes failed despite winning the backing on then housing secretary Robert Jenrick.
Jenrick then overturned the advice of a planning inspector to approve the second iteration of the plans, which would include towers up to 44 storeys in height, in January 2020.
But this decision was then quashed by the High Court after it emerged that Jenrick had discussed the scheme with Desmond at a fund-raising dinner for the Conservative Party ahead of issuing his decision.
> Also read: PLP’s Westferry Printworks scheme thrown out in government U-turn
A re-run inquiry considered the plans afresh but resulted in the scheme being rejected by junior housing minister Eddie Hughes in 2021.
The current scheme, submitted in October last year, would span 12 plots with buildings rising to a reduced maximum height of 31 storeys and include a five-storey secondary school and retail and office space, with 35% of the homes classed as affordable.
Planning officers had recommended the latest plans for approval ahead of yesterday’s meeting of Tower Hamlets’ strategic developments committee despite some local concerns about the scale of the development.
However responses to a local consultation were largely positive with 6,820 letters sent out by the council earlier this year returning 968 representations in favour and 51 objections.
The consultation found those in favour of the scheme supported the construction of affordable and council housing on the site, which has been cleared and vacant for seven years, and the provision of new school facilities.
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