£3.5bn East London regeneration of the Millennium Mills begins

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has today heralded the start of a new era for London’s historic Royal Docks, just a few months after moving City Hall to the area, as work gets underway on the new £3.5bn Silvertown neighbourhood.

On a visit to the area’s Millennium Mills today, the Mayor was shown the vision for the area as a vibrant hub of the Royal Docks, supporting 6,000 new homes and 10,000 new jobs.

City Hall is providing an £80m grant to enable the delivery of housing in phase one of the project which will see 1,500 new homes built, half of which will be genuinely affordable, with more than 6,000 expected to be constructed in the next decade.

Serving a population of about 13,000 people, the Silvertown development, led by The Silvertown Partnership (TSP), a joint venture between Lendlease and Starwood Capital, will have a total of 7 million square feet of residential and commercial space, public parks and improved access to the water including the new Silvertown Bridge and a new bridge over Royal Victoria Dock.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said, “I am delighted to see work getting underway at this landmark East London location that has vexed planners and politicians alike for the last 40 years. The regeneration of this area is long overdue and I’m excited by the plans for Silvertown which respect its past whilst embracing East London’s vibrant and creative future.”

The Royal Docks is the Mayor’s largest land-led regeneration project, with over 175 hectares of land in GLA ownership. 42,500 new jobs are forecast to be created in the area over the next 20 years, as well as a total of 30,000 new homes, much of which will be genuinely affordable housing.

In May, the Mayor announced that he had once again smashed his affordable housing target with 18,722 genuinely affordable homes started on London sites in 2021/22 despite The ongoing impact of the pandemic, soaring construction costs and Brexit.

This is the highest number of starts since GLA records began in 2003. Last year also saw more new council homes started in London than in any year since the 1970s.

Catriona Simons, CEO at The Guinness Partnership said, “this development will create a vibrant new neighbourhood and much needed new homes in Newham. We are pleased that half these new homes are affordable, and we look forward to being part of the area and its future.”

Rokhsana Fiaz OBE, Mayor of Newham and co-chair of the Royal Docks Enterprise Zone Board, said, “delivering much needed homes people can afford and a sustainable new neighbourhood, Silvertown will contribute uniquely to the revival of the historic Royal Docks and the iconic Millennium Mills.”

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