IN Brief:
- AHMM’s final Elephant Park phase has secured consent for 695 co-living homes on a 1.2-acre South London site.
- The approved scheme combines co-living, social-rent family homes, an NHS health centre, and active ground-floor amenity across three buildings.
- A contractor tender is now expected as the last plot in the wider masterplan moves from planning into delivery.
AHMM has secured planning approval, for developer HUB, for a 695-home co-living scheme at Elephant Park in South London, converting a site once intended for office development into a residential-led mixed-use project. The consent covers the final 1.2-acre plot in the wider 10-acre Elephant Park masterplan and marks the closing phase of a regeneration programme that has been reshaping Elephant & Castle for more than a decade.
The approved scheme, known as Chords, is set to deliver 695 co-living homes alongside 20 three-bed family homes for social rent, a new NHS health centre, and active ground-floor amenity. The health provision is planned for the lower floors of one of the buildings, with frontages to Elephant Road and Walworth Road, while the wider site will be built out as three linked but distinct blocks.
Design and public realm are carrying as much weight here as density. Earlier project material from AHMM and HUB set out a shared podium courtyard, children’s play space, two rooftop terraces, and a landscape strategy led by Gillespies, with permeability and active frontage built into the final piece of the masterplan. The scheme is also planned as largely car-free, aside from policy-compliant parking associated with the affordable homes and healthcare use.
The approval also reflects a wider shift in central London development logic. A plot previously positioned for commercial floorspace has now moved into a higher-density living model that combines residential intensity with local social infrastructure, rather than treating that infrastructure as a later add-on. In this case, the health centre is part of the consented mix from the outset, not a future aspiration.
HUB is now expected to run a competitive tender for contractor appointment, moving the scheme into its next delivery phase. For London planners and project teams alike, the approval underlines how residential density, community use, and public realm are increasingly being bundled together on complex urban sites where standalone office assumptions no longer hold as firmly as they once did.
