IN Brief:
- Ballymore has secured Newham Council approval for a 5.26ha riverside scheme in Silvertown.
- The project includes nearly 1,700 homes, including 334 affordable homes, with workspace, retail, and community uses.
- The development now moves to mayoral referral before detailed design and a proposed 2028 site start.
Ballymore has secured planning approval from Newham Council for a major riverside development at Knights Road in Silvertown, east London, paving the way for nearly 1,700 homes on a 5.26ha Docklands site.
The Allies and Morrison-designed scheme will deliver 334 affordable homes alongside around 4,000 sq m of workspace, retail, and community uses. The hybrid application includes detailed consent for the first phase, covering 640 homes in three blocks ranging from six to 18 storeys, with 2,300 sq m of flexible commercial space.
Outline approval covers the wider build-out of the remaining homes across the site, which sits south of London City Airport between North Woolwich Road, the River Thames, Lyle Park, and neighbouring industrial land. The application will now be referred to the mayor of London for final sign-off.
Ballymore is expected to continue detailed design work before targeting a first-phase start on site in early 2028. The development will fund improvements to Lyle Park, the 4.5-acre riverside space gifted to the community by Abram Lyle of Tate & Lyle 100 years ago, while flood defences along the riverside are due to be upgraded as part of the wider package.
The approval adds another large residential-led project to the Royal Docks pipeline, where regeneration has to balance housing delivery, industrial land pressures, transport connectivity, and flood resilience. Silvertown’s position between the airport, historic dock infrastructure, and major transport corridors gives the site a set of constraints increasingly common across London’s remaining brownfield land.
Large urban residential schemes are now being asked to carry a wider share of local infrastructure and public-realm delivery. Taller residential blocks, active ground floors, workspace, open space, and resilience works are being bundled into planning packages that leave little room for single-use development models.
The affordable housing component will also remain under scrutiny as viability pressures continue across major residential schemes. Developers are working against higher construction costs, tighter building safety requirements, and infrastructure contributions that can affect phasing and procurement decisions.
The Knights Road scheme will now move from planning approval into the more difficult work of detailed design, procurement, and phasing. If mayoral approval follows, buildability will become the central test: delivering a multi-phase housing project on a constrained riverside site while upgrading public space and flood defences around it.
