IN Brief:
- Telford Living has exchanged contracts to acquire the International Way site from the Department for Transport and HS1.
- Stratford Curve proposes 749 student beds across two buildings, with half designated as affordable student accommodation.
- Subject to planning permission, construction is expected to start in 2028 with practical completion targeted for 2032.
Telford Living has exchanged contracts to acquire a site beside Stratford International Station and submitted plans for a 749-bed purpose-built student accommodation development across two buildings.
The International Way site is being acquired from the Department for Transport and HS1. It sits immediately north of Stratford International Station and opposite Westfield Stratford City on land currently used for parking and operational railway purposes.
The planning application, promoted as Stratford Curve, proposes 749 student beds within a mixed-use development. Half of the accommodation is intended to be affordable student housing, giving the project a substantial affordable component within a sector facing increasing scrutiny over rents and access.
Subject to planning permission and completion of the land transaction, Telford Living expects construction to begin in 2028. Practical completion is targeted for 2032, leaving a long development and delivery programme before the first rooms can be occupied.
The site offers strong transport connections but also presents construction constraints. Development beside active high-speed rail infrastructure will require foundations, cranes, access routes, temporary works and site logistics to be designed around railway assets that must remain protected throughout the build.
Excavation and piling close to operational infrastructure can require additional monitoring and approval because ground movement cannot be allowed to affect adjacent railway structures. The structural and construction methodology will therefore need to demonstrate how heavy works can proceed without creating unacceptable risk to the station or rail corridor.
The application represents Telford Living’s first land transaction since the business adopted its current identity. Formerly Telford Homes, it rebranded in late 2024 as part of a strategy extending beyond conventional residential development into purpose-built student accommodation, build to rent and co-living.
Stratford Curve gives that strategy a substantial project test. The company is moving into a capital-led model in which it can acquire and develop sites while using external contractors for construction delivery, changing the relationship between development management and the physical build.
Telford Living has already been building a student accommodation pipeline. Earlier in 2026 it submitted plans for a separate 520-bed development at the former LEB Building on Cambridge Heath Road in Bethnal Green. Stratford therefore extends an emerging sector position rather than representing an isolated diversification project.
The company is also familiar with the immediate area. A separate International Way development completed in 2025 delivered 380 homes in two towers, including 133 affordable homes, through a project with Legal & General. That scheme demonstrated the density and infrastructure constraints attached to construction around the Stratford transport interchange.
The new student proposal is on a separate site, but many of the delivery pressures are similar. Buildings around Stratford International have to coexist with rail infrastructure, heavy pedestrian flows, neighbouring development and the wider Olympic Park area. Construction logistics are consequently part of the design problem from an early stage.
The current four-year period between a 2028 start and 2032 completion also points to a scheme requiring careful phasing. Student developments can face unusually fixed operational deadlines once an opening academic year is selected, making delays near completion more difficult to absorb than on conventional residential projects where handovers can sometimes be phased.
Public realm forms part of the current proposal, with the development intended to activate one of the remaining sites around Stratford International. Planning assessment will therefore extend beyond the number of rooms to massing, movement, servicing, the relationship with nearby transport infrastructure and the quality of the ground-level environment.
The 50% affordable student accommodation commitment will form another part of the viability equation. Affordable provision changes the income profile of the finished scheme, while building beside live railway infrastructure can add technical and programme cost. Those pressures will have to be reconciled as design and planning work progresses.
Main contractor procurement has not yet been announced and detailed construction methodology remains a later stage. The current milestones are control of the development opportunity, submission of the planning application and establishment of an indicative programme.
If consent is secured, the period before the planned 2028 start provides time to develop those details with HS1, statutory authorities, designers and the eventual contractor. On a site beside one of London’s busiest transport hubs, the quality of that pre-construction work will influence whether the four-year build can proceed without railway interfaces becoming the dominant programme risk.
