Transport for London has pulled the sale of the 1,500 home Limmo Peninsula site in east London from its Property Partnerships Framework.
The 12.3 acre site was considered one of the jewels of the portfolio of surplus sites TfL had earmarked for disposal as part of its plans to reinvest property receipts into London’s tube network.
But since being put up for sale in February it has failed to attract the hoped for interest from the 13 developers on the panel as increased affordability requirements and the cooling London development market decreased viability.
Graeme Craig, director of commercial development, said: “Limmo Peninsular is one of our biggest development sites with the potential for 1,500 homes. It’s therefore right that we make the most of the opportunity.
“The Property Partnership Framework is serving us well, but we are looking at additional options to bring forward sites like Limmo that will enable faster build and help us generate more long-term revenue. We will give more details on this in the next few weeks.”
The site could be marketed to the growing number of large scale PRS developers, none of whom are on the panel.
TfL’s developer framework and its first tranche of sites to be released for sale attracted considerable interest when they were launched in February 2016.
However, Sadiq Khan’s election in May that year and his pledge to increase affordable house building on public land meant TfL had to rethink its disposal plans. Khan tasked TfL with ensuring that across all sites brought forward 50% would be affordable.
Combined with the cooling central London market this affected the viability and the level of interest in schemes.
At the Limmo peninsula, 40% of the site, or 600 homes, would need to be affordable.
TfL also pulled the sale of its headquarters at 55 Broadway in St James, SW1, as a luxury residential development after the market started to slow in 2016, instead choosing to stay in a sale and leaseback deal.
The Limmo site is a former Crossrail tunnelling site, and sits adjacent to Canning Town station at the centre of a huge amount of regeneration in east London. Thousands of homes are being built at Aberfeldy Village, City Island, on the Royal Docks and north along the Bow Creek.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said at the time of its launch: “It is no secret that it will take many years to fix London’s housing crisis, and we ultimately need government support – but schemes such as this prove that we are can make a real difference now by delivering high-quality neighbourhoods with a large proportion of genuinely affordable homes.”
The Property Partnership’s Framework has brought forward four of the six sites that TfL has sold since 2016:
■ Landmark Court, Southwark – potential for more than 80 homes, 35% affordable.
■ Kidbrooke, Greenwich – potential for 400 homes, 50% affordable.
■ Blackhorse Road, Waltham Forest – potential for 350 homes, 50% affordable.
■ Northwood, Hillingdon – potential for 100 homes, 35% affordable.
Pic credit: High Level/REX/Shutterstock
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