Policy information sourced from Newham Local Plan 2018

S4 Canning Town and Custom House

Proposals which address, and where appropriate accord with the following over-arching strategic principles and vision-based spatial strategy will be supported:

  • Strategic Criteria:
    • Achieve an enhanced, integrated, mixed and balanced neighbourhood including new waterside quarters, an expanded successful town centre at its heart and secondary focuses and intensification at Thames Wharf, West Ham and Custom House/Freemasons Local Centres, together with strengthened employment areas;
    • The area’s regionally-significant economic role will be reinforced through further development of the existing warehousing, engineering and green industry, and visitor economy, business and conference clusters with good access to the Strategic Road Network, complemented by town centre growth and change towards Major Centre status, and bolstered by the new Crossrail station; and
    • Major new housing (at least 15,608 additional units), jobs growth and infrastructure provision will be delivered through a comprehensive programme of regeneration and renewal and managed release of SIL and associated wharf consolidation primarily on 12 Strategic Sites (acting in concert with those in adjoining neighbouring areas and well integrated with their surroundings), with non-strategic opportunities including through managed transition, activation and sensitive infill also being identifiable at locations within the wider area.
  • Spatial Strategy:
    • Canning Town town centre will be revitalised, intensified and expanded, growing in status – marked by some of the tallest buildings in the borough – as well as physical extent, benefiting from high quality public realm, a renewed market space, a better quality and mix of shops and other uses including leisure and workspace that improve activation, trade draw and dwell time, and improved east-west links to the station interchange and to adjacent residential neighbourhoods, functioning as an employment hub and broader focus for activity and facilities both during the day and into the evening. Variety and distinctiveness will be fostered by the range of uses in the centre; a mix of unit types and scale; and effective integration with the existing high street part of the town centre, surrounding neighbourhoods and heritage assets, including development of attractive gateway sites with complementary uses and settings and a careful distribution and composition of tall buildings that protect views and make appropriate transitions;
    • Custom House will become the primary gateway to south Newham and the Royal Docks with the opening of Crossrail. Custom House station will become the centre of an effective transport interchange that connects with Freemasons Local centre and through to the ExCeL Centre, London City Airport and beyond, supporting a renewal and expansion of the centre, welcoming both local residents and visitors to ExCeL and other dockside destinations. As the main north-south connection, Freemasons Road will become a place where people choose to walk, cycle and use public transport as well as stop and rest. Development will be intensified in the vicinity of Custom House and Royal Victoria stations, making best use of land including undergrounding of pylons should opportunities arise, whilst not contravening sustainable community and design quality objectives, achieving coherence and integration with other development in the area;
    • New local centres and community uses focused around West Ham and Thames Wharf stations will become resource hubs for new neighbourhoods and surrounding areas, marked by new tall buildings and well-used by new and existing residents, local workers and others passing through the area, with visitors drawn into the sites, towards the rivers by attractive parkland routes and onward connections;
    • Elsewhere, Abbey Arms will be a key Local Centre and resource hub, with further local shopping protected at Cundy Road, Fife Road and Western Gateway;
    • Two new streets will be created across the area: one residential in character, one more activity-based and including green infrastructure. These will provide important connections between the town centre, surrounding neighbourhoods, important and improving community facilities and open space, and the other key node of Freemasons/ Custom House;
    • Links will also be improved with surrounding areas including to the district centres at Bromley-by-Bow and East Beckton, to stations, the town centre from the south, the Lea River Park and Greenway, the Docks, ExCel/Royal Victoria and Royal Albert employment hubs, and the Thames, with new accessible bridges put in place and re-opened over rivers and other barriers, amongst others, along the Leaway (see Canning Town and Custom House Inset map) facilitated by the release of Mayer Parry and Priors Wharves, at Customhouse, over the dock to Silvertown Quays, as well as through general increased pedestrian and cycling permeability and comfort (notably along North Woolwich Road), interchange improvements, and bus routes that have evolved to address [new] desired patterns of movement;
    • Cody Road together with Prologis Industrial Estate will continue to be an important employment location, focused particularly on heavier industry, (include waste processing and engineering) warehousing and distribution, with Strategic Sites at Canning Town Riverside and Parcelforce, and the LMUA at Bidder Street managing the transition to residential to the north and south; Managed Release of SIL and the associated Safeguarded Wharf at Thames Wharf will occur in the context of wider industrial opportunities in the Royal Docks, allowing for re-location and re-provision/ consolidation off site;
    • The dockside mixed use leisure, convention, recreation and business district focused around the ExCeL Centre, Crystal Building and Cable Car, will be a further employment hub, with a focus on consolidation and integration within the area, addressing deficiencies such as lack of green space, poor pedestrian environment along Seagull Lane, the cumulative impact of tall buildings, and the barrier effect of the Crossrail line and of long linear development, developing new links with the complementary evolving employment hub at Royal Albert;
    • LMUAs at Bidder Street, Silvertown Arches, Esk Road and Beeby Road and additional micro-opportunities to the east of Canning Town Centre, will complement and further diversify the employment offer moving towards lighter, cultural, creative and service uses more compatible with residential and other contexts; smaller scale industrial opportunities will also be available at Butchers Road LIL;
    • Outside of the Strategic Sites – which will see comprehensive development replacing underused employment land and lower quality or poorly laid out housing and commercial uses with a wider variety of sizes and tenures in a series of high quality, well-connected, safe and sustainable neighbourhoods which have easy access to employment and new and enhanced community facilities – residential hinterlands will undergo more gradual renewal brought about by the cumulative impact of small scale changes and character-sensitive infill including public realm and smaller scale infrastructure improvements, particularly focused on the Key Corridors of Barking Road, North Woolwich Road, Victoria Dock Road, Silvertown Way, Manor Road, Freemasons Road /New Barn Street/Butchers Road/Munday Road, Hermit Road/ Grange Road/Upper Road, and Balaam Street;
    • New and improved open space connecting with the green grid and integrating and re-valuing heritage assets will be provided amidst large scale residential development and through the ongoing evolution of the Lea River Park linking the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park to the Royal Docks and Thames and across to communities in Tower Hamlets, with continuous linear greenspace broadening out at Cody Dock and Royal Victoria West and into parks at Bow Creek Ecology park (which will be enhanced), and on the Limmo Peninsula and at the Bromley by Bow gasholders (which will be made publicly accessible and will make substantial contributions to district and local park deficits in the wider area);
    • Local energy generation and district heating will be extended in the area with Major developments being required to enable linkage to networks; and m. In order to deliver the above vision-based spatial strategy, the following Strategic Sites sites, as shown on the Policies Map, are allocated for development as set out in Appendix 1:
      • S08 Thames Wharf
      • S11 Parcelforce
      • S13 Manor Road
      • S14 Canning Town Central
      • S15 Canning Town East
      • S16 Silvertown Way East
      • S17 Silvertown Way West
      • S18 Limmo
      • S28 Custom House/ Freemasons
      • S30 Royal Victoria West
      • S12 Canning Town Riverside
      • S06 Coolfin North

For more information please see the Local Plan 2018