First UK family focused rental housing scheme gains planning permission

This week the Royal Borough of Greenwich gave Essential Living planning consent to build the UK’s first housing scheme purpose designed, built and managed for families to rent.

Creekside Wharf will comprise of 249 homes across two buildings designed by Assael Architecture.

In addition to the spacious family homes, the development will offer both internal and external amenity space, which is envisaged will give tenants a new way to enjoy communal living, allowing them to interact, socialise and build closer communities.

Examples of the family focused nature of the homes can be seen in the facilities provided. These include buggy and pram storage; extra acoustic insulation; internal and external play space; workshop areas and rooftop facilities, which include space for grow gardens and barbeque and pizza ovens.

Creekside Wharf will see intertidal terracing installed along the creek wall in an effort to promote native flora and fauna. Plans include provision for an active promenade, with areas for organised events and popup stalls. There will also be space for a significant commercial area, a ground floor bar/café open to the locals and a new pocket park.

Director of Assael Architecture, Russell Pedley, said: “This the UK’s first Build to Rent development specifically designed for families who want to rent in a vibrant and inspiring location.

“The ethos behind the scheme is that customers rent the entire building, rather than just an apartment, so amenity space plays an integral role in the design. It’s designed to create a lifestyle and strong sense of community through each building, providing residents with an attractive and robust environment where they’ll want to stay long-term. This, in our minds, is fundamental to a successful Build to Rent scheme.”

The development will make 25% of the homes available at discount market rent (DMR). The will be no difference between the DMR homes and the other market rent properties, with both having access to the same facilities, access points, irrespective of who lives in them.

Local authority-identified homes households will occupy the DMR homes and rent them at considerably discounted rates from open rental markets. A flexible approach employed by the council allows for the delivery of a greater amount of subsidised housing due to the nature of build to rent developments. Profits are returned over a long period of time in contrast to the traditional built for sale method, which generate capital receipts.

Council leader Denise Hyland commented: “The scheme is highly imaginative and I wish it every success. I’m very impressed with the affordable [housing] offer and this is overall an innovative scheme.”

Essential Living’s development director, Quentin Keeble, said: “We are delighted to have secured planning consent for Creekside East and it will be our fourth scheme underway. We’ve worked hard with Royal Borough of Greenwich to create a truly innovative housing offer. With a block designed specifically for families and affordable housing that is truly tenure blind the scheme exemplifies the future of London housing. We are grateful to the council for supporting this vision and for taking a flexible approach in helping drive forward Build to Rent in London.”

Essential Living was incorporated in 2012 and seeks to create 5,000 private rented homes over the next ten years across London and the South East.

The London-based company are leading exponents of the ‘Build to Rent’ sector, which sees homes built and managed solely for rent rather than being sold to investors. Research carried out by Savills, the global real estate services provider, indicates that this approach will play a valuable role in the resurgence of the UK property market, and could see around £30Bn invested into building new homes over the next five years.

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