Be First gets green light for 400-home scheme in Barking
Barking & Dagenham Council’s development company, Be First, has been granted consent for a 396-home build-to-rent scheme at Crown House in Barking.
The development spans two buildings of 20 and 29 storeys. It includes 43% affordable homes by habitable rooms, with 169 units at low-cost rent, affordable rent and shared ownership in the shorter tower.
The remaining 227 homes will be private market BTR homes. The affordable units will be owned and managed by Reside, Barking & Dagenham’s housing company. An operator for the PRS units has still to be selected.
Barking & Dagenham Council’s development company, Be First, has been granted consent for a 396-home build-to-rent scheme at Crown House in Barking.
The development spans two buildings of 20 and 29 storeys. It includes 43% affordable homes by habitable rooms, with 169 units at low-cost rent, affordable rent and shared ownership in the shorter tower.
The remaining 227 homes will be private market BTR homes. The affordable units will be owned and managed by Reside, Barking & Dagenham’s housing company. An operator for the PRS units has still to be selected.
The residential provision has been scaled down from initial plans that proposed 500 new homes.
The site on Cambridge Road in Barking currently has an existing tower block, which will be demolished as part of the new development.
Be First will also deliver a new public pedestrian route linking Cambridge Road and Linton Road and a public square.
Pat Hayes, managing director of Be First, said: “This is a really exciting development for Be First because will be delivering a 400-unit scheme including 169 low-cost social housing units on the site of a dilapidated office block and car park to kick-start the regeneration of Barking town centre.”
Be First owns around 1,000 acres of development land and has plans to build 50,000 new homes within the next 20 years. Last year, it launched a vision for Barking town centre, which it described as a “mini Manhattan”, including significant over-track development above Barking Underground station and around 2,200 new homes.
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