Network Rail Property has received planning consent for an outline masterplan to redevelop more than 30 acres of brownfield land at Bow Goods Yard in East London into a rail freight campus and last-mile logistics hub.
Bow Goods Yard is the final parcel of London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic legacy land to be unlocked and is Network Rail Property’s first independent planning submission.
The masterplan for the site proposes the creation of up to 190,000 sq m of industrial and logistics floorspace and office space, up to 36,000 sq m of space for leisure uses, up to 5,000 sq m of F&B space and up to 8,200 sq m of new publicly accessible public realm.
Robin Dobson, group property director at Network Rail, said: “Transforming this strategically underutilised freight site into the largest industrial and logistics campus that serves the whole of East London is central to expanding rail freight capacity and supporting the capital’s logistics market.
“The approval of this masterplan submitted by Network Rail Property is a major milestone in repositioning the property business. It marks our ambition to drive growth and investment across our brownfield estate, taking the lead on complex projects to ensure we deliver the widest mix of commercial and social opportunities. By working closely with local communities and businesses, we are ensuring sites like Bow Goods Yard will support the local area for generations to come.”
Blazej Czuba, urban studio lead at Maccreanor Lavington, added: “It has been an incredible journey for us developing a project that secures the industrial capacity of the site while positively responding to its unique context in the middle of the Olympic regeneration area. The result is a masterplan showing that heavy industry can successfully co-exist with other functions in a city, and that many industrial uses can be integrated into the street fabric, instead of being relegated to an out-of-town industrial estate. But this is not just an industrial project. The leisure and community component will expand what the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park has to offer, capitalising on London’s bourgeoning experience economy”.
“This project would not have happened like this without extensive early-stage community engagement that meaningfully evolved the project brief. We had over 700 active community participants across 45 events and a near-unanimous support for the proposed designs”
The masterplanning team for Bow Goods Yard comprises Maccreanor Lavington Architects and Urbanists, UMC Architects, Architecture:00, East, WSP, make:good, Useful Projects, Montagu Evans and Currie and Brown.
