Greg Hands MP last week visited the Chelsea Waterfront development including the site of Lots Road Power Station, for a tour of the building site.
The Chelsea Waterfront development covers 8 acres (not including Chelsea Creek) and has 600 metres of water frontage. It includes a total of 10 separate buildings, 3 new bridges, and 2 new public open squares. In Lots Road Power Station itself, there will be 260 new homes, 67 of which will be affordable, making it one of the largest residential converted buildings in the UK. Overall, there will be 706 homes in Chelsea Waterfront, of which 275 will be affordable. These new homes will be accompanied by restaurants, bars, shops, a community centre, a nursery, a doctor’s surgery, and improved transport links.
Lots Road Power Station was the largest power station in the world when it was built in 1904, and it was one of the first steel-framed buildings in Britain. Built to provide power to the London Underground, it was known as ‘The Nerve Centre of London’s Underground’, providing power to most of the railways and tramways until 1990. The power station was coal-fuelled until 1960, when it converted into an oil-fired power station, and reduced its four chimneys to two. These chimneys, which will be preserved as part of the development, were the tallest in Europe at 275 feet high when built. Lots Road Power Station was the longest serving power station in the world until it shut down its turbines around the turn of the millennium.
Planning permission for the scheme was granted in 2006, with new planning and design details conceived between 2010 and 2012. Construction on-site has been underway since then, and the construction for Phase One, comprising 100 apartments, is expected to be completed in 2017. Phase Two, which includes the power station itself, is expected to be completed in 2019/20. The developers, Hutchison Property, will invest over £1bn in the Chelsea Waterfront project, which will provide over 1000 construction jobs and a further 400-500 permanent jobs.
Commenting after his visit to the Chelsea Waterfront site, Member of Parliament for Chelsea & Fulham, Greg Hands, said: “It was promising to see progress being made on the Chelsea Waterfront development, and I should like to thank Hutchison for their very useful update. My involvement with this site goes back more than a decade to when I was MP for Hammersmith & Fulham and I raised concerns about the towers proposed for the development.
“I still think that two towers of 25 and 37 storeys are far too high for this site but, nonetheless, planning permission was given in 2006, and it’s time we saw these new homes being built.
“It was exciting to be able to stand inside the former Lots Road Power Station itself, and to realise not only that this historic and elegant structure is being preserved, but that people will actually be able to live in it in the future. I look forward to further updates on the Chelsea Waterfront development.”