More than a century after it was built, Millennium Mills is set to be brought back to life in a multi-million pound project.
The scheme, which will create 3,000 new homes and up to 21,000 new jobs, has been handed £12million as a boost from the Department for Communities and Local Government.
To mark the grant, communities minister Penny Mordaunt MP and the deputy mayor of London for housing, Richard Blakeway, paid a visit to the 62 acre site on Wednesday.
“It’s really exciting. I’ve heard so much about this place and now the work can really start,” she said.
“There will be a lot of people working here who will be able to live in the area.
“This iconic building will be the centrepiece of a thriving new business district that will create thousands of new jobs and bring prosperity back to the docks.”
The former flour factory, which was built in 1905, has been vacant since the early 1980s but will get a new lease of life as a hub for start-up businesses, while homes will be built on the surrounding land..
The £12m, which has come from the government’s Building Foundations for Growth Enterprise Zones capital grant fund, is being used to speed up the redevelopment.
It means work to remove asbestos can get under way much earlier than originally scheduled, speeding up the renovation by five years.
The site will be redeveloped in three phases, the first of which will now include the intended conversion of the mill and is scheduled to be completed by 2017.
Across the phases, a mixture of apartments and houses are set to be built, with 39 per cent designated as affordable accommodation.
A new bridge linking the site with Custom House station will be constructed, providing easy links to the new Crossrail station when it opens in 2018.
Elliot Lipton from the Silvertown Partnership, the consortium which will be developing the site, said: “Silvertown is a final part of the jigsaw for east London.
“We have a unique opportunity here to bring together many of the leading edge activities, with the space to grow, to collaborate, to move our city forward.”
Initial proposals were submitted to Newham Council in August, with a further planning application due to be handed in next month. If everything is approved, the site will also feature facilities for the community including a new primary school .
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here