The search for a developer to help Newham Council regenerate the Carpenters Estate is to be abandoned.
Newham mayor, Rokhsana Fiaz, announced last Tuesday (November 27) that all future proposals for the Stratford estate a stone’s throw from the station will be led by residents and include a minimum of 50 per cent affordable homes.
Ms Fiaz said: “This is a fresh start. I want this to be a beacon of good practice in regeneration and residents to be at the heart of it.
“I ask them to put aside the false promises and false hopes of the past and suspend their disbelief that something different will happen, because it will happen.”
Newham Council launched a bidding process to find a commercial partner to help redevelop the Carpenters in August last year under former mayor Sir Robin Wales’s previous administration.
The estate was to be demolished making way for thousands of new homes and jobs under the multi-million pound plans.
Work was expected to start in 2020.
But Ms Fiaz announced the bidding process was to stop at a full council meeting at Stratford Town Hall on Monday ahead of a report being sent to Cabinet on December 4.
The report recommends the council undertakes a review of options for the estate to deliver the largest number of socially rented council homes possible.
It includes a recommendation that people who move out of homes on the Carpenters to allow for building work have a right to return to the regenerated estate.
The mayor told 70 Carpenters neighbours of the report and the decision at a meeting on Saturday.
Ms Fiaz said: “Newham is facing a housing crisis and I want the 28,000 people on the housing waiting list to have a place they can call home.
“The Carpenters Estate has the potential to help do this and I am determined to get on with building more homes.”
She added residents felt they had not been listened to for years and had lost confidence in the council.
“The council is committed to restoring that trust,” she said.
If the council’s Cabinet chiefs give the report the thumbs up, Newham will begin looking at options for the estate.
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