City Hall has been urged to help unlock a long-delayed community housing project in Tower Hamlets that has not progressed to a planning application in six years. The Cable Street Community Land Trust (CLT) was awarded a disused Transport for London (TfL) site in 2018 to build 41 permanently affordable homes in Shadwell, including up to 12 social housing properties.
Funding setbacks and DLR viability concerns
In 2024, the CLT secured a £1 million grant from the Greater London Authority (GLA) to design the homes and submit a planning application. However, in 2025 TfL paused the project due to viability concerns. Officials estimated that proceeding with the scheme would add around £2 million in maintenance costs for the adjacent Docklands Light Railway (DLR) track. Part of the site is needed for DLR maintenance, and losing it would require occasional possession of Network Rail land, incurring extra costs and operational risks.
These delays caused the CLT to miss access to the GLA's Community Housing Fund (CHF), which would have provided another £7 million for the project, according to campaigners.
Deputy Mayor's response and call for new funding
Community leaders from Tower Hamlets met with Tom Copley, Deputy Mayor for Housing, to break the deadlock. Following the meeting, Copley noted that the GLA had already extended the CHF deadline twice for the project. He claimed TfL's actions have gone beyond what is expected to accommodate the CLT's ambitions. Copley urged the CLT to apply for further funding through the London Social and Affordable Homes Programme (LSAHP) and to ensure TfL can secure permanent access to a car park currently owned by Tower Hamlets Council.
“It is clear that the GLA and TfL are doing all that we can to facilitate this project, and going significantly further than we have with our other partners, including councils, housing associations and other providers of social and affordable housing,” Copley wrote in a letter. “I hope that you are able to develop proposals that would meet the flexible and minimal conditions set out if there is a further opportunity to bid for funding through the LSAHP as we intend, and for the land to be disposed without significant operational and financial risk.”
Campaigners remain hopeful
Frankie Webster, Senior Organiser at Citizens UK, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service she was encouraged by the letter. “Ten years is a long time for any community to wait, but we believe there's now a real opportunity to make this happen,” she said. “Cable Street is an opportunity to show what's possible when London backs community-led housing that keeps homes genuinely affordable for generations. With the right leadership and commitment, this can become a landmark example of how the city tackles the housing crisis while putting local people at the heart of development. We're ready to work with the GLA, TfL and the Mayor to turn that ambition into reality, and we'll continue campaigning until the homes our community has waited so long for are finally delivered.”
Political pressure and mayor's stance
Green Party London Assembly Member Benali Hamdache, who sits on the Housing Committee, said Community Land Trusts are an important alternative to the developer-led model. He has written to Mayor Sadiq Khan urging him to extend the funding deadline, resolve TfL's concerns, and meet with London Citizens leaders. In January, the London Assembly passed a motion calling on the Mayor to cover any costs required to safeguard the building of these homes on the existing site.
In his response to the motion, Khan appeared to blame the CLT for failing to approach officials about the site's release until late 2024. By then, he said, “the operational requirements of the DLR had changed significantly. DLR now relies on part of the Cable Street land for essential maintenance activities. Losing this land would force DLR to undertake maintenance through Network Rail possessions four or five times each year. This would create substantial operational risk due to reliance on external approvals and would incur annual costs of at least £500,000, plus additional one-off consultant, leasing, and operational expenses with every possession. Even with additional funding, these ongoing operational risks are considered unacceptable.”
TfL's position
Steven Wilkinson, TfL’s Head of Property Services, said: “We are supportive of the proposed affordable housing development on our land at Cable Street and recognise the positive contribution it would make to the local community by delivering much-needed affordable housing in the area. Cable Street is a key operational site for the DLR to maintain its infrastructure, so we and our colleagues at Places for London are working with London CLT to find the most appropriate way forward to deliver these homes within appropriate GLA funding programmes while also ensuring the DLR can continue to maintain the network effectively.”
