Homes England has approved funding to accelerate delivery of 3,000-home, south-east London mega-project

Homes England has approved a £100m loan to British Land designed to pay for infrastructure to unlock the firm’s 3,000-home Canada Water development.

The money from the £4.5bn Home Building Fund will enable British Land to accelerate the scheme by three years, the housing quango said.

It said the funding will help pay for £30m of new transport infrastructure, affordable homes, support for the town centre and the development’s sustainability strategy.

Part of Allies & Morrison's huge Canada Water scheme

British Land’s huge Canada Water scheme, designed by Allies & Morrison

British Land’s mixed-use regeneration project in Canada Water, south-east London, is designed to redevelop the 53-acre site into between 2,000 and 4,000 homes, and anything between 500,000 and 2.5m sq ft of office space, according to market demands.

The firm, announcing full-year results today, said it had begun enabling works for the first phase of the masterplan build out, and that main-build contracts were to be placed in the coming months.

The firm secured outline planning consent for the masterplan last May, seeing off a judicial review at the end of last year. The first three buildings in the scheme, for which it has detailed consent, will provide office space alongside 265 homes.

Gordon More, interim chief executive of Homes England, said the body was determined to use its resources to galvanise projects across the country.  “Accelerating the delivery of one of the country’s most ambitious and transformative projects by three years is a huge achievement at any time,” he said, ”but to be doing it now, just when the country needs growth and new economic opportunities, feels incredibly important.”

Housing minister Christopher Pincher said the funding would help to deliver the government’s ambition to increase the supply of homes.