Investor Henley puts in 81-home Ebbsfleet Garden City application

Henley Investments has submitted an application for 81 affordable homes, that will be part of the first phase of the mixed-use district centre of Ebbsfleet Garden City.  

The homes have been designed by architect HTA and will be built with a nursery, gym, extensive public realm and a new 30,000 sq ft Morrisons.

This first phase will have a GDV of £32m, while the whole district centre will be worth an estimated £150m. Henley said construction should start “soon”. 

Warwick Hunter, managing director for development and asset management at Henley, said: “Henley is now bringing forward a state-of-the-art community hub building, a new high street and over 500 residential dwellings as part of the district centre.”

Mark Taylor, head of acquisitions at Morrisons, added: “Morrisons has entered an agreement with Henley and look forward to the construction works starting shortly.” 

Last year there were a series of deals at Whitecliffe, Ebbsfleet Garden City, including 1,000 housing plots to three national housing developers. Whitecliffe, formally known as Eastern Quarry, is the largest development site in Ebbsfleet Garden City. 

The government announced plans to create a new locally led garden city at Ebbsfleet on former quarries in 2014. The city should provide up to 15,000 new homes in total on brownfield land, with Henley being just one of the developers.  

Henley Camland’s wholly owned subsidiary Eastern Quarry owns the 667-acre site. 

Former interim Homes England chair Simon Dudley was named as the chair of the Ebbsfleet Development Corporation for four years last year.