Southwark approves 34-storey student tower

14/12/23

Scheme in Old Kent Road Opportunity Area will deliver 688 student beds and 23 affordable homes.

Southwark Council has approved TP Bennett-designed proposals for a 34-storey student-housing tower on the site of a business park in the borough’s Old Kent Road Opportunity Area.

In addition to the student housing for developer Joseph Homes, which is a mix of studios and clusters of apartments with up to eight bedrooms, the scheme features around 1,990sq m of employment space and 23 affordable homes for social rent in a seven-storey shoulder block. It will also deliver a new public square.

TP Bennett’s proposals are a reworking of an earlier scheme for the Sylvan Grove site that HTA Design created for the same client. Those proposals, which were approved in January last year, featured 219 homes and 2,986sq m of commercial workspace in a 32-storey tower and a five-storey block.

Joseph Homes decided not to progress the scheme because of viability concerns related to “significant increases in build costs” and changes to Building Regulations and Fire Guidance requiring the inclusion second staircases in buildings above 18m in height.

Joseph Homes’ project team includes planning consultant Rolfe Judd, structural engineer Civic Engineers, MEP consultant Introba and landscape architect OOBE.

Source; Building