Homes versus high-rises: Will Isle of Dogs’ affordable housing survive the fallout of Canary Wharf’s luxury living expansion?

As developers expand the boundaries of Canary Wharf and flood the Isle of Dogs with high-priced flats, we investigate the pressures that may force long-term tenants in social housing off the island.

Across East London, you can still see large areas of derelict land where warehouses, factories and shipyards once were. These brownfields are remnants of an industrial economy that died out in the 1980s and also symbolise possibility. In a city as old and densely populated as London, it’s refreshing to imagine there are still spaces as yet undefined. 

Private enterprise has shaped the north of the Isle of Dogs since the 1980s, but as we highlighted in the first article of this series, the focus at Canary Wharf is shifting from business to leisure. 

We’re investigating the island’s current housing landscape as it plans to grow its residential footprint. Most importantly, we’re questioning who the changes will benefit. The new crop of luxury developments in Canary Wharf promises an island paradise. As hybrid working evolves and banks like HSBC prepare to leave the island, more people are moving into residential towers near West India Quay. 

Yet the rest of the island reflects a housing landscape in flux. It still contains four housing estates built after World War II for locals who were on mid to low incomes. As of writing, all but one tenant on the island’s Barkantine Estate pays social rent – the most affordable form of housing at around 40 per cent of average rents in the area. 

The island at a glance

The Blitz destroyed about a third of the area’s homes, and much of what was not bombed was demolished, despite resistance from some locals, because the government preferred to start over. The postwar housing boom continued into the 1960s and 70s with the construction of iconic housing estates in north Poplar, including Balfron Tower and Robin Hood Gardens. Though not perfect, the new builds were a welcome change for East Enders who moved to the island from overcrowded tenements in Whitechapel and Stepney. By 1980, approximately 97 per cent of residents on the Isle of Dogs lived in council-owned property. 

Data mapping tools indicate that most social renters, who make up 27 per cent of the island’s population, live on one of the four main estates. Their locations overlap with the areas where residents experience the highest rates of social deprivation. The map below shows four areas indicating that residents in those areas are experiencing social deprivation. The parts of the island inhabited by higher-income residents do not record any level of social deprivation. However, just north of the island, specifically in Poplar and Bromley-by-Bow, the map is red again, as per Tower Hamlets’ infamous economic divide.

Buildings overlooking the Thames have a higher ratio of single-person households and residents with a social grade of A or B, meaning they work in ‘higher and intermediate managerial, administrative and professional occupations’. The same traits are common around West India Quay, where new apartments are going up close to the financial centre.

In the early 2000s, the island’s council housing stock was transferred to two housing associations. Housing associations are privately owned non-profit companies. In 2023, housing associations managed 63 per cent of the UK’s social housing. 

On the island’s southern end, East End Homes runs Chapel House, Christchurch, Westferry, Riverside and Schooner Estates, all clustered around Island Gardens DLR station.

Riverside Housing Group (formerly One Housing) manages the remaining four estates: Kingsbridge, St Johns, Barkantine and Samuda Estate. Each includes tower blocks and low-rise homes. 

Tower Hamlets Council offered this response to a Freedom of Information request from Poplar LDN: ‘Prior to 2010 but post the large-scale social housing stock transfers (2005 – 2006) the council had just two properties on the Isle of Dogs – both let at social rent.’ 

Today, the council rents out just 24 homes on the island. They are also building Jute House, which will add 22 homes and a community centre to the Isle of Dogs. The rest is in the hands of private housing associations.

The new ‘yuppies’

When the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) developed the business park utopia that is Canary Wharf in the 1980s, the primary aim was for high-earners to work on the island rather than live there. The confluence of businesses and improved transport links in a capital city that experiences a perpetual struggle for space has led to Canary Wharf finally asserting itself as a desirable place to live. 

For all the cracks about this being London’s most soulless neighbourhood, when it comes down to it, there are plenty of takers for modern flats with excellent transport links and even better views. 

The 1980s Canary Wharf dream was for bankers to work on the island and buy converted warehouses in Bermondsey or Wapping, which quickly became the domain of the ‘yuppie’ (young urban professional). Today, major financial institutions are moving back to the old City, and the new offer in Canary Wharf is to live in an island loft and commute to the charming alleyways of the Square Mile for a few days a week of hybrid office-based work. 

The rules for affordable housing

But what does this change of use for today’s new yuppies mean to residents needing affordable housing?

The Greater London Authority (GLA) has rules to balance the ratio of luxury to affordable in new buildings, which are adapted for different neighbourhoods in their ‘Local Plans’. But you would be forgiven for losing faith in these rules once you learn what ‘affordable’ means: usually around 80 per cent of the market rate in a given area. So in E14, that’s an estimated £1900 per month for a one-bedroom flat. It’s sometimes referred to as an ‘intermediate’ affordable option. Social rent is more forgiving, calculated at approximately 40 per cent of the market rate. 

Shared Ownership deals allow residents to purchase a share in their home and continue to pay a discounted rent on the balance. Shared Equity refers to residents purchasing a share in their home without owing any further payments on the property. These are also included under the GLA’s definition of affordable housing. 

For new developments on public land, or land that was purchased from the council, the minimum requirements are as follows: 50 per cent of the new homes must be affordable; within that, 30 per cent can be shared ownership, but 70 per cent should be rented at social rates. And within that social rate, around 35 per cent can be let at ‘London Living Rent’ – a category that specifies that residents should not be spending more than 30 per cent of the average income for that area on rent. The remaining 35 per cent should be affordable to people who receive benefit payments. 

Developments on privately owned land, not inherited from the council, must provide at least 35 per cent affordable housing. However, that percentage can be lower if the council agrees to a revised proposal from the developers that claims it is not financially viable for them to complete the development without reducing the ratio of affordable homes. There seems to be scope for this percentage to change if the council and developers make an arrangement – for example, one where the developer provides additional public benefits or money to the council instead of homes. 

Plans for the Isle of Dogs

Right now, the queue of development plans for the Isle of Dogs extends far into the sky in every direction.

It includes upgrading former council estates and building on former industrial sites such as Westferry Printworks.

Canary Wharf Group is building ‘a private estate in the heart of London’ known as Wood Wharf, just east of the financial centre.

There are three schemes within a few blocks of each other, one on Cuba Street, and two more on Marsh Wall, the road which effectively marks the border between the Canary Wharf Group’s land and former council land. 

The large ASDA supermarket in Crossharbour, which is on the eastern side of the peninsula, is also slated for redevelopment promising new homes. As for the council estate revamps, the plans are phased out over the next decade, starting with the Barkantine Estate. The neighbouring Byng Street Estate – one block down from Cuba Street, has already been partially redeveloped. New flats in the building start from £607,000. 

In May 2024, Riverside announced its partnership with the developer Mount Anvil to regenerate the Barkantine Estate, which is on Tiller Road, near Millwall Inner Dock. In fact, they proposed to demolish all the island’s social housing back in 2015, but have scaled back due to resident outcry. The next article in this series will explore that in more detail, but what you need to know is that the Tiller Road scheme is the first phase of an island-wide overhaul. 

Looking at these seven new development schemes that I looked at (including Wood Wharf, Asda, Westferry Printworks) as well as the number of new homes to be added to existing housing estates, at least 11,713 new units are in the planning/construction process at the moment in the Isle of Dogs.

The ‘construction to displacement’ risks

When Balfron Tower and other council estates in Poplar were transferred from council ownership to ownership by the housing association Poplar HARCA, residents were consulted and most voted in favour of the transition.

Yet the situation exposed the construction-to-displacement pipeline. When residents were given the choice to move to another Poplar HARCA property or stay in Balfron Tower whilst construction took place, the obvious issue that was not appreciated at the time was how viable it would be for people to continue living in the building while it was undergoing major renovation work. In 2010, Poplar HARCA decided to ‘decant’ all residents for safety reasons. 

This process leaves residents in a treacherous limbo; if the developer and/or housing association claims that ensuing construction costs render it financially impossible for the building to continue to provide social and/or affordable housing, residents are not in a position to argue. As the Hackney Citizen put it in 2015:  the question of the sale of homes ends up being framed around a “right of return”, not a “right to stay”’. 

At worst, housing associations can carry out mass no-fault evictions under the guise of regeneration. At best, regeneration improves buildings and provides more homes, but drives up service charges and in most cases rent for the old tenants, many of whom are low-income families or elderly people who choose not to return to the improved building to avoid the stress of moving.

Riverside Housing does not appear to have a history of controversial redevelopment but was among the ten housing associations to receive the most complaints from housing ombudsmen in 2022. Mount Anvil has previously promised its projects would never use ‘poor doors’ which are separate entrances for affordable rent tenants. The company has received numerous complaints about high service charges – that are the same for all residents, regardless of their rent. 

The 1980s trend of housing privatisation continues to shape London – and the UK’s – housing landscape. As of January 2024, Tower Hamlets Council estimates that the percentage of property in the borough that belongs to the privately rented sector has doubled since 2003, and now sits at over 40 per cent. 

Three out of four estates that the council has earmarked for potential Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs) in the next few years, fall within the E14 postcode. Two are located in Poplar, namely the Teviot and Aberfeldy West regeneration schemes. The third is the Barkantine Estate on Tiller Road on the Isle of Dogs. Although Tower Hamlets Council has stated that CPOs are considered a last resort to deliver regeneration, the fact that the Council already anticipates a potential need to use CPOs shows they anticipate difficulties in regenerating the estate and possible resistance from residents. 

Tower Hamlets Council has not responded to a Freedom of Information Request asking for confirmation of the number of properties acquired through a CPO back in the 1980s to allow the LDDC to build Canary Wharf. However, multiple sources confirm that the LDDC was given ‘ free reign ‘ to carry out their scheme for the Docklands. 

Systemic flaws

No one wants to be villainised – not developers, not housing associations and certainly not the council responsible for selling off its social housing stock. 

Arguably the root of the problem is not an individual actor or authority – it’s the systemic privatisation of council housing stock that began in the 1980s. When councils cannot afford to pay to refurbish their estates or to improve council infrastructure, they sell their housing stock to housing associations or developers and rely on the private sector to build community infrastructure through Section 106 agreements. These are planning agreements where developers promise to deliver something of value to the community if the council sells them a piece of council property and allows them to redevelop it. Alternatively, the developer has to pay a Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) which the council uses to build infrastructure.

The system relies on developers to deliver on their promises. However, if a for-profit developer or even a not-for-profit housing association, determines that meeting the affordable housing target for their redevelopment scheme is no longer financially viable, they can use this as a valid legal argument to justify converting social housing to private housing.

Additionally, if the Greater London Authority (GLA) chooses to follow the advice set by institutions such as the Home Builders Association, they have the scope to ‘loosen up’ on the types of tenures included under the banner of ‘affordable housing’. That means being less fussy about the minimum requirements for social rent tenures and embracing every other kind of housing considered ‘affordable’. 

And if the GLA took that advice, could you blame them? The country and the capital are in a housing crisis. Local councils are in a funding crisis and rely largely on private-sector developers. Council MPs and the Mayor of London want to be able to say that they are meeting targets and boosting economic growth. Shiny, new homes are a good look, but the powers that need to be held accountable for the affordability of those homes are also the ones making the rules about what affordability means.

Isle of Dogs’ regeneration highlights the tension between luxury developments and the need for affordable housing. While new projects attract wealthier residents, long-term locals face displacement, with affordability often skewed toward higher market rates. The privatisation of council housing, coupled with the reliance on developers, raises concerns about who will benefit from these changes. An estimated 11,700 new residential units are planned for the Isle of Dogs; that figure only includes the seven most prominent new schemes, and the homes that will be added to regenerated council estates, not those that already exist. As the area evolves, ensuring that regeneration efforts provide true affordability and inclusion for all residents is critical.

In the next article we meet the underdogs fighting to stay on the Isle of Dogs.