Refurbishment work on the Abbeyfield Estate is set to begin in August 2017, creating five new storeys on Maydew House and replacing the Bede site with housing, the council has announced, Kirsty Purnell writes.
The work is anticipated to take four years and the scheme will cost an estimated £24,228,200.
Five additional storeys will be constructed on top of tower block Maydew House, and charity Bede House will re-locate from its existing site to below Maydew, creating space for new homes on the current Bede site.
Project architects, Haworth Tompkins, are introducing mixed housing to the site to ensure that the project as a whole will be ‘cost-neutral’ for residents, while still remaining under council ownership.
A report into the development, considered at Tuesday’s cabinet meeting, said that in order to balance project costs, the council needs to sell a total of 45 units in the Maydew block on the open market. Twenty four of these units will come from the five additional storeys on top of Maydew.
However, 90-100 new homes will be built on the current Bede site. The council anticipates that these new builds should be 100 per cent council and social housing properties, a council spokerson said.
Councillor Stephanie Cryan, Southwark Council’s cabinet member for housing, said, “The refurbishment of Maydew House will help to meet the ever growing need for housing in Southwark and will provide good quality council homes to secure the future of Maydew House.”
“We have listened to and taken on board the views of residents to make significant improvements to the Abbeyfield Estate. We know from the current housing crisis that we need more homes of every tenure and this scheme will deliver on that need.”