Tower Hamlets backs plan to turn four Canary Wharf offices into temporary homes
The council's plans describe about 180 family-sized homes at Marsh Wall, but approvals, design and building work are still to come.
Tower Hamlets Council's cabinet on Wednesday 21 October backed a proposal to buy four office buildings at 191, 193, 195 and 197 Marsh Wall in Canary Wharf and convert them into temporary accommodation for local families.
The council's plans describe about 180 family-sized homes, made up of 167 two-bedroom and 13 three-bedroom units. The council presents these numbers as the intended capacity of the scheme. No homes exist yet.
The decision lets the council go ahead with pursuing the purchase and conversion. Nobody has moved in, no refurbishment has started and the final number of homes has not been settled.
The council says about 2,700 families are among the more than 3,100 households it currently houses in temporary accommodation in the borough. It says the number of homeless households is growing by around 11 per cent a year.
The council says it wants families to stay nearer their schools, support networks and workplaces, and to rely less on costly nightly paid accommodation. It describes temporary accommodation as a place to live while a household's longer-term housing is sorted out, not a permanent allocation.
Before any homes open, the council needs building surveys, a design, statutory and planning approvals, contractors and the refurbishment work itself. It has not given a completion date or a date for the first households to move in, and it has not published the financial terms of the deal.
