BANKSIDE YARDS — a £1 Billion riverside neighbourhood linking South Bank and Bankside. Development includes 1.4 million sq ft of workspace, homes, independent shops, eateries and cultural space within 14 restored railway arches.

Work has started on a £1billion mixed-use development that will bring a previously inaccessible part of London’s riverside between Tate Modern and Blackfriars Bridge back to life, a £1bn mixed-use development that will connect South Bank with Bankside for the first time in over 100 years. The centre piece of Bankside Yards will be the restoration of 14 historic railway arches set in three acres of newly-created open space, which will be fully accessible to the public, opening up new pedestrian routes between two established cultural destinations of Bankside and South Bank.

London-based developer Native Land and their consortium partners Temasek, HPL and Amcorp Properties, have started construction of the development’s fully-funded first phase, known as Western Yards. This will initially deliver Arbor, a 230,000 sq ft office building bringing top quality workspace to SE1’s under-supplied market, and an elegant new residential building of 240 apartments with views across the capital. Western Yards will also create 50,000 sq ft of independent retail, restaurant and cultural space in the restored railway arches.

More than half of the 5.5-acre Bankside Yards site will be walkable open space, with extensive greenspace and a sweeping stairway down to the river. It will include a total of around 600 homes and will, in addition, make a financial contribution of at least £65 million to Southwark Council to deliver new affordable housing across the borough. The overall development will create an estimated 3,600 jobs in the retail, commercialand construction sectors, while providing training and apprenticeships for local job seekers.

Alasdair Nicholls, Chief Executive of Native Land, said:

‘Bankside Yards will draw together Bankside’s established cultural, commercial, retail and residential worlds around a new neighbourhood where people will work and live, visit or just spend time by the riverside. We are opening up an important piece of London with amazing transport connections and, as locally-based developers, we are keen to contribute to the rich mix of the area by creating a place that’s accessible, enjoyable and productive.’

Native Land is developing a cultural strategy for Bankside Yards which will integrate the development’s 20,000 sq ft of new cultural spaces and its proposed cultural activities programme with the wider South Bank and Bankside creative and arts scene.