Work continues at Canary Wharf’s North Quay site
Recent trips past the sprawling North Quay area of Canary Wharf have shown work progressing after somewhat of a lull.
The vast site will see a major expansion of the Canary Wharf estate to the north close to Poplar DLR station, and continues the trend of moving away from office development.
The more advanced plot is a life sciences building closest to West India Quay DLR where basement excavation has been ongoing with detailed plans approved in July 2023.
A mass shortage of available lab space has been reported in the UK.
The above render is merely indicative for most buildings except the red block.
What it shows is proposed walking routes with a link to Canary Wharf station on the Elizabeth line and a square next to the dock. A through-route would then lead to Poplar station offering better connections across the site.
In time the Billingsgate site will be redeveloped when all of the City of London’s markets head east to Beckton.
Diversify
While some have been quick to write the obituary for Canary Wharf they’ve missed that the area has been diversifying for some years away from offices for the financial industry.
Wood Wharf to the east is mainly residential. Thousands of homes are underway to ensure the area is not a ghost town after 6pm or during the day now more work from home.
North Quay continues that goal. A large amount of future floorspace will be residential and commercial.
Much of the area is now busy day and night as the residential population grows, and not only at Canary Wharf but on all sides from Marsh Wall to the south and three forthcoming student towers to the east.
Much of that growth is aided by the arrival of the Elizabeth line last year. And forthcoming new DLR stock entering services from 2024 will boost capacity across the network by 60 per cent in coming years.
Now if we could see a better cultural offering in the area that’d really improve what’s around. As right now if you want some live music, stand up or museums it’s not a great offering.
There’s the excellent Museum of London but given the scale of population now seen, it’s an area that could be improved.
A fabulous article, and I do adore the new developments in the area, especially the NY feel of the back section of Wood Wharf. The Museum of the London Docklands is a hidden gem, and a wonderful “local” museum centred on the history of the docks and those who once lived there, and that is exactly what I want from a “Museum of London.” I could not care less for the loss of HSBC, and welcome everything new. Canary Wharf is a small slice of Manhattan in the East End, and the broadsheets that hate it can go sop in a bar in Nine Elms. Well done John: that Greenwich rag the comes in through the doors should pay you to scribble for their dull newspaper.