Canalside Development

In August 2020 we will be celebrating the 200th anniversary of the opening of the Regent's Canal. Will there be anywhere left on the canal that bears any resemblance to its original form or that will help to remind us of its spectacular heritage? Or will the whole waterway be drowned out by inappropriate and misplaced modern buildings?

These photographs illustrate some of the worst cases where the canal and its historic structures have been undermined. In most cases the designers' objectives were to generate profit for their clients without giving anything back to the canal.

Salmon Lock and Frank Whipple Place E14

Hopefully these developments have helped to provide affordable housing, but the wafer thin design suggests that this plot was perceived as dead space.

Mile End Park

Are parks no longer sacred? Evidently not in Tower Hamlets. What part of the phrase "open space" did the planners not understand?

Bow Wharf

This popular gateway, where the Hertford Union meets the Regent's Canal, has been downgraded from the centrepiece of a green corridor to a water feature cutting through a housing development.

Rosemary Works

This would probably win first prize in any competition to find the ugliest building on the Regent's Canal, especially since it robbed this area of its unique charm when the demolition began earlier this decade. But its true purpose is becoming apparent now that the cranes have arrived at neighbouring Colville Estate. It will help to disguise an even more drastic development behind it.

Hoxton Wharf

"The new Crown & Manor Club is proving to be very popular with local young people. It has improved the canalside and contributed substantially to the regeneration of this part of Hoxton."

But what, if anything, has it given back to the canal and its users? Any new water points or loading bays? Is it a wharf by nature or just by name?

Gainsborough Studios

City Road Basin

St Pancras/Camley Street Park

St Pancras Lock

Camley Street/St Pancras Way

We were never consulted about this development at 103 Camley Street. It just appeared from nowhere, like the spire on the Chrysler Building. Sadly, other developers are now using this tall building as a "benchmark" in their quest to turn this part of the canal into a shaded canyon.

Is this building trying to represent a ship that has crashed into a bridge? Or is it just a randomly designed structure that shows no respect for the listed building that it virtually overlaps? Where were the heritage officers when this was approved?

Park Road

Paddington Basin

Click here to see controversial planning applications that we have been involved with since 2011.