Re: Disposal of Land adjacent to Limehouse Basin, Commercial Road, London E14.
Thank you for your response regarding our Public Notice in respect of the proposed sale of the above property.
By way of background, this strip of land was included in a long lease of the adjoining residential property known as Zenith Building, 590 Commercial Road, Limehouse granted by the Trust’s predecessor – British Waterways in 2005. Under the terms of this lease, the strip of land in question cannot be developed or built upon without the consent of the Trust so unfettered access to the quayside is protected.
As part of the Trust’s on-going disposals programme, we sold the adjoining Zenith building earlier this year but excluded the strip of land in question. This resulted in a situation whereby the 2005 long lease has been split in ownership between the Trust and the new owner of the Zenith building. One way to rectify this anomaly is to sell the remaining strip of land in question to the new owner of Zenith, which was our intention under the public notice. This freehold disposal would include the same rights as contained in the 2005 lease regarding unfettered access to the quayside
Having carefully considered the various representations made to our Public Notice, we accept that that the sale of this land on a freehold basis is not in the best interests of the Trust and we will not be progressing it. However, we will give consideration to granting a further long lease over this area whilst ensuring that the existing provisions protecting the land for public use are maintained. This is to rectify the split lease scenario as set out above. By retaining the freehold ownership of the land – the Trust will be able to exert more direct control over it into the future.
I appreciate that this note is quite technical and legalistic in nature, and I’d be happy to discuss it directly with you if any aspects of it are unclear.
Regards,
Brian Casey
Head of Estates