From Barking to 'Barcelona on Thames'? East London regeneration hotspot will have 5,000 new homes with waterside bars and restaurants by 2020

Barking and Dagenham, jokes locally born, passionate council leader Darren Rodwell, is half the price of Richmond in the west, half the journey time away from the centre, but twice the fun.

It has a bold mission to become “Barcelona on Thames”, thanks to its huge Barking Riverside scheme, and a string of other projects in the pipeline, with plans to underpin its success with jobs, not least in attracting artists and makers.

The area once enjoyed generations of industrial employment with big players including Ford. Regeneration plans are aimed at attracting new investment with a focus on new affordable homes.

“In this borough, you can get a three-bedroom house, 100ft garden, two cars on the front, still for under £300,000,” says Rodwell, 47. “There’s nowhere else in London that can happen.”

That, and the fact that Barking station is 15 minutes into the city on the Fenchurch line make this an attractive proposition. London is moving east, says Rodwell, but he is keen to learn from past mistakes on large-scale regeneration.

“We’re not looking for gentrification. We’re looking for aspirational working-class people. We want to make a place for every Londoner.”

The local authority wants to be the first borough to create an affordable private rented sector, at the London Living Wage. It has a goal of building 50,000 homes inside 20 years.

Great schools, low crime and green space

It already boasts that over 90 per cent of its schools are rated Ofsted “good” to “outstanding”, and the borough has one of the lowest crime rates around. It is also looking to build one of the largest film studios to be created in 25 years, and at new live/work spaces for artists with an artist enterprise zone, all to attract entrepreneurs.

The borough has more public green space than any other in London, adds Rodwell. And for those who think it is a schlep, Barking has four train lines including two Tubes and plans a new rail link to the riverside by 2021 — it is awaiting the green light from government imminently, after a public inquiry — while the Elizabeth line will stop on the border of the borough at Chadwell Heath.

Its approach to housing is innovative. Barking Riverside will be the only “healthy new town” in London, rethinking how health and care services can be delivered. There’s a plan to put the heavily polluting A13 below ground in a tunnel and build 15,000 new homes on top, linking into the riverside. Another 6,000 homes are being built in the town centre.

Rodwell wants people to stay. He has set up Be First, an arm’s-length housing company owned by the council with Lord Kerslake at its helm, expected to quadruple the borough’s 500-600 homes output per year.

The old Ford stamping plant that inspired the hit musical Made in Dagenham will become 2,650 homes as well as a new school and industrial museum of east London on 42 acres.

Rodwell is talking to Legacy, the affordable housing venture from footballers Rio Ferdinand, Mark Noble and Bobby Zamora, “with around 700 homes in the offing in London’s first youth zone, a kind of leisure centre for young people”.

Then there is the so-called Barcelona on Thames itself — Barking Riverside. This will bring 10,800 new homes plus commercial space, restaurants, bars and cafés. Project director of Barking Riverside London, Matthew Carpen, says L&Q and London Mayor Sadiq Khan are involved in a joint venture to provide affordable homes.

The project is the redevelopment of a former power station site with a rich history of buildings, jetties and wharves, enriched by ecology and the river.

One of Europe’s biggest brownfield regeneration sites, it has a mile-and-a-quarter of south-facing Thames-side space and a river walkway.

A total of 700 homes are already built and occupied, including three-storey townhouses with gardens and balconies. A further 400 homes are under construction, of which Bellway is selling one-, two- and three-bedroom units now, ranging from £249,000 and £351,000, while L&Q has flats for rent from £1,300 a month.

A second phase will start on site next month with 380 units, with sales from June next year and occupation the following summer.

Elsewhere, 360 Barking is a project to design 291 homes in a series of cylindrical towers of up to 28 storeys in the town centre, with the ground floor devoted to a creative hub for an arts organisation.

Lymington Mews, meanwhile, comprises 610 homes in North Dagenham, and its second phase is now being built out, a mixture of two-, three- and four-bedroom houses and one- and two-bedroom flats.

Other projects include redevelopment of the Vicarage Field Shopping Centre site for a major mixed-use scheme by 360 Barking designers Egret West with 900 homes, a primary school, cinema, music venue and 150-room hotel.

If you have not got the message already, Rodwell says: “It’s all happening in Barking and Dagenham. It’s why I’ve gone grey.”

"It's a great place"

Alex Sweeting, 27, bought a third-floor, two-bedroom balcony flat at Barking Riverside with his now fiancée in 2013. “Elsewhere we couldn’t have got anything like the size or quality of what we bought here,” he says.

Alex works in the City in email marketing and co-chairs the residents’ association in Barking. It has set up a shop and community garden, organised night walks and social trips to the local cafés. “It’s a great place,” adds Alex.