London's new waterside villages: first residents move into transformed Thames-side neighbourhoods at Fish Island, Greenwich Peninsula and London City Island

Londoners are irresistibly drawn to the Thames. For so long the lifeblood of the city’s industrial wealth, the river is now being transformed by a wave of smart new developments with improved transport links offering easy commutes.

But it’s not just happening along the Thames. Numerous tributaries and associated canals are seeing unprecedented regeneration of waterside sites at locations that can be styled as islands, if sometimes tenuously.

New waterside villages are being driven by an emphasis on arts and architecture as well as their watery vistas, and take full advantage of natural loops in the river. However, buyers will pay a heavy premium to wake up to a view of water. A recent study by Cluttons shows homes overlooking the Thames enjoy premiums of up to 93 per cent.

FISH ISLAND

Once a swathe of rotting warehouses and factories overlooking the Hertford Union Canal where it meets the River Lea, Fish Island Village is a significant development of 434 private homes, 146 affordable flats, plus workspace for creatives and entrepreneurs.

The £200 million village — close to Hackney Wick and an easy walk from the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and Stratford — is centred around a new public square overlooking the canal. Vanessa Coetzee, senior development manager at housing association Peabody, working with housebuilder Hill to develop the site, hopes to create “vibrant new spaces for people to live, work and relax”. The first residents move in next spring, and the village will be complete in 2020.

“The area has gone through a creative revival recently, and we want our homes to become part of the creative community thriving in Fish Island and Hackney Wick,” she said.

Artists adopted Fish Island when barely anyone else had heard of it — driven from Hackney by high prices, they settled here, setting up studios and workshops.

The terrible irony of a development that prides itself on including creative workspaces — to be run by The Trampery, a social enterprise with a strong track record of providing space for start-ups within its mix of homes — is that elsewhere many of Fish Island's original artists have been forced to leave the area because their studios are being demolished to make way for new homes.

The first homes at Fish Island Village went on sale last month and more than 40 were reserved in the first couple of weeks. One-bedroom flats start at £445,000, and Help to Buy London is available, meaning buyers need only a five per cent deposit. Two-bedroom flats start at £615,000 and three-bedroom flats at £725,000.

Meanwhile, developer Aitch Group has bought six sites on Fish Island (so called because it sits between the River Lea, Hertford Canal and, rather less lovely, the teeming A12), on which it will create almost 400 homes to rent or buy, plus shops and workplaces.

First to come through are in Monier Road, where a former smokehouse is being turned into 45 new flats. The homes are due to go on sale this year — prices to be announced — and completed next year. www.aitchgroup.com

LONDON CITY ISLAND

This high-rise, high-density scheme of 1,700 new homes with a Manhattan vibe is being created on a 12-acre teardrop of land encased within a meander of the River Lea as it approaches the Thames near Canning Town, two miles from Canary Wharf.

The Leamouth Peninsula is a former industrial site that sat empty for generations until developers Ballymore and EcoWorld saw its potential. They are spending £2.25 billion on the project, where new buildings of up to 25 storeys are sprouting up.

London City Island also has impressive arts credentials. The English National Ballet and National Ballet School will occupy a landmark building designed by architect Glen Howells at the centre of the peninsula, and the London Film School is to move from Covent Garden, bringing with it two cinemas, studios, and up to 200 students.

The first 650 residents moved on to the island late last year and by 2020 the peninsula will be home to about 3,000 people, with site sports facilities, shops and a deli-bar.

But herein lies its controversy. The development is one of the densest ever seen in the capital and planners and objectors raised concerns whether the new footbridge, the main access off the island towards Canning Town, will cope with the sheer volume.

Ballymore says it will and that this kind of ultra-dense housing development is the future, as the capital struggles to create enough homes for its ever-growing population.

The latest phase of homes was launched late last month, with prices from £432,500 for a studio apartment, £493,000 for a one-bedroom flat and £640,000 for a two-bedroom flat.

Meanwhile, Ballymore has begun work on a second site on the Leamouth Peninsula, where 804 new homes, plus residents’ sports facilities, a business centre, cinema and a restaurant will be built to a design by award-winning architects Allies and Morrison.

The first residents will move into Goodluck Hope — named for the farm and smallholding that once occupied the site — in late 2019. Commuters can use Canning Town station or pick up the Thames Clipper to Canary Wharf in 17 minutes or London Bridge in just over half an hour. Prices from £335,000 for a studio apartment.

GREENWICH PENINSULA

Since the first homes were launched at this giant 150-acre regeneration zone in 2014, more than 700 have sold and the first residents move in later this summer. The sales demonstrate an appetite for living by the O2 centre with its 1.6 miles of waterfront, but also that in a currently troubled market, mass developments such as this are going to be slow going.

On offer right now are homes within Upper Riverside, five waterfront buildings designed by SOM Architects, with communal roof terraces, a Tom Dixon-designed lobby, swimming pool and gym. The site has water on three sides, and the majority of flats at Upper Riverside overlook the Thames — the best have views over Canary Wharf and the City.

Prices start from £470,000 for a one-bedroom apartment, £775,000 for a two-bedroom flat, and £995,000 for a three-bedroom flat. A three-bedroom penthouse with terraces overlooking the river is £2.1 million.

Greenwich Peninsula will eventually include 15,000 new homes — and much more. This truly mixed development, by Knight Dragon, will rival Canary Wharf, with a £1 billion landmark building by Spanish starchitect Santiago Calatrava as its centrepiece.

His fantastical glass arcade featuring a cluster of airy towers will house more homes, plus offices, shops, restaurants, a cinema, a performance venue and a hotel, all atop North Greenwich station, which is to be renamed Greenwich Peninsula station.

The ambitious £8.4 billion project to build a new suburb around the O2 is going to take about 15 more years to complete and will feature a film studio and a couple of schools, along with health facilities and a design district.

Home buyers are going to need to be in a position to exercise a little patience as it all comes together. However, the potential for price growth — once the current cycle of stagnation in the property market has run its course — is undeniable.