London skyscrapers: 48-storey building in Southwark to be among 80 new towers due for completion in the capital this year

Eighty new skyscrapers are set to be completed in London this year, with 18 of them in the borough of Tower Hamlets, new research reveals.

Tall buildings are classed as skyscrapers when they reach 20 storeys or more. In Southwark, a 48-storey tower will form the centrepiece of a new development that will provide more than 1,100 new homes.

At 522ft, the slender building clad in off-white ceramic tiles will be one of the capital’s tallest towers outside the City and Canary Wharf. A third of the flats and houses will be lower-cost, intended for first-time buyers and renters priced out of central London.

Southwark council has given the go-ahead for the high-density project, which will also feature offices and shops plus a proposed theatre or cinema.

It will be built by Galliard Homes on the Cantium Retail Park site in the middle section of Old Kent Road, close to Burgess Park.

At close to five acres, the site is around the size of three football pitches.

“The contribution that the scheme could make to local regeneration would be very significant,” said Simon Bevan, Southwark’s director of planning.

“This would include the provision of significant contribution to the borough’s housing stock, including affordable housing; a significant increase in jobs and new employment spaces; the delivery of a potential new destination space, and the creation of two generous new public open spaces.”

The development is the largest of four major schemes set to transform Old Kent Road from a traffic-clogged, slightly grotty thoroughfare to a bona fide regeneration zone

Over the next 20 years the council hopes to see 20,000 new homes built along the road and in side streets leading off it.

Southwark’s new tower comes at a time when new completions will include Newfoundland, a 722ft tower in Isle of Dogs in Tower Hamlets, and the 945ft-tall 22 Bishopsgate in the City.