All change for Stratford: Olympic Park university campus, 600 homes, art schools and theatres to transform east London hub

Gritty Stratford in east London is set to become a university and arts district. Work is to begin on a new campus for University College London in E20’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, while at nearby Stratford Waterfront, there are plans for 600 flats, plus, by 2023, a new Victoria & Albert East Museum. The London School of Fashion is opening a new base in Stratford, as is BBC Music and there will be a new dance theatre for Sadler’s Wells.

The UCL East campus, Marshgate 1, will be a landmark academic building with laboratories, exhibition spaces and workshops in the shadow of the ArcelorMittal Orbit sculpture. Preliminary work will begin on part of the campus within weeks and be completed in 2022, exactly a decade after the London Olympics put Stratford on the map.

Marshgate 1 will be followed by several more university buildings, notably Pool Street West, beside the London Aquatics Centre, with 500 student rooms, teaching space and amenities including shops.

This first phase of the “UCL East” project will have the capacity for 4,000 students. Eventually East Bank will have more than 10,000, putting it on a par with St Andrews and the London School of Economics.

Lucian Cook, head of residential research at Savills, said the the investment of a reported £1.2bn in educational and cultural facilities will enhance Stratford’s status as a major London centre. “After a period of high price growth we are now at a different stage in the property cycle, and can expect lower house prices over the next five years.” However, this big-scale regeneration could give Stratford property prices a boost.

“It already has better retail and transport, and the addition of cultural and educational facilities will create a better environment which will help support house prices.”

James Brown, director of JBrown estate agents, said Stratford is already in the grips of a seismic demographic change. “Ten years ago it was super-rough. Even in the shopping centre there was this dark cloud over the area, whereas now things like gang culture have really quietened down.”

He believes the arrival of large employers including the Financial Conduct Authority has encouraged affluent professionals to buy into the area, while Stratford’s great transport links and relative good value is enticing home buyers away from the City and Canary Wharf. “A big trend is also people from Islington, parts of Hackney, and west London coming to buy a Victorian house for around £600,000. The same three-bedroom terrace in Hackney would cost £700,000 or £800,000.’’

At the moment prices in Stratford are stable. Across Newham prices rose an unspectacular 1.4 per cent in the last year, to an average of £367,175, according to the latest UK House Price Index.

Around the fringes of the Olympic Park homes currently on the market range from a three-bedroom penthouse in Olympic Park Avenue, for sale with JLL for £975,000 to a 25 per cent share in a two-bedroom flat in Hackney Wick, available for £127,000 with housing association Southern Home Ownership.