Will East India Dock be the next Shoreditch? £250m masterplan includes Europe's longest freshwater pool and high-tech workspaces for 8,000 Londoners

Workspace for up to 8,000 young Londoners is included in a £250 million plan to transform a forgotten quarter of east London that will include a 650,000 sq ft campus and Europe’s longest freshwater outdoor swimming pool.

The campus, called Republic, aims to provide hi-tech workspaces for fledgling businesses and goes live in the new year. It is set to boost a relatively unknown area at East India Dock in Poplar.

Robert Wolstenholme, founder of Trilogy Property, has a track record of developing workspaces for creatives in Shoreditch. Now that “artistically oriented” new businesses have been firmly priced out of that area, Wolstenholme believes Poplar is poised to become the next big thing.

“I chose the area by looking at where the young, energetic, bright, innovative people are going to live,” he said. “When you look at the development pipeline of apartments [in Tower Hamlets] it is obviously huge. Many of them are specifically designed to be affordable. Rather than turning this site into loads more apartments, I thought, why not use it as workspace for the thousands of people who will be moving into the area and will want to be able to walk or cycle to work?”

Workers at Republic will enjoy little extras like that swimming pool — a re-purposing of a currently dismal canal-style water feature already on the site — along with a gym, climbing wall, and on-site shops and bars.

The first tenant is co-working firm The Trampery which will operate 9,000 sq ft of workspace for start-up companies, artists, and designers, including some free space for fledgling businesses.

Wolstenholme is keen to point out that rents at Republic will come in at less than £35 per square foot, which is half the price of Shoreditch. “You are going to be able to rent office space in Zone 2 London at Manchester prices,” he said.

He hopes that as more people begin living and working in Poplar, close to the new Crossrail station being prepared at Canary Wharf, new shops, bars, and restaurants will open, giving the area a “vibe”. He added: “Already it is affordable and amazingly easy to get to.”

Homes in Poplar have so far missed out on the wave of regeneration and gentrification that has swept across east London over the past five years.

According to Rightmove, the average property in E14 currently costs £443,000, and has seen only marginal growth over the last two years.

For now, property options in Poplar are largely limited to flats within blocks built between 1980 and the mid-Nineties, priced at between £400,000 and £500,000 for a two- or three-bedroom home.