An outline masterplan to regenerate over 30 acres of brownfield land at Bow Goods Yard, East London, into a rail freight campus and last mile logistics hub has been unanimously approved by the London Legacy Development Corporation.

Bow Goods Yard is the final parcel of London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic legacy land to be unlocked and is Network Rail Property’s first independent planning submission.

Under the industrial-led masterplan, up to 3 million sq ft of floorspace will be created, including heavy and light industrial space. Bow Goods Yard has the potential to deliver a new centralised hub for Network Rail, accelerating London’s transition to green freight future. Taking up to 90,000 HGV movements a year away from the national road network, the masterplan will cut congestion and emissions.

Additionally, a range of leisure uses are proposed, with the flexibility for up to 350,000 sq ft destination leisure supported by 35,000 sq ft food and beverage alongside 55,000 sq ft of sports pitches to complement existing facilities on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Bow Goods Yard is vital to London’s construction sector, supplying over a million tonnes of aggregates annually. Rail freight contributes £2.5bn to the UK economy, and hubs such as Bow Goods Yard will be crucial to expanding sustainable freight as businesses switch to rail.

The development improves rail freight capacity and efficiency by consolidating operations, enclosing and screening the concrete-batching facility, which enables an integrated last mile logistics hub to be brought forward, with the scheme creating up to 5,000 new jobs.

Currently an isolated site, large parts are not accessible to the local community, and a series of green open spaces will be created, delivering 200,000 sq ft of new public open space. New public realm will improve the Greenway, creating new pedestrian and cycle routes alongside the introduction of 150 trees, green walls and green roofs.

Key facts

• Up to 190,000m² floor space including Employment and Industrial Uses (with up to 61,000m² storage and distribution, up to 21,000m² Office space and up to 46,000m² of workspace, as well as Concrete Batching plants, Freight Aggregate and Open Storage), alongside up to 36,000m² Leisure uses and up to 5,000m² commercial Food and Beverage offers;
• Up to 5,000 new jobs – the site currently supports around 100 jobs today;
• Up to 3.5 million tonnes of construction material transported by rail from the site;
• Up to 8,200m² of new publicly accessible public realm;
• Minimum 10% biodiversity net gain including improvements to the existing Old Ford Wood;
• Maximised roof area for PVs with an aspiration to achieve 4GWh/y of renewable energy production;
• Sustainable water management on site, including SuDS and water capture for on-site reuse.

The masterplanning team for Bow Goods Yard included: Maccreanor Lavington Architects and Urbanists, UMC Architects, Architecture:00, East, WSP, make:good, Useful Projects, Montagu Evans and Currie and Brown.