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Crossrail set to diversify housing options for Canary Wharf workers

Crossrail will increase the housing options available to people working at Canary Wharf, according a director at Cathedral Group.

Martyn Evans, creative director of Cathedral Group, which was behind the development of the Millwall Fire Station on the Isle of Dogs, has said that those working in the Canary Wharf area will now be able to live affordably, thus changing the dynamics of the city.

Cathedral Group, which is also working on the Caxton Works in Canning Town, The Movement and Telegraph Works in Greenwich, Morden Wharf, and the Deptford Project.

He told The Wharf: “I am building in Hayes, in Hillingdon, around the Crossrail station. There are 3,000 homes in development in a place where no-one would have planned them before Crossrail.

“We are doing that because the value of that land, the value of those homes and the value of the office buildings is not what it is going to be when it takes half an hour to travel from Hayes station to Canary Wharf.

Crossrail will offer workers the chance to access housing in areas like Hayes within half an hour.

“For us, transport and the commercial and economic regeneration of London are completely, utterly and totally and inextricably linked to transport issues. That is it.

“As a commercial developer sitting in my office looking at a map of London looking at where my next opportunities are I’m looking at transport issues – I’m looking at where this is no transport and about to be some, and I’m looking at where transport is great but underused.

“I don’t think anyone’s got any clue yet what impact Crossrail is going to have on our city. But people will realise what it’s going to do and that will create opportunity.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .