It was in May last year that the first signs emerged of what could be one of this decade’s biggest housing stories. A planning application was submitted for the Bow Goods Yard scheme in Stratford, north-east London. It went largely unnoticed by the housing sector because the scheme, a huge freight logistics hub, contained no housing.

Approved last October, it is set to see up to three million square feet of industrial and leisure space built on the last plot of land to be released as part of the 2012 Olympics legacy, all of which is interesting enough in its own right. But it was a little noticed detail in the application that could prove to be the most significant for the housing sector in the years ahead. 

Bow Goods Yard was the first planning submission for which Network Rail, which owns the land, was the main applicant. Previously, when the transport operator wanted to develop land in its ownership, it had either sold it to an investor or appointed a development partner to lead the scheme. 

Now, under the leadership of the group’s property director Robin Dobson, it is taking a much more assertive role in the development of its vast portfolio of land holdings. Dobson wants Network Rail, Britain’s largest owner of brownfield land, to become one of the country’s biggest housebuilders – and believes it could build as many as 50,000 homes.