Westminster seeks contractor to build £350m housing scheme

Westminster city council is looking for a firm to build a £350m housing development in the shadow of the upmarket residential job being built by Mace and Multiplex at Chelsea Barracks.

The work will involve redeveloping the Ebury Bridge Estate (pictured above) on the Ebury Bridge Road under a masterplan drawn up by HTA Design.

The estate is one of the borough’s oldest with the majority of the buildings having being built in the 1930s.

In July last year Westminster council announced that it planned to build 750 homes on the site, with at least 342 being affordable.

The new-look estate would feature nearly 200 social rented homes and 144 affordable family-sized homes, and of those 87 would be for social rent and 57 intermediate.

The council said all existing residents – council tenants and leaseholders – would be given a right of return once the building work was finished.

HTA’s plan (pictured, right) was granted planning in summer 2014 but, because of its size, was required by then London mayor Boris Johnson to give it the green light which he did the following March.

The development will sit across the road from the £1bn Chelsea Barracks scheme in west London which is being developed by Qatari Diar and will have 34 houses, 329 apartments and a 90-bedroom hotel.

Multiplex recently began work on the fourth phase, designed by Eric Parry, after beating rival bidder Mace – who worked on the first three phases.

Westminster said the tender process for Ebury Bridge will begin next month when a contract notice will be issued. It will be built in three phases with the first phase expected to cost £97m.

Phase one of construction is expected to start towards the end of 2020.