QUESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE
St William is the land owner and developer for the Kensal Gasworks land parcel shown outlined red below. St William is part of the Berkeley Group and specialise in the redevelopment of redundant gasworks across London and the South East. See more examples of St William’s developments here.
The Kensal Canalside Opportunity Area (KCOA) is the largest opportunity area in RBKC and the borough’s primary site for housing delivery. The brownfield site has been allocated by the Greater London Authority (GLA) and RBKC in regional and local planning policy since 2011 for the provision of 3,500 or more new homes. This was recently tested and considered sound again by the Planning Inspectorate in July 2024 as part of the adoption of the RBKC New Local Plan. The KCOA includes land north and south of the railway line and includes landowners: St William, Ballymore, Sainsbury’s, Network Rail, RBKC, Cadent and Department for Transport.
You can read more about Kensal Canalside Opportunity Area here:
https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/planning-and-building-control/kensal-canalside-opportunity-area
St William have submitted a detailed application for 198 new homes and an outline application for up to 74,450 sqm GEA of residential floorspace. The application will deliver around 775 – 800 new homes in total, however, the final unit numbers and area delivered in the outline component remains subject to later planning applications. St William will provide 16% affordable housing by habitable room, which based on the illustrative design equates to 77 social rent homes including 63 Social Rent family homes of 2 – 4 bedrooms.
As part of this, St William will create around 200 jobs and contribute around £9m to RBKC for improvements to local education, public spaces, healthcare and to provide more bus services to the site and the local area. St William will deliver 7,882 sqm of new publically accessible open space and remediation works to open a currently inaccessible former gasworks. St William will deliver an improvement to the canal towpath improving the quality, safety and accessibility. St William will deliver improvements to active travel in the local area through improvements to local walking and cycling infrastructure and improving the safety of the Ladbroke Grove Canal Way junction.
St William have submitted a detailed application for 198 new homes and an outline application for up to 74,450 sqm GEA of residential floorspace. The application in total will deliver around 775 – 800 new homes in total, however, the final unit numbers and area delivered in the outline component remains subject to the final design of later planning applications.
St William will provide 16% affordable housing by habitable room , which based on the illustrative design equates to 77 social rent homes including 63 Social Rent family homes of 2+ bedrooms.
St William have prepared an evidence based financial viability assessment that assesses the maximum reasonable level of affordable housing that the site can deliver. This is assessed by RBKC and RBKC’s appointed independent expert. The maximum affordable housing level is the maximum amount that can be delivered whilst still ensuring the developer is able to make an agreed industry standard level of profit that reflects the risk of development and incentivises the developer to develop the site. The St Willam assessment is based on the evidence of independent experts such as JLL who have advised on sales revenues, Core 5 who have advised on build costs and BNP Paribas who have advised on the Existing Use Land Value for the site. In the event the viability of the site improves in future then RBKC will benefit through a review mechanism agreed in the Section 106 mechanism. A review mechanism is a re-assessment of the maximum reasonable level of affordable housing that the site can deliver at agreed later points in time.
St William submitted an update to the planning application in November 2025. St William target reaching a planning committee and obtaining planning permission for the site in Q1 – Q2 2026. St William forecast starting on site in 2028 – 2029.
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