Landsec’s £1bn Lewisham Regeneration Gets Green Light
Lewisham is about to swap a tired 1970s mall for a 21st-century city district: 1,700+ new homes, a re-made shopping offer, three public squares, a rooftop meadow and a 500-capacity cultural venue — all delivered in phases by Landsec across a 17-acre site at the very centre of SE13. Councillors resolved to approve the masterplan this week, clearing demolition of the mall and multi-storey car park and unlocking towers up to 35 storeys.
What’s actually coming
➜ Homes: circa 1,744 units in total across phases, including ~344 affordable (a mix of social rent, London Living Rent and discounted key-worker), ~630 student beds and ~445 co-living rooms. 10% of homes will be wheelchair accessible. The council is explicit: no residents are displaced by the scheme (there are currently no homes on the site).
➜ Heights & massing: new buildings rising up to 35 storeys, establishing a denser skyline beside Lewisham Station.
➜ Public realm & green infrastructure: three new public squares, 300+ trees and large areas set aside for accessible green space, including a rooftop meadow and improved east–west walking/cycling links. Almost half the site is earmarked for public green space.
➜ Culture & night-time economy: a ~500-capacity music/cultural venue, with rehearsal and production spaces; a permanent home for the much-loved Model Market in a re-imagined food court/street-food square.
What’s actually coming
➜ Homes: circa 1,744 units in total across phases, including ~344 affordable (a mix of social rent, London Living Rent and discounted key-worker), ~630 student beds and ~445 co-living rooms. 10% of homes will be wheelchair accessible. The council is explicit: no residents are displaced by the scheme (there are currently no homes on the site).
➜ Heights & massing: new buildings rising up to 35 storeys, establishing a denser skyline beside Lewisham Station.
➜ Public realm & green infrastructure: three new public squares, 300+ trees and large areas set aside for accessible green space, including a rooftop meadow and improved east–west walking/cycling links. Almost half the site is earmarked for public green space.
➜ Culture & night-time economy: a ~500-capacity music/cultural venue, with rehearsal and production spaces; a permanent home for the much-loved Model Market in a re-imagined food court/street-food square.
➜ Retail & jobs: Landsec signals a re-made shopping centre with similar overall retail quantum to today, integrated into streets rather than enclosed, and an economic uplift repeatedly trailed at ~£160m p.a. once fully active.
Why it matters for London’s construction economy
Brownfield densification, at scale. This is the capital’s playbook in action: extract new housing capacity from aging retail assets and transport-adjacent land — without touching the Green Belt. The technical challenge: phasing demolition and construction while trading continues and while safeguarding the DLR/rail interfaces and utilities. Expect complex logistics, temporary wayfinding and out-of-hours possession windows.
The mixed-tenure reality. Student, co-living and BTR sit alongside affordable rent. For contractors, that means multiple specification tiers within single plots, distinct MEP/amenity strategies and different funders/asset managers to satisfy. The procurement winners will be those who can standardise cores and services while mass-customising envelopes and interiors.
Public realm first. Delivering the squares and green spine early will be politically and commercially smart — it de-risks perception, supports meanwhile uses and helps leasing. But it also loads the programme with early utilities diversions, attenuation, SuDS and tree-pit infrastructure that must be coordinated before superstructure ramps up.
The questions we should keep asking
Affordability & mix. The headline affordable number (~344 homes) will be scrutinised for both tenure depth and distribution across phases. How much is delivered early? How resilient is it to cost inflation?
Transport disruption & resilience. Repeated cable theft incidents across London rail corridors this year show how fragile networks can be; a town-centre build of this complexity must bake in hard security, materials traceability and site-perimeter design that resists opportunistic theft and trespass.
City AM
Local business continuity. Re-providing retail quantum isn’t the same as protecting trader viability. The success metric here will be: how many independents trading today are still around — and thriving — when the last plot hands over?
Our take
Lewisham’s plan is ambitious and overdue. The centre has been on life support for years; retrofitting it into the 2040s was never realistic. If delivered with phasing discipline, credible meanwhile activation and a front-loaded public realm, this can be the case study for how London transforms tired malls into liveable, mixed-use districts.
But success will hinge on execution: getting the first two phases right, proving the affordable homes pipeline, and making the new streets feel safe and active on day one, not just in glossy CGIs. Landsec has the balance sheet and track record; now the industry needs to bring the logistics intelligence and supply-chain depth to match.
The questions we should keep asking
Affordability & mix. The headline affordable number (~344 homes) will be scrutinised for both tenure depth and distribution across phases. How much is delivered early? How resilient is it to cost inflation?
Transport disruption & resilience. Repeated cable theft incidents across London rail corridors this year show how fragile networks can be; a town-centre build of this complexity must bake in hard security, materials traceability and site-perimeter design that resists opportunistic theft and trespass.
City AM
Local business continuity. Re-providing retail quantum isn’t the same as protecting trader viability. The success metric here will be: how many independents trading today are still around — and thriving — when the last plot hands over?
Our take
Lewisham’s plan is ambitious and overdue. The centre has been on life support for years; retrofitting it into the 2040s was never realistic. If delivered with phasing discipline, credible meanwhile activation and a front-loaded public realm, this can be the case study for how London transforms tired malls into liveable, mixed-use districts.
But success will hinge on execution: getting the first two phases right, proving the affordable homes pipeline, and making the new streets feel safe and active on day one, not just in glossy CGIs. Landsec has the balance sheet and track record; now the industry needs to bring the logistics intelligence and supply-chain depth to match.
This is the right scheme in the right place — a serious test of London’s ability to rebuild its town centres with communities, not around them.
