please empty your brain below
Looks a nice development to me.
There was not a lot at the old bus station.
Visitors to the Dome will have shops in the new station and then there are all the cafes and shops inside the Dome.
Stations seem to be becoming shopping malls now.
I read that St.Pancras station shops had a good shopping season this Christmas.
Waterloo is due to get lots of shops under the old Eurostar terminal.

John | 04.02.17 - 7:15 a.m. | #

I think you've misread "foot" as "metre" when you're comparing dimensions.

dg writes: rewritten, thanks.

Henry | 04.02.17 - 7:49 a.m. | #

I read about this new construction the other day.
Good grief,I thought, another large boil on the face of our beloved town! 😥😥

Jo W | 04.02.17 - 7:53 a.m. | #

Yet more people squashed onto the Jubilee Line - perhaps they hope they'll go the other way via Canary Wharf.

Funny how all these architectural visions have an overhead shot, they seem to be designed so people in helicopters have the best view.

Still anon | 04.02.17 - 8:00 a.m. | #

Seems sensible to develop it. It is in a sensible location, and I hope the new shops are good.
As long as they build a McDonalds, I was surprised I need a bus ride to get cheap food round the area.
And although I like the name Greenwich Peninsular, can't see the point in renaming it.
And they still probably won't build social housing, so in reality, this doesn't benefit anyone.

neyagness | 04.02.17 - 8:20 a.m. | #

The footprint is the shape of an equilateral right-angled triangle i.e. half a square, and 500ft is (just under) the length of the hypotenuse.

Jimmy | 04.02.17 - 8:29 a.m. | #

"...the small discoveries that make London picturesque" which our developer colleagues are busy obliterating elsewhere.

It's an interesting building but I bet it doesn't glow in the dark as it seems to be doing in the first picture.

HoosierSands | Homepage | 04.02.17 - 8:34 a.m. | #

The coverage I read yesterday focused on issues of soaring costs and project delays with Calatrava-designed schemes. Maybe we should set the clock and the money totaliser running on this one now?And that "bridge", it's not bridging anything really, is it?

Waterhouse | 04.02.17 - 8:57 a.m. | #

I think I prefer "Greenwich Peninsula" to "North Greenwich".

Who will be paying for all of this to happen? And who will be making the profit?

Andrew | 04.02.17 - 9:08 a.m. | #

Well I think that it looks beautiful, and fits a dynamic city perfectly.
IMO it’s far better than most of the architectural crap of the 1970’s .

Michael | 04.02.17 - 9:23 a.m. | #

More junk for foreign investors to cram and ruin London with. You like it if you want it's just another concrete ghetto in the making.

Boxer | 04.02.17 - 10:12 a.m. | #

And what's the betting that the currently convenient bus to tube interchange is wrecked? At the moment it's a short distance and all under cover but with the buses in the daylight. I'd not be astonished if the interchange distance is much longer in future with buses buried in some lower level of the development meaning a horrible dingy waiting environment. That's what a lot of interchanges are like in the Far East. Also who wants to walk through a shopping centre early in the morning / late at night? They can be horrible disorientating places.

I am also deeply sceptical about the impact of development in inner SE London on the capacity of the Jubilee Line. Even if the line receives an upgrade and we get Crossrail soon I cannot see how the line can cope with the scale of development at Rotherhithe / Canada Water, Canary Wharf and North Greenwich. If the lower levels of the tube station are not changed then it will be under a great deal of pressure. It is also worth noting that there are limits to what can be done in the vicinity of the station box because of the way the station was built.

Finally Calatrava has an appalling record in terms in design and construction problems, cost overruns and ongoing maintenance liabiliites. Looks like we're perpetuating the Heatherwick NB4L legacy but this time with a building at North Greenwich. Let's hope it's clear who picks up the financial tab and that it is not the public sector.

PC | 04.02.17 - 10:13 a.m. | #

So, just how far will the walk be from the tube exit to get a bus?

Will the bus station be large enough and designed to cope with O2 concert egress?

scrumpy | 04.02.17 - 10:23 a.m. | #

The usual stew of spew. So, instead of a filleted herring (cf Robin Hood Gardens - rightfully condemned sxxt-hole of Poplar), Greenwich is to get an upturned jelly fish. Watch out someone doesn't get stung.

B | 04.02.17 - 10:35 a.m. | #

I predict the station's name will be shortened in common usage to 'Gren Pen'.

You heard it here first.

Marc | 04.02.17 - 12:07 p.m. | #

At least the overall structure cannot be described as bland. As for overloading the tube, well, so it will, but then so would housing built anywhere in London.

We do not know for sure that it will not have any affordable housing (either in the government-prescribed meaning of that phrase, or in the plain English one). But it does seem likely that it won't. However, the effect of building more housing of any kind should, in theory, help to stop general house prices rising as fast as they otherwise would.

In theory.

dg writes: From the press release... "Peninsula Place will provide 800 new homes, 200 of which will be affordable."

Malcolm | 04.02.17 - 2:17 p.m. | #

What is the current definition of "affordable housing" in London these days? This is being asked by an American in Los Angeles, where affordable, isn't.

Wayne | 04.02.17 - 4:57 p.m. | #

@still anon -- Canary Wharf is not the other way. It's the first stop on the way into central London from North Greenwich.
And what a pity about the bridge. When i first read the reports at the end of the week I hoped against hope that it would cross the bleeding river.
So the dangleway that does cross the river but to where no one really wants to go, and a bridge that stops before it gets to the water. What's the point in that?

| 04.02.17 - 5:54 p.m. | #

Sorry about that, with the Jubilee Line I sometimes lose track of what side of the Thames I'm on (arguably something of a good thing).

Still anon | 04.02.17 - 7:19 p.m. | #

"Peninsula Place will provide 800 new homes, 200 of which will be affordable."

Or so it says in the planning application. The deals that will be done threafter will ensure that no such thing ever happens.


What is the current definition of "affordable housing" in London these days? This is being asked by an American in Los Angeles, where affordable, isn't.

I would presume that the definition in London is the same as elsewhere in England - 'affordable' in planning terms is 20% less than market value. Which rather makes a mockery of the term 'affordable', doesn't it?

There are other categories that can be used to ensure affordability in developments - eg 'exception housing' but it won't happen there, and, anything originally designated as 'affordable' to sweeten the planning application process can be removed by the developer paying a penalty charge (which should go to community projects, but can easily be re-directed).

Don't ever think that the planning process in this country is fair. "Consultation" is always a tick-box exercise, as has been discussed on here before.

And - while London continues to build on every scrap of land to satisfy 'foreign demand', people who work in London who cannot afford to live there are then moving further out - making the one-time rural areas between 50 and 100 miles from London into mere soulless dormitories.

The effects of all these hundreds of thousands of people travelling so far to work every day is a huge environmental problem. Not to mention the effect that being out of the house for 14 or 15 hours every day has on 'family life'.

Blue Witch | Homepage | 04.02.17 - 8:22 p.m. | #

It might even be educational, if putting the word "peninsula" on the Tube map teaches people how to spell it correctly.

timbo | 04.02.17 - 9:29 p.m. | #

Blue Witch: while agreeing with most of your heartfelt rant, I do not see that "foreign demand" (supposing it continues, which may be a moot point anyway) is any reason to object to any particular planned development. If these pesky foreigners are determined to buy a certain amount of London housing (and, reportedly, to keep it empty), then they will do so, whether or not new housing is built. The expelling of ordinary London workers to Shenfield and beyond will happen anyway, and will be even worse if new stuff is not built and the said pesky foreigners finish up buying more of the existing housing stock.

Malcolm | 04.02.17 - 9:47 p.m. | #

Malcolm - with such a housing crisis in London, we could of course ban absentee foreigners from buying housing for investment purposes. Other countries do it... there are many places in the world where, as an English woman, I cannot buy property or own land (and rightly so, IMO).

And I'm not talking of Shenfield. I am talking of Colchester, and the corridor down to the coast - including Felixstowe, Walton, Frinton, Clacton. What is being allowed to happen is absolutely crazy and totally unsustainable.

Blue Witch | Homepage | 05.02.17 - 9:04 a.m. | #

The Greenwich Peninsula name is more accurate. North Greenwich is south-west of here, on the north bank, opposite Greenwich: now known as Island Gardens - see http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/n/north_greenwich/index.shtml (analogous to Woolwich / North Woolwich).

As for crowding on the Jubilee Line ... presumably the planners / developers have seen trains with more coaches than passengers, in both directions (as at my first, failed, attempt to travel on the cable car at 9pm on a weekday).

Kent Railman | 05.02.17 - 9:44 a.m. | #

The name change is an improvement. I always thought South Poplar would have been more helpful.

Guido | 05.02.17 - 3:59 p.m. | #

It's a nice development- in Hong Kong, pretty much all the MTR stations are enclosed within shopping mall/flats and the idea clearly works as they've got there one of a handful of metros that pay for themselves & more, not to mention that the surplus money and go towards improvements e.g. longer trains, extensions, platform screen doors, lower fares.

nameless | 05.02.17 - 5:11 p.m. | #

There's an article about Santiago Calatrava in the Guardian:-https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/feb/05/santiago-calatrava-the-man-redesigning-greenwich-peninsula-place

Lorenzo | 05.02.17 - 6:51 p.m. | #

Still no mention of the dreaded car parks. When will the council have the balls to say that if you want to visit to O2, public transport or a drop off is your only option. The dreaded acres of car park are what destroy any hope of the peninsula feeling like a nice place to live.

Michael | 07.02.17 - 7:05 a.m. | #

Interesting that in Architects Journal - the 20th Century Society has asked for the station to be Listed.

Moquette | 07.02.17 - 6:39 p.m. | #











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