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Media Release

24 January 2025
Status: For Immediate Release

Mast Quay developers Comer Homes Group ordered to pay £7.82 million by government planning inspector

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Comer Homes Group’s Mast Quay Phase II remains a poor quality development which falls significantly short of the high standards expected for new developments within the Royal Borough of Greenwich. However, as the Planning Inspectorate is granting retrospective planning permission to Comer Homes Group’s Mast Quay Phase II, it is also compelling Comer Homes Group to:
pay the Royal Borough of Greenwich £7.8million; including
£4.4million for affordable housing in other areas of the borough, £318,970 carbon offsetting payment and £3.4million for improvements in the local area; and
provide a children’s play area, make the development accessible to people in wheelchairs, as well as removing the intrusive orange cladding

…and they have 36 months to carry this out, otherwise an enforcement notice can be issued again requiring total demolition.

This forms a huge package of planning obligations and funding offsets some of the harm that Mast Quay Phase II has caused.

The Royal Borough of Greenwich stands by the decision it took to serve a planning enforcement notice last September against Comer Homes Group, the property developer responsible for the Mast Quay Phase II development, on the River Thames in Woolwich. It is disappointing that the Inspector was not satisfied it constituted ‘intentional’ unauthorised development, but, during the appeal Comer Homes Group accepted it had built unlawfully as it had deviated so significantly from the approved planning permission given to the site’s original owners in 2012.

The Council is also relieved that the Inspector’s decision imposes strict planning conditions to improve the standard of the development. If Comer Homes Group fails to comply with the Inspector’s conditions within the established timeframes, then enforcement notice shall be required within 36 months of the date of failure, which will require total demolition. We will be monitoring compliance closely.

Council Leader Councillor Anthony Okereke, Royal Borough of Greenwich, said:
“We love our borough, and we have little sympathy for multi-millionaire property developers who don’t think the English planning rules apply to them, or that they can build what they feel like in Greenwich.

“You don’t get to use the housing crisis to justify shoddy development because delivering what was originally given planning consent would have inconveniently cost you more money and reduced your profit.

“I do, however, empathise with the uncertainty residents of Mast Quay Phase II have experienced. We warned Comer Homes Group not to rent the flats until we completed our investigation, but it ignored our request and did so anyway.

“Everyone in our borough deserves access to a safe and secure home that meets their needs. New development can be high quality and deliver sufficient levels of affordable housing: Comer Homes Group’s Mast Quay Phase II did neither. The Inspector’s decision means that Comer Homes Group will at least have to pay the Council a total of £7.82m to offset Mast Quay Phase II’s impact on the local area, provide affordable housing, and improve the look and safety of the building. These are real improvements that have only been won from taking tough action. If action had not been taken, we would not have secured any of this mitigation, funding or the conditions that require changes to be made.

“The right thing to do is not usually the easy thing to do. We shouldn’t ever have to use taxpayer’s money taking legal action against Comer Homes Group but the Planning Inspector has ruled the developer must now repay some of our costs. We will not standby and allow poor quality and unlawful development anywhere in our borough and we are not afraid of taking difficult decisions when we believe it’s the right thing to do.”

Councillor Majid Rahman, Cabinet Member for Planning, Estate Renewal and Development, Royal Borough of Greenwich, said:

“Mast Quay Phase II, even with some external alterations, will remain a poor quality development that resembles stacked shipping containers and blights the landscape, local conservation area and protected views. It is simply not acceptable for Woolwich. When Comer Homes Group bought the site, it had the potential to deliver hundreds of beautiful riverside apartments in an exciting area of London with a rich maritime past.

“High quality, beautiful and sustainable buildings and places are fundamental to what the planning and development process should achieve. Good design is a key aspect of sustainable development, creating better places in which to live and work. As a borough we work with many responsible property developers who deliver schemes that we can be proud of, and we will always work with responsible developers to unlock sites and deliver the new homes that our borough needs.

“If a scheme matching what has been built at Mast Quay Phase II was submitted for planning permission today, it would be refused, and that is why we could not let what the Comer Homes Group had delivered at Mast Quay Phase II go unchallenged.”