Boris casts net for docks floating village developer

London’s Mayor has started looking for a developer to build Britain’s largest ‘floating village’ in London’s Royal Docks.

Boris Johnson is using the London Development Panel to find a house builder to deliver the ambitious plan to utilise over 15-acres of water at the Royal Victoria Dock in east London.

The scheme is being modelled on successful schemes at Ijbury near Amsterdam and Hafen City in Hamburg and others in Scandinavia.

His deputy mayor for housing, Richard Blakeway, said: “London’s Royal Docks presents a fantastic opportunity, with major development agreements signed this year on both sides of the dock.

“This idea of a mixed-use, housing-led floating development, as seen in parts of Northern Europe, has the potential to become one of the most sought after addresses in the capital.

“Through the Mayor’s London Development Panel we hope to vastly speed up development on this stretch of water to create an internationally renowned, innovative and architecturally outstanding visitor destination.”


A development partner will be selected next summer.

When complete it will be one and half times the size of London’s Green Park and have some of the best transport links in the capital with a new Crossrail station, DLR and the cable car linking it to central London and Canary Wharf.