Southwark refuses Berkeley plan to cut Bermondsey Place affordable homes to 12%

Southwark Council’s planning committee has turned down a Berkeley Homes application to reduce affordable housing at its Bermondsey Place scheme on the Old Kent Road from 40% to 12%.

Councillors voted unanimously against the plans on Tuesday 6 October, even though council planning officers had recommended approval.

What Berkeley Homes wanted to change

The new application covered the second and third phases of the development. As well as lowering the affordable share, it would have changed some building heights and made buildings smaller. It would also have removed 108 homes across the whole masterplan and cut commercial and employment space by almost half. The two later phases were to hold 1,060 homes, and only 81 of them would have been affordable.

The developer argued that the two phases were no longer financially viable and that the changes would keep the site from stalling. Joe Warde-Aldam, Berkeley’s head of development, said the original application had been submitted in 2017. Since then, he said, costs had gone up by 50% while sales values had dropped.

Alexandra Austin, a councillor for Old Kent Road ward, spoke against the plans and called them “a huge reduction in affordable housing” that would not meet local need. Eran Cohen, chair of the Ledbury Tenants and Residents Association, also objected. He argued that a small share of social rent homes next to many expensive flats pushes up rents for council tenants already living in the area.

Bermondsey Place Phase 1 progress

Southwark gave planning consent for all three phases in October 2020. Phase 1, behind Asda’s Old Kent Road store, is being built and will provide 285 homes, with 40% on course to be affordable. Work began in 2021 but stopped in 2022 when Berkeley Homes faced rising costs. Building restarted in autumn 2025, once the developer had obtained grant money from City Hall.

Southwark has also rejected earlier Berkeley Homes proposals to cut affordable housing on other schemes, most notably the Borough Triangle development and the Aylesham Centre in Peckham.