The London Legacy Development Corporation has voted unanimously to approve an outline ‘masterplan’ for a rail freight campus and last-mile logistics hub in east London.

The plan will see the regeneration of more than thirty acres of brownfield land at Bow Goods Yard, the last piece of land left by the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games.

This is the first time that Network Rail Property has made an independent planning submission.

The Bow Goods Yard plan, which was launched last year, includes creating up to three million square feet of floorspace, for both heavy and light industrial work.

It will be able to take up to ninety thousand HGV movements a year away from the national road network, so it will cut congestion and emissions.

Network Rail believes that it has the potential to become a new centralised hub and to help London to become a centre for green freight.

Rail freight contributes two and a half billion pounds to Britain’s economy, with hubs such as Bow Goods Yard providing capacity that will be essential to expanding sustainable freight as businesses switch to rail.

Key Facts

• Up to 190,000m² floor space
  • up to 61,000m² storage and distribution
  • up to 21,000m² office space
  • up to 46,000m² workspace
  • Concrete Batching plants, Freight Aggregate and Open Storage
  • up to 36,000m² leisure uses
  • up to 5,000m² commercial food and beverage offers
• up to 5,000 new jobs (the site currently supports around one hundred jobs);
• up to 3.5 million tonnes of construction material transported by rail from the site
• up to 8,200m² of new publicly accessible public realm
• minimum 10% biodiversity net gain
• maximised roof area for PVs with an aspiration to achieve 4GWh/y of renewable energy production
• sustainable water management

“Transforming this strategically underutilised freight site into the largest industrial and logistics campus that serves the whole of East London is central to expanding rail freight capacity and supporting the capital’s logistics market.

“The approval of this masterplan submitted by Network Rail Property is a major milestone in repositioning the property business. It marks our ambition to drive growth and investment across our brownfield estate, taking the lead on complex projects to ensure we deliver the widest mix of commercial and social opportunities. By working closely with local communities and businesses, we are ensuring sites like Bow Goods Yard will support the local area for generations to come.”

Robin Dobson, Group Property Director at Network Rail