Richard Desmond puts £1bn Westferry development up for sale
A £1bn residential development on the doorstep of London’s financial district has been put up for sale by its billionaire owner, CityAM can reveal, in the latest twist in a long-running saga over the future of the project.
The Westferry Printworks, which is owned by former newspaper baron Richard Desmond and promises to deliver more than 1300 new homes next door to Canary Wharf, could soon be in new hands after Desmond engaged estate agents Savills to run a sales process and initiated talks with several potential suitors.
The existing proposal for the 15-acre site on the Isle of Dogs, which received planning consent early last year and includes shops, offices, restaurants and a 1200-place secondary school, could be torn up by new owners or substantially amended in a joint venture.
The decision by Desmond’s property company, Northern & Shell, comes after it was rebuffed by local authority Tower Hamlets in April over its plea to reduce the affordable housing requirement for the scheme from 35 per cent down to 10 per cent.
“Talks are continuing with interested parties with a view to bringing in joint venture partners to deliver either the consented development or a new scheme,” Northern & Shell said. Savills declined to comment.
The move adds further uncertainty over the future of the waterfront site, which has been lying vacant for more than a decade since it was first acquired by Northern & Shell, after a spate of separate planning applications were either rejected or abandoned.
The development made headlines in 2020 after it emerged Desmond had lobbied then-housing secretary Robert Jenrick to intervene to approve the scheme at a Conservative Party fundraising dinner. Jenrick later approved the scheme, just one day before the implementation of a local community infrastructure levy, a move which would have allowed Desmond to swerve tens of millions in extra taxes.
“We appreciate the speed, as we don’t want to give Marxists loads of doe for nothing,” Desmond reportedly told Jenrick in a text message. The government later rejected the development and Jenrick, who denied wrongdoing, was sacked from the cabinet.
Desmond came forward with a revised proposal in 2024, which was later approved by Tower Hamlets – but Northern & Shell has since sought to amend the plans to drop the affordability condition attached to several hundred homes in the plans, citing financial viability.
Desmond takes gamble over lottery legal fight
The move to proceed with a sale of the site comes as Desmond wrestles with the fallout of a failed legal battle with the Gambling Commission over its decision not to award the operator of the National Lottery to Northern & Shell’s gambling subsidiary, a showdown for which the billionaire could be forced to fork out as much as £50m in legal fees.
Northern & Shell had sought some £1.3bn in damages after alleging that the bidding process for the contract was unfair. But following a three-month trial, the firm’s claims were dismissed and Desmond was ordered to pay some £29m in the legal costs of the Commission and interested party Allwyn, who were given the contract. The firm’s own legal costs amounted to £19.3m. Last month, Northern & Shell sought permission to appeal the case.
The Westferry site was previously a newspaper printing facility built in the 1980s which produced a number of daily titles including the Telegraph and the Express, the latter of which Desmond once owned. It closed in 2011 and was demolished in 2017. Desmond acquired the freehold to the site in 2014.