There aren’t enough homes in Britain. Plain and simple – there just isn’t enough accommodation to go around. Different people have proposed various solutions to the UK’s current housing crisis, from rent controls to just whacking up thousands of new flats – but few are as ambitious as the architects who have proposed building a brand-new city entirely offshore.
That’s right. The architects want to start from scratch. Like, properly from scratch. The scheme, proposed by Ian Mulcahey, head of Cities & Urban Design at architecture firm Gensler, would see the construction of an island on the Thames estuary east of London. Mulcahey believes it would relieve the country of some of the intense burden on the current housing stock.
He told Bloomberg: ‘In the UK we’ve lost the ability to build houses at volume… The real estimate of Britain’s housing shortage is in fact 4.3 million units, more or less the equivalent of another London.
‘We need something more radical if we’re going to solve the housing crisis in a meaningful way.’
His plan is certainly radical. He’s currently proposing ‘a new satellite city that’s connected by fast rail into central London… There are about 600 square miles of suitable site out there, enough to fit islands the size of Manhattan several times over.’
Basically, plonk an island at the end of the Thames and then build loads of houses on it. It wouldn’t be the first project of its kind – similar schemes have worked in Amsterdam and Copenhagen, but it would be a particularly tricky one. This is due to the condition of the land which lies underneath the river, and how important it is to local wildlife. Ian argues, however, that there is still space further upstream for his island.
Whether or not this island will ever become a reality remains to be seen, but considering the struggles that past developers have had getting the government to agree to projects of this scale, it seems unlikely at present.
You can learn all the nitty gritty details of what Ian Mulcahey wants to do with his Bloomberg interview here, and dream about your potential future as a central London island-dweller.
New developments
This island may not be getting built anytime soon, there's loads of things across the country that are. Did you see this massive new £75 million holiday park is coming to England? Or that Bristol might be getting a new tram network soon? There's also this seaside country park in Devon which will soon double in size.
Did you see that this incredible Scottish bog is the UK’s newest UNESCO World Heritage Site?
Plus: This hotel has just been crowned the best in the UK for 2024.
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