St Clements, Mile End, Tower Hamlets
Status: Residents moved in
Size: 23 homes & 77 residents
Affordability: ~27% of open market value (3-bedrooms for £235,000, 2-bedrooms for £182,000, 1-bedrooms for £130,000)
About
Our flagship project with 23 homes was London's first ever CLT site, by and for local people in Tower Hamlets. It has set the standard for genuinely affordable homes for local residents.
​
Making St Clements a reality took many years of hard work from people in the community, and it is incredibly rewarding to have 12 years of campaigning culminate in affordable homes available for perpetuity.
​
The first families moved in to St Clements in 2017. Homes were allocated in 2016 and over 700 people looked to apply for just 23 homes, with 300 people completing the eligibility test and 108 going on to submit their final application. This means only one in 8 people who applied were shortlisted to get a home, illustrating the extreme need for affordable housing in the borough. Read more about the Allocations Process by clicking here.
​
In 2024 we’ve had another resale, creating the opportunity for a new family to buy an affordable home and demonstrating how CLT homes remain affordable in perpetuity.
​​
St. Clements is a historic Grade 2 listed site that in a past life was a famous psychiatric hospital, and sits next to the Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, an important hub for nature and community. It has won several national housing awards and was built by Linden Homes, in partnership with the Greater London Authority and Peabody. The project provided 252 new homes, 35% of which are genuinely affordable homes including 58 for ‘social rent’ and 23 CLT homes.
St Clements Day celebration, November 2021
What next?
The entirety of the site, including the private, social rented and CLT homes will be managed by a resident management company, meaning residents are in control of how their homes are managed. In addition, the freehold of the site will be transferred to the Ricardo Community Foundation, which will spend any 'ground rents' raised on good works in the neighbourhood. Local residents and London CLT are also working to ensure there is a genuine community space in the John Denham building, situated at the front of the site.
​
Working with community organisations and local residents we hope St Clements will become a hub of social activity in the area and an example for future urban CLTs.
'Oranges and lemons, we love St Clements’ action at the John Denham Building at St Clements, March 2019
Campaign history
St Clements is London’s first CLT site. Selected by a unanimous vote of our members in 2009, the Grade 2 listed, former psychiatric hospital became the focus of our work. After a campaign by Citizens UK and London CLT members, the Mayor of London and the Greater London Authority, who owned St Clements, agreed to explore possibilities for a CLT on the site.
​
We made a bid for the site in the early 2010s as part of a competitive consortium led by Igloo Regeneration. This bid included a widespread community-led design process, leading to us setting up a ‘meanwhile use’ group to look at what could happen on the site before the homes were built, ensuring the impact the CLT had extended beyond the families that lived in the CLT homes. Unfortunately, our consortium lost the bid.
​
However, such was the support for our involvement from across London, the successful developer – Galliford Try – and ourselves were asked by the GLA to see if we could work together. After a number of successful exploratory conversations, we were sure we could and so the St Clements partnership was formed. Once formed we re-doubled our efforts with another community-led design process with John Thompson & Partners to develop local people’s ideas for the site.
​
We were also able to continue our work through the ‘meanwhile use’ group, which became Shuffle – a lively festival next door in the Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park that looked to use culture to bring people together and enhance the public space.
