Ian and Richard Livingstone’s London & Regional Properties
(L&R) has won the right to develop a £1bn project in London docklands.
It has been selected as preferred developer for the 25 - acre
Albert Island site, owned by the Greater London Authority (GLA). An official
GLA announcement is expected soon.
L&R has won a two-year-long competition to rebuild the Island,
which lies between the Royal Docks and the River Thames.
The scheme is the first big docklands project to be let under the tenure of
mayor Sadiq Khan. The original timetable to select a developer has
slipped by 18 months.
The brothers beat off competition from Sino-Australian group ASF,
which announced last month it had not been successful with its tender
submission. SEGRO pulled out of the bidding a year ago.
The brothers’ plans are not known. What is known is they put in a
positive rather than a negative bid for the 25 acres, which holds a marina and
a concrete batching plant.
‘Turn it into
Saint-Tropez’
The GLA’s brief is for “a development that would include
industrial space plus a working boatyard and marina facility, with the
potential for a small amount of housing” that will create 1,500 jobs.
Delays have been caused by the GLA trying to get ‘clean’ title and
dealing with objections from the leaseholder of the marina, Leigh-Jayne Miller,
who has run the boatyard with her father, Eric, for a quarter of a century.
Last summer Miller was given notice to quit.
She said in her objections: “They [the GLA] just want to turn it
into Saint-Tropez. It’s sickening. They couldn’t give a toss about
communities.”
L&R is building 900 homes downriver on a six-acre waterfront
site in Greenwich. The brothers also hold the hotel lease at Berkshire’s Cliveden
House. They are investing more than £400m in a luxury Cuban tourist resort and
have a £6bn venture in Panama City.
L&R Group last year earned £238m on gross assets of £3.7bn.
Net assets stood at £1.85bn. The Sunday Times 2017 Rich List assesses the brother’s
wealth at £3.7bn. L&R said it was unable to comment.