One of the UK’s largest regeneration projects, Barking Riverside, is receiving a £500m injection for transport links, parkland and other community facilities, alongside almost 11,000 homes.

The investment has been agreed by the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and L&Q, as part of the partnership (Barking Riverside Ltd) which was formed to deliver the masterplan for the scheme.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, said: “This is an incredibly exciting project for Barking & Dagenham, but also for the whole of London. Barking Riverside will deliver thousands of the genuinely affordable new homes Londoners desperately need. As well as housing, our investment will create the new transport, education and health services needed to turn this into a thriving new community.

“London will be home to 10 million people in the next decade — I’m working to plan for that growth and to provide genuinely affordable homes for Londoners. That will mean increasing density, building on small sites, and using my powers to deliver more affordable homes.”

Barking Riverside will deliver 10,800 homes of which up to 50% will be affordable. The site will feature a wide choice of homes in different sizes and styles including family homes, mews houses, duplex apartments, town houses, and 1, 2, and 3 bed apartments. Homes will be available through a range of tenures including shared ownership, affordable rent, and private rent, with some of the homes for private sale available via Help to Buy.

The Section 106 agreement, reached with the Barking and Dagenham Council and Transport for London, means the project has secured funding for a new TfL Overground station, land for seven schools including five primaries, one secondary, and one for special educational needs, a new centre with 65,000 square metres of commercial, retail and leisure space, including a 2km riverside walkway, an ecology centre and new country park space and a combined health care and leisure facility plus two local retail and dining hubs and an employment, skills and training.

Pat Hayes, Managing Director of Be First, Barking and Dagenham Council’s regeneration body, said: “These improvements will bring in tens of thousands of homes and jobs to the borough and improve the quality of lives for residents. It’s further evidence that Barking and Dagenham is London’s growth borough.”

The scheme is being delivered over a number of stages, with the wider scheme scheduled for completion by 2034. The new Barking Riverside overground station is due to open in 2021.