Be First Interim Managing Director Caroline Harper discusses Barking & Dagenham’s growth potential, regeneration, housing, and transport plans to drive economic and social transformation.

That London is moving east is well documented. Population grew by over 10% in the Thames Estuary between 2011 and 2021, well above the England average, and key events like the 2012 Olympics and the connectivity afforded by the Elizabeth Line have helped cement its regeneration potential, long recognised in successive London Plans. The Thames Estuary is estimated to have capacity to deliver 940,000 jobs and 897,000 homes by 2050 (Aecom, for the Thames Estuary Growth Board December 2022) and within Barking & Dagenham our recent South Barking New Town proposal identified scope for an initial 48,000 homes. This is a sub-region where the scale of opportunity is such as to be able to seriously deliver on the growth agendas. In doing so, the social impact will be profound.

Imagine Barking & Dagenham in 2040. It is a place where jobs, homes, and life thrive. Residents in Barking Town Centre appreciate the central London connectivity afforded by the 15-minute train ride to Fenchurch Street, but the vibrancy and vitality of the town centre with its population of students and young renters alongside a revamped Vicarage Field shopping centre and the cultural richness of a very diverse borough population, means that there are plenty of places to eat, have a drink, and hang out.

The huge swathes of industrial land across the Borough have been reinvigorated. This is in part a result of the new, cross-Channel rail freight terminal delivered in 2026 at Box Lane. It is in part a result of the success of Thames Freeport and the associated drive and incentives to bring in investment, trade and jobs. And it is in part a reflection of London’s (and the UK’s) need for the space for frontier and industrial innovation.

Strategic transport interventions, like a new Lower River Roding Crossing connecting south Barking, the Royal Docks and Beckton Riverside, and a pedestrian station at Castle Green, have knitted the area into London’s urban fabric. It is a place where there has been real thought given to the pragmatics around supporting people’s health and energy needs, with new and enhanced health hubs, and clever utilisation of Beckton sewage works to heat people’s homes.

And while people may comment on the significant amount of building within the Borough over the past few decades, they can also see and experience how distinct neighbourhoods work well together. This is a cohesive place which people are happy to hear about, and where they are happy to be. It is a place where people choose to live. It is a place which is very much on the map.

This longer term vision is critical in setting the tone as to what we are looking to achieve. 

Be First and Barking & Dagenham have a proven track record for delivery. Between 2020 and 2024, 1 in 5 of all affordable homes built by councils in London were built in Barking and Dagenham, making Be First one of the largest affordable housing developers in the UK and the size of a medium sized housebuilder. Of the 3,500+ homes which we have delivered (either completed or under construction) across 20 sites since 2017/18, 80% are affordable. Be First-led schemes have generated 41,000 jobs and are calculated to have generated a socio-economic value of £45m for the Borough, plus £106m spent on local businesses. Alongside homes we have also delivered innovative commercial schemes. This includes stacked industrial, co-located industrial and residential and London's largest production campus, the Eastbrook Film Studios, which opened last month. Our statutory planning brings planning joy, being ranked number one nationally against Government metrics. And working together with our partners, our awards range from the individual, to schemes, to our performance, most recently with 200 Becontree having been shortlisted for RIBA’s London Awards 2025.

This success is to be celebrated. But we are in a different world now, full of challenges that are being keenly felt in the development and regeneration space, as well as in people’s everyday lives. This calls for different approaches if we are to realise the longer term vision.

There is no question that this sub-region has capacity. Molior tells us that less than 1% of London’s developable land is considered capable of delivering over 2,000 homes. Thames Road identified for 3,500 homes, Barking Riverside has a planning application in at the moment which will increase the number of homes to 20,000, Castle Green could accommodate 7,000, and there are sites within Barking Town Centre- predominantly Council-owned- which could deliver a further 5,000+. We have put in a submission to the Government’s call for evidence for South Barking New Town that starts at some 48,000 homes. Alongside the economic opportunities on strategic industrial land at Thames Freeport, at River Road, Dagenham Dock, Castle Green (etc), South Barking offers a scale of opportunity to deliver on collective housing needs and economic growth ambitions that is frankly incomparable. 

Moreover, there are strong social impacts to positive growth, with regeneration offering a way to improve people’s lives and in so doing contribute to London’s and the UK’s productivity and wellbeing. 

Today over 62% of households in Barking & Dagenham have at least one measure of deprivation, the highest in England and Wales, and we have real challenges around people’s health with high rates of obesity and low healthy life expectancies. It is fairly sobering that in the time you have travelled on the District line from Richmond in West London to Barking in East London, men’s healthy life expectancy has dropped by 14 years. But it is also a Borough undergoing significant change. It bucks national trends with a growing younger under 15 population (+17.3% in LBBD compared to +5% in England), significantly growing working age 15 - 64 population (+20.8% in LBBD compared to +3.6% in England) and a contracting 65+ population (-1.7% compared to +20.1% in England). There is a steady increase in the proportion of students achieving 2x A levels, with this now exceeding the London average, and an increasing proportion of the Borough’s households have a household income of £50k+ (17.8% in 2018 growing to 35.6% in 2023). 

Delivering the right homes in the right places, supported by the right infrastructure, is an opportunity to meet the needs of local people and businesses, setting the path towards a higher quality of life, and better quality jobs alongside new homes. 

Policy by itself is not going to unlock development, and certainly not at sufficient scale. We have a bang up to date planning policy framework. Our Local Plan was adopted last Autumn, and we will be taking our Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) for Thames Road- one of our key transformation areas- to the respective Council committees for adoption in the Spring. 

I recently became Interim Managing Director for Be First, and with it took on responsibility for expediting Be First phase II. Our original business model no longer works at the same scale that it did for Be First phase I. Similarly, the sheer scale of what is possible in Barking and Dagenham means that it is not realistic for the Council to deliver it all. We need to work with partners. We need public private partnerships and lots of them. We need to sensibly focus what we all know is a limited public purse to those locations with the most return, unlocking private capital.

It is something of a pivotal time. There is a lot of work underway at all levels of government to fix and improve current challenges, and to deliver on the growth agenda in such a way that benefits our communities.

 

The win in Barking & Dagenham is seriously significant. 

With a pro-growth agenda and a track record for delivery, the Council is well-equipped to continue driving this transformation via Be First. We have identified key growth sectors for the Borough, drawing on its strengths and opportunities and aligning these with GLA and central Government priorities, ensuring a cohesive approach to development.

We are working with MHCLG on a proposal to be considered in the Spending Review, aiming to overcome current macroeconomic conditions and investment market uncertainty to unlock further phases of Thames Road.

We are proposing designating South Barking as a Growth Delivery Zone, with special measures to overcome development challenges and unlock private investment. This will facilitate delivery within the current parliamentary period and beyond, across several economic cycles.

House prices and rental growth forecasts are encouraging. Zoopla’s figures showed increases of 10% for Barking & Dagenham over the last year, compared to, at best, stagnation in inner London. And while we start from a comparatively low base, this nevertheless makes the Borough an attractive investment proposition.

There is immense opportunity here to ‘crowd in’ public and private investment, backed by the necessary ingredients for success in the short, medium, and long term. We are here for it- are you?