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Southwark Council has approved TP Bennett-designed proposals for a 34-storey student-housing tower on the site of a business park in the borough鈥檚 Old Kent Road Opportunity Area.

In addition to the student housing for developer Joseph Homes, which is a mix of studios and clusters of apartments with up to eight bedrooms, the scheme features around 1,990sq m of employment space and 23 affordable homes for social rent in a seven-storey shoulder block. It will also deliver a new public square.

TP Bennett鈥檚 proposals are a reworking of an earlier scheme for the Sylvan Grove site that HTA Design created for the same client. Those proposals, which were approved in January last year, featured 219 homes and 2,986sq m of commercial workspace in a 32-storey tower and a five-storey block.

Joseph Homes decided not to progress the scheme because of viability concerns related to 鈥渟ignificant increases in build costs鈥� and changes to 黑洞社区 Regulations and Fire Guidance requiring the inclusion second staircases in buildings above 18m in height.

Joseph Homes鈥� project team includes planning consultant Rolfe Judd, structural engineer Civic Engineers, MEP consultant Introba and landscape architect OOBE.

The decision will now be referred to Mayor of London Sadiq Khan for the final say.