Great Western Developments will invest £47m of its own funds into the tube developments at Paddington station
Great Western Developments, the developer working on the revamp of Paddington station and the so-called Shard of west London, has told City A.M. it will be providing the £47m investment needed to upgrade the tube station.
Great Western Developments (GWD), a subsidiary of Singapore’s Hotel Properties, is working with the team behind the Shard and the London Bridge redevelopment, Sellar Property Group, to extend the ticket hall at Paddington and give it a new entrance under the Paddington Place development next door, coined the skinny shard or the Paddington Pole.
GWD will be funding the upgrades to the Bakerloo line station, including broadening the concourse and ticket hall area and increasing the number of exits to reduce congestion.
As well as the £47m for the tube station, more than £13m from GWD will go towards affordable housing offsite in St John's Wood, where 42 new flats will be built.
John Davies, investment director at Sellar Property Group, told City A.M. the project was about "more than the tower. We didn't start with that."
"We knew from the beginning we had to give something back to public rail and public infrastructure. National Rail are a crucial stakeholder in the project, and have been since the beginning" he said. "We hope to benefit the whole local community, as we have for London Bridge… And create a better setting for Brunel's masterpiece."
The team behind the redevelopment of London Bridge station has been reassembled, including the architect Renzo Piano who designed the Shard.
The £1bn development on the site of the old Royal Mail sorting office has attracted a storm of criticism recently from architect Sir Terry Farrell, local residents and Labour councillors in Westminster who said the planning process had been rushed through and there weren't enough affordable homes.
The new building at Paddington Place will include 200 new homes, more than 100,000 sq ft of office space and 50,000 sq ft of retail.