A significant proportion of a £3.5B mixed-use development in south east London is to be given over to life sciences space as the sector continues to gather pace in the UK capital.

British Land and AustralianSuper have appointed Stanton Williams to draw up plans for a 300K SF building with potential to support innovation and life sciences businesses as part of the second phase of its Canada Water masterplan.

At the same time, Art-Invest Real Estate has submitted a detailed planning application for its £1B, 1.5M SF office-led Canada Water Dockside scheme, which sits adjacent to BL and AustralianSuper’s scheme.

The Canada Water masterplan is a 53-acre, mixed-use scheme that will deliver around 2M SF of workspace, 1M SF of retail, leisure, entertainment, education and community space, and 3,000 new homes, of which 35% will be affordable.

The first phase of the masterplan is already underway and calls for British Land and AustralianSuper delivering the Paper Yard, 30K SF of modular lab space located next to TEDI-London, a new engineering higher education enterprise co-founded by three global universities: King’s College London, Arizona State University and UNSW Sydney.

The new modular lab space will take just under nine months to build and will be ready for occupation in May. It is seeing positive early interest from occupiers across the life sciences sector, British Land said.

“Delivering up to 2.5m sq ft of highly sustainable business and innovation workspace across the masterplan, Canada Water is in prime position to cater to the growing number of life science and innovation businesses requiring new, high-specification lab space, supporting the aims of the Government’s newly published Science and Technology Framework, which pinpoints these burgeoning sectors as a crucial driver of economic growth,” British Land Joint Head of Canada Water Emma Cariaga said in a statement.

Cariaga also touted its well-connected central London location near three leading teaching and research hospitals: Guy’s Hospital in London Bridge, St Thomas’ Hospital in Waterloo and King’s College Hospital in Denmark Hill.

On a 4.5-acre site adjacent to that of British Land and AustralianSuper, Art-Invest has submitted a series of detailed reserved matters applications for Canada Water Dockside, its 1.5M SF office-led scheme.

Designed by architects, BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group and HWKN Architecture, Canada Water Dockside comprises a collection of three headquarters buildings. The scheme will also provide new community amenities and public realm, as well as new places to eat, drink and relax.

In March 2022, Southwark Borough Council resolved to grant outline planning consent for Canada Water Dockside. The latest submissions now include detailed plans for two of the three office-led buildings plus new landscaping and public realm being delivered by Townshend Landscape Architects.