Northern & Shell, the property company owned by billionaire Richard Desmond, has put its £1bn Westferry Printworks development up for sale, City AM can reveal.
Desmond has engaged estate agents Savills to run a formal sales process and has initiated talks with several potential suitors interested in the 15-acre Isle of Dogs site.
The development, located on the doorstep of Canary Wharf, has planning consent for more than 1,300 new homes alongside shops, offices, restaurants, and a 1,200-place secondary school.
New owners could tear up the existing consented scheme or substantially amend it, potentially through a joint venture arrangement with Northern & Shell.
“Talks are continuing with interested parties with a view to bringing in joint venture partners to deliver either the consented development or a new scheme,” Northern & Shell said in a statement. Savills declined to comment.
The decision follows Northern & Shell being rebuffed by Tower Hamlets council in April after it sought to reduce the affordable housing requirement for the scheme from 35 per cent down to just 10 per cent.
The waterfront site has been lying vacant for more than a decade since Northern & Shell first acquired it, after a series of separate planning applications were either rejected or abandoned.
The development attracted significant controversy in 2020 when it emerged that Desmond had lobbied then-housing secretary Robert Jenrick at a Conservative Party fundraising dinner to intervene and approve the scheme.
Jenrick approved the project just one day before a local community infrastructure levy came into force, a move that would have allowed Desmond to avoid tens of millions in additional taxes, before the government later rejected the development and Jenrick was sacked from the cabinet.
“We appreciate the speed, as we don’t want to give Marxists loads of doe for nothing,” Desmond reportedly told Jenrick in a text message, with Jenrick denying any wrongdoing throughout the affair.
A revised proposal submitted by Desmond in 2024 was subsequently approved by Tower Hamlets, but Northern & Shell then sought to drop affordability conditions attached to several hundred homes in the plans, citing financial viability concerns.
The sale move comes as Desmond faces the financial fallout of a failed £1.3bn legal battle with the Gambling Commission over its decision to award the National Lottery contract to Allwyn rather than Northern & Shell’s gambling subsidiary.
Following a three-month trial, Northern & Shell’s claims were dismissed and Desmond was ordered to pay approximately £29m in legal costs owed to the Gambling Commission and Allwyn, with the firm’s own legal costs reaching £19.3m.
The total legal exposure for Desmond could reach as much as £50m, and last month Northern & Shell sought permission to appeal the judgment.
The Westferry site was originally a newspaper printing facility built in the 1980s, producing titles including the Telegraph and the Express, the latter of which Desmond once owned, before closing in 2011, being demolished in 2017, and passing into Desmond’s ownership through a freehold purchase in 2014.