Call the Midwife country reborn: grand plans for Poplar make this East End spot a top choice for first-time buyers

While it might not yet have the bars, shops or pizzazz of Canary Wharf, Poplar’s big plus point is that it has homes for sale at around half the price of its riverside rival. 
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Ruth Bloomfield9 August 2018

The landscape of “Call the Midwife country” was created during the Industrial Revolution. Now a 21st-century revolution is replacing those gasworks, factories, and one-time slums with smart residential developments.

There are some 3,000 new homes in the pipeline at Poplar, an area starting to attract buyers priced out of nearby Canary Wharf, and first-time buyers could own a share in one of them from just £85,000.

Leven Wharf, a 160-home scheme with space for offices and/or shops, is being built in Leven Road on the site of a defunct metalworks beside the River Lea.

Aside from its waterside location Leven Wharf’s biggest plus point is great transport links. It is a five-minute DLR trip from nearby Langdon Park station to Canary Wharf, and the site is less than a mile from Canning Town Jubilee line station.

The homes are being sold by Red Loft.

Popular BBC period drama series Call the Midwife is filmed in Poplar
BBC/Neal Street Productions

HOW THE COSTS STACK UP
That £85,000 will buy a 25 per cent share in a one-bedroom flat with a full market value of £340,000. Buyers will need a deposit of £4,250 and their monthly costs will come in at just under £1,100 including rent, mortgage and service charge.

There are also two-bedroom flats for sale at Leven Wharf. Prices start at £111,250 for a quarter share of a £445,000 property. The minimum deposit is £5,563 and monthly costs are estimated at £1,420.

From £85,000: a 25 per cent share of a one-bedroom flat at Leven Wharf in Leven Road, E14, with 160 homes

LONG-TERM VISION
But anybody buying at Leven Wharf is going to need a degree of foresight. Right now Leven Road is unprepossessing, with boxy modern houses on one side, the old gasholders of Poplar Gasworks — also earmarked for redevelopment — on the other, and not a great deal else.

But the plans for this particular area’s future are grand. The new neighbourhood of “Poplar Riverside” will have riverside walkways and footbridges, 3,000 new homes, a new park, two new schools and a redeveloped Chrisp Street Market with new homes, a market square, shops and a cinema.

While it might not yet have the bars, shops or pizzazz of Canary Wharf, Poplar’s big plus point is that it is around half the price of its riverside rival. Poplar also has a reasonable selection of basic shops on its high streets.

Poplar Baths has already had an impressive upgrade, while an imminent £3.6 million revamp of Bartlett Park will improve the area’s open space no end.

WHAT ELSE CAN I BUY IN E14?

From the penthouses of Canary Wharf to the grotty ex-local authority flats of Poplar, there can be few other postcodes that so clearly illustrate London’s property contradictions.

First-time buyers looking for a bargain need to stick to E14’s northern edge, where those with up to £400,000 to spend have plenty of choice. Felicity J Lord has a roomy flat with balcony in a smart period conversion in Follett Street, with a guide price of £400,000.

The same budget would buy a two-bedroom flat in a purpose-built block in the area, or a new-build one-bedroom flat at Bellway Homes’ Lansbury Square, priced at £399,995, with Help to Buy available.

£399,995: a new-build one-bedroom flat at Lansbury Square

For £350,000 you could buy a one-bedroom flat with a view. At Harley House, Vanet estate agents has a one-bedroom flat with canal views, which also has the advantage of being close to the bars and restaurants of Limehouse.

A £300,000 budget doesn’t go far in London but in Poplar it would buy a one-bedroom flat in an attractive church conversion. Knight Frank is selling the 618sq ft home in St Leonard’s Road. Even £275,000 would buy a one-bedroom flat, albeit in a boxy, purpose-built block.

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