The Waterloo Estate Regeneration

Where the scheme stands, as of August 2026. The consented masterplan allows up to 1,380 homes. The phase that is actually approved and starting is 107 homes across Plots 9 and 10 — the blocks that directly border Cotleigh Road. Those are two different numbers describing two different things, and most accounts of this scheme, including earlier versions of this page, quote the first as though it were the second.

What Plots 9 and 10 mean for Cotleigh Road#

The committee report describes the site in its own words as "bounded by Queen Street and Cotleigh Road". That is a primary planning document naming this street as a boundary of the phase now under construction — which is why this page, rather than the borough-level figures, is the one that matters to anyone living here.

In practice: the blocks facing Cotleigh Road are the low end of the consented range, not the high end. Plot 9 is part four and part six storeys against an outline consent that allowed up to sixteen; Plot 10 is a uniform four. The [Section 73 amendments](#section-73-amendments-plots-9-and-10) below set out the height reductions and increased boundary setbacks in detail.

The unit count is reported three different ways#

Worth knowing if you compare sources. The committee report gives 107 (70 + 37). The January 2026 Cabinet paper gives approximately 109 (66 + 43). Havering's own news release hedges with "more than 107".

This site uses 107, because the committee report is the document that actually granted the permission and its split is itemised by plot. The discrepancy is small and probably reflects design changes between papers, but it is real and it is not reconciled anywhere in the council's own material.

Why a 1,380-home scheme became a 107-home phase#

Construction was paused in 2023 following the regulatory change requiring a second staircase in residential buildings over 30 metres. The taller blocks in the outline consent were directly affected, and the response was to re-phase: bring forward the low-rise plots that were unaffected, and revisit the towers later.

That is the reason the live phase is 107 homes of an eventual 1,380, and a scheme description that omits it makes the current position look like a downgrade rather than a sequencing decision.

The wider programme#

The Waterloo Estate sits within the "12 Estates" programme, a £1 billion joint venture between Havering Council and Wates Residential intended to deliver around 3,500 homes across the borough. The joint venture continues and its business plan was reauthorised by Cabinet in January 2026 — but work on later phases at six of the twelve estates is currently paused, expected to remain so for around twelve months, and the underlying financial case sits in exempt appendices withheld from the public.

Havering's own page for this site is Waterloo & Queen Street.

Scope and vision#

The full masterplan objective is demolition of the mid-twentieth-century housing stock and its replacement with a master-planned community of up to 1,380 residences — the ceiling permitted by the outline consent, delivered over multiple phases across many years, not a figure for any single approval.

The scope goes beyond housing delivery into place-making. The design philosophy creates protective architectural boundaries against the harsh infrastructure of the railway and the A125 dual carriageway, while weaving a continuous "green and blue thread" through the centre of the site. That thread guides pedestrian traffic from the intense urban intersections to the south, through the new development, to the tranquility of Cottons Park in the northwest.

Village greens, raingardens and a new central park maximise biodiversity and provide a new setting for the Grade II listed St Andrew's Church, establishing it as a historic focal point in the modernised landscape.

St Andrew's Church as a working building#

The masterplan treats St Andrew's as a heritage object to be framed. It is also a building in daily use, and what happens inside it says more about the neighbourhood than its listing does.

The church runs a weekly Wednesday community café on a pay-what-you-can- afford basis, and a free playgroup, Little Fishes, for parents and young children. Both are the kind of provision that does not appear in a planning document but is what a resident on Cotleigh Road would actually encounter.

It also serves as the worship home of the Romanian Orthodox Parish of Romford, a reflection of how much Romford's population has changed in twenty years. In November 2025 the parish marked the Feast of the Entry of the Virgin Mary into the Temple with a Divine Liturgy presided over by His Eminence Atanasie, Romanian Orthodox Archbishop of Great Britain and Ireland, with visiting clergy — a diocesan-level occasion held a few minutes from Cotleigh Road.

A Grade II listed Anglican building hosting an Eastern Orthodox parish, a pay-what-you-can café and a toddler group is a fair picture of this part of Romford: older fabric, newer congregation, and a good deal of use.

• St Andrew's Church, Romford
• Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese of Great Britain and Ireland — the Romford parish's Feast of the Entry of the Virgin Mary into the Temple

Section 73 amendments: Plots 9 and 10#

The buildings directly adjacent to Cotleigh Road — designated Plots 9 and 10 — underwent intense scrutiny following extensive public consultation with Cotleigh Road residents through 2024 and early 2025.

In early 2026 the joint venture submitted a Section 73 application (P1297.25) to the Strategic Planning Committee, alongside a detailed Reserved Matters Application (P1293.25), to formally amend the approved development parameters. The objective was to improve deliverability while mitigating visual and physical impact on the existing low-rise properties along Cotleigh Road.

The approved amendments represent a substantial scaling back of the initial massing:

Height reductions. Maximum building height on Plot 9 (the southern block) was cut from an approved 8 storeys to a staggered 6 and 4 storeys. Plot 10 (the northern block) was rationalised from a varying 2-to-5 storey mass into a uniform 4-storey structure. Both changes were explicitly designed to lessen visual impact on the residential receptors along Cotleigh Road.

Enhanced setbacks. To protect privacy, daylight and sunlight for existing properties, minimum separation distances from the site boundaries were increased. The northern boundary of Plot 9 was pushed back to 7.75 metres (from an original 5 metres), and the minimum southern boundary of Plot 10 expanded to 6.3 metres.

Structural rationalisation. The redesign consolidated multiple smaller, fragmented blocks into single coherent linear buildings. By keeping every building under 18 metres, the developers avoided restrictive "high-risk" building classifications, and removed complex dual-core arrangements to facilitate faster delivery.

Design and materials. External finishes are specified as a mixture of light buff and darker brick tones — architectural variety within a cohesive visual language that respects the surrounding historical context, including the adjacent church.

Despite the massing reductions, social efficacy is undiluted: Plots 9 and 10 still deliver 107 residential units at 100 per cent affordable housing, split 70 per cent social rent and 30 per cent intermediate tenure, alongside new community-use floorspace.

Interim community integration#

The regeneration is already integrating with the existing community. On 22 July 2023 a new community garden opened on Cotleigh Road — an example of "meanwhile use", the practice of putting development land to community benefit before primary construction begins. Designed with local residents and an urban garden specialist and sponsored by the joint venture's supply chain, it features raised beds, arts and crafts areas and communal seating, and was handed over to local residents as a shared open amenity rather than retained by the developer.

That handover is the part worth noting. Meanwhile-use schemes are often temporary in a way that means "until we need the land back"; this one was given over to the people already living around it, on a site whose permanent buildings are still years away. It is reported in the council's news archive for July 2023.

In May 2025, planning permission was secured to install temporary modular homes on the site to address acute local housing pressure during the demolition phase, specifically for Havering families experiencing homelessness, with first occupancies anticipated by Q1 2026.

Approval, February 2026#

The applications described above were determined on 26 February 2026, when Havering Council and Wates Residential secured planning approval for Blocks 9 and 10 — the blocks immediately adjacent to Cotleigh Road. The approval carries the 107 affordable homes through to consent, along with landscaped public open space and new community facilities.

The council's account of the decision credits consultation with neighbouring residents for shaping the scheme's final height, balcony design and screening — which is the same set of changes the Section 73 amendments above describe, now carried into an approved permission rather than a proposed one.

For Cotleigh Road specifically this is the point at which the reduced massing stops being a proposal. The 6-and-4-storey Plot 9, the uniform 4-storey Plot 10 and the increased boundary setbacks are what has consent.

• Havering Council: planning approval secured for the Waterloo and Queen Street site
• The Havering Daily, 6 March 2026

Related on this site#

• Romford Town Centre Masterplan — the statutory framework this sits inside
• Nearby streets and the regeneration boundary — what changes at street level
• The history of Romford town centre — why there is a Waterloo Road here at all, and the barrack ground the estate is built on
• House values on Cotleigh Road — what the houses beside it are currently estimated at