The government has approved four planning applications that envisage parts of the Truman Brewery complex in the East End being augmented by, among other things, a micro-brewery, a cinema, additional retail and work space, a data centre, housing, a market area and new public spaces.
The plans, which have drawn the disapproving attention of local conservationists and media entities sympathetic to them, were taken out of the hands of Tower Hamlets Council more than a year ago due to its failure to make any decision about them following their submission in August 2024. Now, housing minister Matthew Pennycook, the MP for Greenwich & Woolwich, has done the job on behalf of his new boss, Angela Rayner.
Although opposed by a campaign called Save Brick Lane, two of the applications relate to land on either side of Grey Eagle Street, which runs parallel to Brick Lane to its west. One of them proposes constructing the data centre, which the applicant, Truman Estates Ltd, wants to replace a disused cold store.
Although this application was not considered by the Tower Hamlets strategic planning committee until after its power to approve or block it had been removed, council officers had “on balance” recommended its refusal on the grounds that what it called its “modest public benefits” would be “outweighed by the adverse impacts of the proposal, particularly in terms of design, townscape and heritage” (page 68).
However, Rayner and her colleagues disagreed. Guided by the views of a government planning inspector, to whom the applications were initially passed after being removed from the domain of the council, they concluded that although the proposed data centre “would be of significantly greater height and mass than the existing building” it would “relate in a reasonable way to other buildings in the vicinity”. The former cold store was deemed “utterly derelict and home to anti-social and criminal activity”.
Tower Hamlets officers had looked more favourably on the plans for a site on the other side of Grey Eagle Street, almost directly opposite. They had judged it “acceptable” overall, noting that a new commercial building there with a ground floor market and offices above would result in the creation of 260 full-time jobs and increase footfall in an area troubled by “reported issues relating to drug taking and anti-social behaviour” (page 51). Ten per cent of the workspace would be at an “affordable” 45 per cent discount.
For its part, the ministry went along with the planning inspector’s view that the new building “would be a significant enhancement of the character and appearance and significance” of the conservation area in which it would stand – another green light, this time for applicant Zeloof LLP, the other company which, along with Truman Estates, owns the Truman Brewery estate
By far the largest of the three applications covers two sections of the brewery area just east of Brick Lane itself and in one case partly abutting it. This would entail quite major surgery to the surroundings of a large yard (pictured) and the replacement of a cash and carry emporium on the south side of Woodseer Street. There, a seven-storey housing block is envisaged, comprising 44 homes.
On the other side of Woodseer Street, the Cooperage building, where casks for containing the beer once produced in the brewery building used to be made, and the listed Boiler House would be refurbished. This is where the micro-brewery would go. Under the plans, another old building would be extended and a third one replaced by a new one of seven storeys. A group of storage and ancillary structures would be knocked down and another taller new one would accommodate the cinema.
The council’s officers came down in favour of this application, saying (page 135) the proposal would “deliver a high-quality, mixed-use development that would contribute positively to the regeneration of the Truman Brewery Estate and the wider Brick Lane area”. Pennycook and the Secretary of State agree that “the masterplan layout is thoughtfully composed and of a very high standard of design in conceptual terms. Alongside this application is a related but separate “listed building consent” allowing the Boiler House to be altered.
A full house victory, then, for the Truman Brewery plans, which ended up in the in-tray of Rayner’s department after the applicants lodged an appeal against Tower Hamlets for failing to determine it themselves. Recent history suggests, however, that its opponents will explore legal options for challenging the decisions of Rayner’s Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
A previous Tower Hamlets approval of a scheme to convert a car parking area into offices and shops facing on to Woodseer Street, made in September 2021, was challenged by objectors all the way to the Supreme Court on the grounds that proper procedures had not been followed by the committee. Their case was finally rejected in March 2025.
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