Making great places to live: Walthamstow

In the centre of Waltham Forest sit Blackhorse Lane, Wood Street and Walthamstow town centre, bustling areas which have seen substantial council-led investment supported by central government and private funding.  

Development within Walthamstow has unlocked opportunities to reduce local inequalities and improve residents’ wellbeing and life chances such as job opportunities and high-quality housing. We call this Inclusive Growth, and it is something we have been actively working towards, allowing everyone to benefit from the positive changes underway. 

Scroll through the highlights below to see what we’ve completed, what we’re currently delivering and what’s planned to keep Walthamstow the lively place we know and love. 

The council-led Fellowship Square programme is creating a new neighbourhood and civic and cultural centre in the heart of the borough. Located on the Town Hall site on Forest Road, the programme has refurbished and regenerated the much-loved historic buildings that make up Fellowship Square and opened the site to the community, as well as creating jobs. Phase 2 is underway, and will deliver 433 new, high-quality homes, including 84 shared ownership homes, 53 social homes, 76 for affordable rent and 220 homes for private sale. It also includes a new nursery, opening summer 2026, and a new Civic building with ground floor commercial space opening onto the square.  

In 2024, new high-quality public spaces, the Queen Elizabeth II Memorial Garden and Sensory Garden opened, alongside Henry Moore’s iconic sculpture, The Arch, which is on loan to the borough for four years. The development has also created a Sustainable Urban Drainage Wetlands in Chestnuts Field to mitigate flood risk that previously impacted the green space as well as increasing biodiversity. So far, 225 homes have completed including 153 affordable with a further 72 homes to complete by April 2026. 

Although a privately led development, the council worked to bring this forward with site owners Newlon Housing Association and SIGMA and building contractors Countryside Partnerships after the previous builder went into administration.  

The mixed-use development will provide 583 homes (of which 228 will be affordable,156 are affordable rent and 72 as intermediate) and commercial units (flexible retail, community and leisure uses), as well as new routes and extra open spaces too. Work is currently underway on the site. 

We continue to work with the Greater London Authority (GLA) to progress our strategic sites, including Patchworks, to deliver more affordable housing across Waltham Forest. 

Completed in 2024, this council-led development sits on the former Wood Street library site, at the corner of Wood Street and Forest Road. It provides 67 affordable new homes (29 for social rent and 38 for shared ownership) and Sunflower House, an innovative new space across the ground and first floors for key council customer facing families and housing services. A commercial unit on the ground floor for a small shop or café will also support local job creation. 

This large-scale regeneration scheme on the Marlowe Road Estate, began in 2016 in partnership with Countryside Properties PLC, is nearing completion this year. To date, the project has delivered 538 new homes, including 115 for social rent and 94 shared ownership homes, with the final 18 social homes due in spring 2026. Once the final phase is complete, Marlowe Road will provide 589 modern, energy-efficient homes, with 44 per cent of them affordable across the development.  

The transformation of Marlowe Road has brought a range of new benefits for residents and the wider Wood Street community, including: a new Co Op, Post Office and over 1,100 sqm of new commercial space, the new Wood Street Library, now a learning and cultural hub for all ages, a redesigned public plaza with fountains and a children’s play area, extensive planting, landscaping and new footpaths and open spaces, the Marlowe Road Energy Centre, helping supply cleaner, more efficient heating. 

Located in the heart of Walthamstow, the Skyline building stands on land that previously hosted council offices. It provides 91 new homes for local people, 45 per cent of them affordable (18 shared ownership and 23 social affordable rent) including three- and four-bedroom family homes. The building also includes a preschool nursery with its own play area, two floors dedicated to part of the new University of Portsmouth London campus, expanding local education and job opportunities. The building opens onto a revamped pocket park at the junction of First Avenue and Hoe Street that has been shaped by the views of local residents.  

Small but impactful, this council-led development turned a former garage site at the rear of Central Parade into Eastfield House in 2023, delivering 21 affordable homes for families and a gym/fitness space leased by the council. 

This £200m private investment, approved in 2021, will deliver new and improved retail space, 350 new permanent retail jobs, 538 new homes (including 99 below market rent homes for local key workers) at The Eades, a new children’s play area and re-landscaped town square with more trees, as well as enabling a new step-free access to the Victoria line. 

Owners New River have worked with the council to maximise affordable housing, including over £7m in funding to deliver more affordable homes locally. 

Investment in cultural and community assets has helped establish an emerging Cultural Quarter, supporting our ambition to make Walthamstow an attractive daytime and evening destination. 

After years of planning, working with local people and intensive restoration, the former Granada Cinema building was returned to its former glory and into a multi-purpose cultural venue, reopening in 2025 with new operators Soho Theatre Walthamstow, delivering a ‘local theatre with a national profile’. The venue will help boost the local evening and night-time economy, create jobs and support our existing businesses and residents.   

Other highlights supported by the “Walthamstow Culture for All” programme include Vestry House Museum, which is currently in refurbishment and planned to complete in 2026. The restoration of Hatherley Mews will create a cultural and creative hub that complements the neighbouring Soho Theatre Walthamstow, with improved paving and access, new lighting, and artwork installations. Chestnuts House, an iconic and historic Grade II* heritage building tucked away in Hoe Street is nearing the completion of its careful restoration to bring it back into use for the community to enjoy, we’ll have more to share on the new operators soon, stay tuned.  

In partnership with the University of Portsmouth, Waltham Forest welcomed its first ever higher education institute: the University of Portsmouth London, which opened in 2024 and is already working closely with local schools, colleges and businesses. 

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, in January 2026 announced more funding to boost creative industries in the capital through his innovative Creative Enterprise Zones initiative, which includes Blackhorse Lane in Waltham Forest.  

The Blackhorse Lane area was chosen as Waltham Forest’s Creative Enterprise Zone in 2021 and was officially launched as Blackhorse Collective Zone in 2023. This designation recognises the high quality of the area’s existing businesses, its rich history of making, and its potential for future growth. It has already delivered affordably priced spaces for artists and creative businesses alongside expert support for starting up, growing a business, creative training, and job opportunities for residents.  

The area boasts a rich heritage of craft and creativity, long known as a centre for the manufacture of furniture, printing machinery, leather goods, children’s toys, propellers, and motors, among much else. Today, it has evolved into a cultural destination, particularly for evening and nighttime visitors with several breweries and drinks producers playing a leading role in shaping Blackhorse Lane’s evening economy. The Blackhorse Beer Mile, a curated trail featuring 10 independent breweries and drinks producers anchors the creative scene, stretching along Blackhorse Lane to Lockwood Way. 

Residents will also be able to look forward to a new music venue in Blackhorse Lane on the site of the old Standard Pub. Currently in construction, The New Standard a private development by Scape with support from the council, will see a new basement music and cultural venue, including a bar and café, which will hold an audience of up to 500 people. The venue will be delivered alongside new homes, cycle parking, public realm improvements, landscaping and amenity space. 

The Blackhorse Collective Zone comprises of 180 creative businesses, and this latest accreditation from the Mayor of London will help go the extra mile to support local businesses.  

Waltham Forest was awarded £17.2m in 2023 for its “Walthamstow Culture for All” programme of Local Regeneration Fund investment across the town centre which includes investment in public spaces upgrades including improved lighting, CCTV, planting, better road and pavement surfaces, and more seating. Creating the cultural quarter captures the council’s ambition to use culture and creativity as a catalyst for economic growth and build on the legacy of our year in the spotlight as the Mayor’s first-ever London Borough of Culture in 2019. 

Work on phase one of the cultural quarter is well underway. Improvements to Cairo Place, opposite Soho Theatre Walthamstow, were completed and a new pocket park has been completed at Juniper House. The High Street outside The Scene is being upgraded with better surfacing, trees and planting, improved lighting to help make people feel safer and more secure and upgraded signage. The first phase of these works will complete in March 2026.  

Phase two, expected to begin in early 2026, will see the council respond to residents’ feedback that they wanted more green areas in the High Street. New greening zones will be installed at Buxton Road, Palmerston Road, and Selborne Avenue, alongside further investment at the entrance to St James Street station and the mini-bus station at Courtenay Mews. The project will also address residents’ concerns about numerous mopeds and scooters at the top of the High Street, which are sometimes driven aggressively and parked poorly.  

Plans from 17 and Central for a new town square and extension to the shopping centre, can also enable the potential delivery of a new step-free entrance to Walthamstow Central underground station.  

Alongside more planting and landscaping across major developments, improvements have been made to Lloyd Park with grass and pathway repairs were completed in 2025. The refurbishment of the Lloyd Park Lodge is also planned. 

Work is underway to improve Wingfield Park with £110k of investment from the funds we receive from developments (Community Infrastructure Levy), which includes enhancements to existing play equipment, new safer surfacing, a new dedicated picnic area, a new wildflower area and new signage. 

Our new nature infrastructure map highlights where future improvements can be made, including Walthamstow Town Square Gardens and St Mary’s Church Yard are both planned to be new publicly accessible green spaces. 

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