Southwark approves 15-storey student block over Tube station with 44 social rent homes

Southwark council granted planning permission on 15 April 2026 for a 15-storey student accommodation building at Southwark Underground station and adjoining land on The Cut, SE1, the Greater London Authority's planning record shows. A nine-storey block holding 44 affordable homes makes up the rest of the scheme.

The council's planning committee for major applications B resolved to grant the permission at its meeting on 9 December 2025. The minute records the resolution as "That planning permission be granted for application ref 24/AP/2770 subject to conditions, the completion of a section 106 legal agreement and referral to the Mayor of London".

A section 106 agreement is the contract that ties a developer to payments and obligations attached to a permission. The committee also resolved that "If by 30 June 2026 the s106 legal agreement has not been completed, the director of planning and growth be authorised to refuse planning permission, if appropriate".

The planning record gives all 44 homes as social rent, and its total proposed bedrooms field gives 90.

The student building takes most of the floorspace. The record measures it at 16,112 sq m against 21,932 sq m the scheme adds in all, or 73 per cent. It does not give the number of student rooms.

The record puts the student building at 62.35m and the housing block at 36.96m, on a site of 0.46 hectares, and names Helical plc as the applicant.

The same record carries a status of "Lapsed" with a lapsed date of 5 September 2025, seven months before the approval date it also gives.

The site was pitched differently seven years ago. The council issued a screening opinion on 21 November 2019 for "commercial office and retail Over-Station Development (OSD)" at the station, and recorded a formal environmental assessment as not required.

Work on the station itself has consent. On 7 April 2026 the council approved listed building consent for "Permanent and temporary works to the interfaces between the exterior of the station and the Over Station Development", including cladding of columns in the ticket hall concourse and pavement security bollards, "all as permitted by 24/AP/2770".

Passengers meet the scheme first. Transport for London's closures page states that from "Monday 17 August until Friday 11 September", "Jubilee line trains will not stop at Southwark between 09:45 and 16:15, Monday to Friday". It gives the reason: "The closures are while extensive work on the over-station development takes place."