has big plans for Lewisham

Astir is on a mission to ‘make living better.' Astir is a new entrant into London’s large scale mixed-use development market, with a new take on modern living, creating mixed-use communities for all people in all stages of life.

Astir will proudly be welcoming residents into their new homes within their maiden development, West Hampstead Central (WHC) this year. WHC is a collection of 94 elegant one- and two-bedroom apartments, alongside ground floor retail and Astir’s coworking concept. Here, Travis Crawford, Partner at Astir, discusses plans for their next landmark mixed-use development, Silkwater in Lewisham.

Can you tell us a little bit about Astir?

Astir has been operational since 2020 with a vision to create exquisite places to live, work and play. Our vision underpins everything we do: “Making Living Better.” We bring a passion, energy and creativity to placemaking through taking a longer-term view. We are unique in developing genuinely mixed-use developments with a range of accommodation options for contemporary lifestyles. Including more traditional housing for sale and rent, as well as modern co-living options, alongside student accommodation and aparthotels. Astir are also bringing forward a new co-working concept to provide modern working options for our residents and the wider community.

What makes an Astir home distinctive?

We aim to deliver a new type of accommodation that responds to contemporary ways of life. Wellbeing, community and sustainability are our primary focus and our developments reflect this. Ideally, a home should enhance its occupier’s wellbeing. They should feel proud to live in an attractive, social and sustainable environment. We put ourselves in our residents’ shoes and always strive to make our places as vibrant and cohesive as possible.

We take a great deal of time to position each development to suit the local area and people and ensure that the housing options and amenity spaces are specifically tailored to their needs. All our developments have extensive amenity spaces alongside abundant open space to provide a higher quality living experience for all stages of life.

At Astir we believe that by creating such places we can change the perception that renting is a secondary option, born of financial necessity. We see no reason for this to continue, if we can develop a rental proposition that provides a higher standard in superior locations, with enhanced hotel style customer service, that only long term professional landlords can provide. It can be something to actively aspire to. This, perhaps more than anything, is what we bring to the sector – an aspirational vision of better living for all.

Astir’s first development in the capital, West Hampstead Central, is due to complete in 2024 and already looks fantastic. Which leads us to the key question – what’s the plan in Lewisham?

We are incredibly excited by the opportunity to bring forward ‘Silkwater’ our first multi living tenure development within the heart of Lewisham, alongside the Ravensbourne River and Lewisham station. Our vision is for a vibrant multi use community, further enhancing Lewisham’s town centre. The development will provide highly sustainable long term housing options, alongside student accommodation and an aparthotel, as well as coworking, and community uses. We are working with Tesco so that they can remain on this site and continue to serve the local community with a new and improved superstore.

We are inspired to return the site to nature, achieving a substantial biodiversity net gain, through the restoration and re-naturalisation of the River Ravensbourne, that will form a new green route through Lewisham as part of substantial landscaping and public realm improvements brought forward with the development.

Our proposals will reopen the site to the local community through new public routes and green spaces reconnecting Eagle House, a local heritage asset, with the river, and reinstating the historic Silk Mills Path providing enhanced access to and from Lewisham station.

Furthermore, we intend to introduce our coworking concept on site to provide flexible working space including affordable membership options for local entrepreneurs, startups and the local community. Part of that offering is the transformation of Eagle House, a locally listed building, which was the head office of the former Anchor Brewery located on the site since the 1800s, into a multi purpose coworking space, community hub and cafe. We will also create new public space at the site to provide the social infrastructure so often lacking in residential developments.

Celebrating each site’s unique heritage and creating a place with a clear identity is fundamental to our approach. Silkwater will celebrate the area’s rich heritage whilst providing a range of attractive living options, complemented by extensive commercial space.

Our ideas are at a very early stage and we are looking forward to discussing our proposals with the council and local community through a number of consultation events later this year.

You also mentioned West Hampstead Central – thanks! We’re thrilled with how it’s shaping up. The scheme is spread across two buildings in West Hampstead village, on West End Lane, adjacent to the Underground, Thameslink and Overground stations. The inspiration was pure West Hampstead: think of those elegant mansion blocks, but updated to reflect the needs and desires of the 21st century occupier. We have however made a concerted effort to ensure the development is in keeping with the historic local vernacular. Respecting the character of a place is a big thing for us – you will see this in Lewisham.

Placemaking and Heritage is clearly important to you. What about sustainability?

Absolutely, just as important. We all know how important it is is for all of us to minimise the impact we have on our planet. Astir’s business model is to retain the ownership of our developments, therefore we take a longerterm view. We aim to set a new standard in sustainability, ensuring our developments are not only built as environmentally friendly as possible, but also operate will minimal impact on the environment.

Does access to transport factor into your choice of location?

100%, yes, look at West Hampstead – the primary transport links are right on the doorstep. Silkwater, too, will be so much more than a collection of homes. It will constitute a vibrant new community, and accessibility will be a key part of that.

Our proposals will complete the Lewisham town centre cluster, establishing a nucleus of supporting uses which will balance the activity either side of Lewisham station to make best use of the key transport hub. Residents will benefit from worldclass links to central London, Greater London and the South East.

What does the future hold for Astir?

Lewisham is our number one priority at this moment in time, as we work with Lewisham council to continue to develop the proposals, but Astir are constantly looking at new opportunities around London. Success breeds success and we have every intention of taking the business as far as we possibly can.

We are very keen to talk with any landowners who are looking to sell sites or looking to release further value from their assets. We are also working in partnership with landowners to provide our unique perspective and progressive approach to development in order to unlock other sites to add to our wonderful capital city.

We very much welcome any approaches from landowners or agents looking for a new perspective.