It’s the 75th anniversary year for the Royal Festival Hall, the brutalist auditorium at the centre of the Southbank Centre built on a curve of River Thames to mark the Festival of Britain, a five-month “tonic for the nation” designed to cheer a weary population still reeling from the Second World War. As Prime Minister Clement Attlee said when he laid the foundation stone, transforming the area from a boggy and mostly neglected collection of industrial buildings and wharfs in stark contrast to the prosperity across the river, the building was designed to “show that we are not just a nation of shopkeepers, but a people who appreciate and practise the arts”.
Londoners who “appreciate the arts” have headed south of the river to this prime piece of Zone 1 action, stretching from County Hall towards Borough ever since. In the days before dating apps, the South Bank was the number one location for a Guardian Soulmates first date and its status as a cultural whirlwind-cum-riverside promenade has outlasted the online matchmaker.
What’s less familiar is the South Bank as a new-build residential hotspot, but activity along the river tells the story. Large-scale schemes currently in planning, under construction or newly completed include Bankside Yards, The Edit, The Round and Southbank Place. These are not just residential towers. There will be new offices, restaurants and hotels including five-star grandee Mandarin Oriental at Bankside Yards. The mixed-use approach is a successful one, says Nick Parr, Head of Knight Frank’s Development Strategy and Finance team.
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“The South Bank, from Waterloo to London Bridge has always had world-famous culture and superb views,” says Parr. “Over recent years, a combination of the Shell Centre and ITV Studios changing hands, the London Eye opening, Thameslink improving and Blackfriars Station’s transformation all helped to bring people and they soon realised just how close it is to central London. It has been bookended by high-quality schemes and brands. The Hoxton arrived, Tate Modern opened and the area gained a genuinely positive vibe.”
Don’t describe it as up and coming though, insists Nicholas Gray of Native Land. Instead it’s a well-established residential address with the true depth buyers want. Native Land is developer of Bankside Yards, a £2.5 billion regeneration project on a 5.5-acre site beside Tate Modern. “At Bankside Yards we’re delivering an entire ecosystem of wellness, workspaces, cultural programming and green spaces as well as homes, all designed to sit naturally alongside the South Bank’s community and existing cultural institutions,” says Gray. That includes reopening the historic arches, closed for over 150 years and now repurposed for retail and leisure use.
The Waterloo Station Masterplan, commissioned by Lambeth Council and Network Rail and launched in 2024, aims to unlock the area’s potential by improving connectivity for residents and visitors.
“The Masterplan is focused on urban improvement and the development of existing infrastructure”
“The Masterplan is focused on urban improvement and the development of existing infrastructure rather than starting afresh, embracing the cultural setting and riverfront proximity,” says Oliver Sanhaji from buying agents Middleton Advisors. “It focuses on improving pedestrian routes, reducing traffic and creating higher-quality public spaces. Southbank’s original attraction was rooted in history, cultural institutions and proximity to the river but the prospect of enhanced connectivity and public space is seen as a key factor in reinforcing long-term desirability.”
Michael Ball, Director of Waterloo Community Development Group (WCDG), knows the area better than most. For 20 years he has run WCDG, a charity with a sole focus on community planning. His work saw Jubilee Gardens beside the London Eye transformed from wasteland into London’s most visited open green space per square foot, and he campaigned successfully against the proposed Garden Bridge. Waterloo Station is a block between homes to the south and the river, a “disaster” for getting about in the area, he says, and plans to allow pathways through it are “very positive”.
On a sunny, late-April walk around Waterloo, passing the Banksy-inspired graffiti in Leake Street Tunnel and the busy food stalls on Lower Marsh, Ball points out sites that have been empty and boarded up for years, including Elizabeth House, the vast former P&O building opposite the station. But there’s good news too: after extensive campaigning, work looks set to commence on an extension to Jubilee Gardens to the east, the culmination, says Ball, of a 40-year campaign.
“We support the right development in the right place,” he says. “We support the Waterloo Masterplan but are wary that investors might steer the development away from benefiting the community. The ITV Studios and tower redevelopment, for example, will hold 4,000 workers rather than have housing and the embodied carbon created by demolishing and rebuilding is enormous. It would have been better as a mixed-use development, something that Southbank Place did well at the Shell Centre.”
When WCDG began in 1972, there was no residential property on the South Bank, says Ball, with River Court, 600 flats beside Blackfriars Bridge, the first development, followed in the 1980s by projects in Coin Street and the 1990s by County Hall. “The South Bank itself used to be wharfs with dense housing one block back from the river,” he says. “There was, and still is, 19th-century housing on York Road, Stamford Street and Southwark Street, plus council housing. In 1980, 65 per cent of homes in Waterloo were council homes with a further 25 per cent on protected rent. Much social housing around Waterloo Station has been lost. The area on the far side is still primarily social rent housing.” Council housing increases the further you head into Lambeth.
A WCDG audit in 2022 showed that of 3,000 properties built after 1980, only 220 were affordable homes. “Social housing hasn’t come,” Ball says. “We’re a strong community but we need social housing to keep people local and we’re losing sites to unaffordable housing. South Bank has been a honeytrap for wealthy buyers who don’t live here. One Blackfriars, for example, seems to have very few lights on after dark.”
Retired advertising executive Mike Sprinz has lived in the redeveloped former Shell offices directly opposite the Festival Hall for 25 years, and his wife Raewyn is a trustee of Jubilee Gardens. “We choose to live here for the central London location and the beauty of being by the river,” he says. “I go to around 30 concerts at the Festival Hall every year. It used to be rare to see anyone walking around after 9.30pm but now it’s always busy. London is great when it’s not overstressed but it has become too intense here.”
Joe Banks, 40, and his wife moved to NEO Bankside six months ago, an area of London he knew well. “South Bank has gone from strength to strength,” he says. “It’s unparalleled in London as a hive of culture and for connectivity too. We travel a lot and can roll out of bed into Blackfriars Station and be at Gatwick or Luton in 35 minutes and City Airport in 20 minutes. We walk to the West End in 45 minutes or Borough Market in five. I still have pinch me moments walking along the river opposite St Paul’s.”
The South Bank has kept a sense of place — it doesn’t feel homogenous like some other parts along the Thames
The final building in Southbank Place, Seven, is now complete, with larger than average two- and three-bedroom apartments attracting plenty of British buyers, including young professionals working in the City and older downsizers, says Miles Wood, sales director at developer Qatari Diar. “South Bank is a success story because it has kept a sense of place. The old booksellers are still there by the river, it has the same cultural vibe and exceptional views. It doesn’t feel homogenous like some other parts along the Thames.”
Rightmove puts the average house price on the South Bank at £878,088, 19 per cent down on the previous year and 55 per cent down on the 2019 peak, although the small number of properties in the area make data unreliable. Overall pricing on the South Bank ranges from around £500,000 for well-located apartments to £10 million-plus for prime riverside penthouses, says Emma Warom, partner at Knight Frank’s London New Homes team.
“The area is maturing into one of London’s most important regeneration stories”
“The area is maturing into one of London’s most important regeneration stories, evolving from a cultural destination into a fully functioning mixed-use residential neighbourhood,” she says. “Pricing reflects both the depth and breadth of demand.”
The South Bank and Waterloo are set to shine in June’s London Festival of Architecture 2026 as one of 11 featured neighbourhoods. The aim is to “celebrate its legacy and explore how creativity, innovation and design can continue to foster a strong sense of belonging and shape the area’s future”. With prime rental values increasing 25 per cent since 2020, office rents growing at an annual average of 4.1 per cent over the past decade, above London’s 3.9 per cent average, and Southwark’s 8 per cent population growth from 2014-24 projected to be superseded by 8.2 per cent growth in the decade from 2023, the South Bank’s evolution looks set to continue.
