Waltham Forest Council is set to take on the role of development manager for the London Secure Children's Home (LSCH), a project aimed at providing specialist care for vulnerable children across London. The decision was made at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday 07 October 2025.
The LSCH is intended to provide residential, specialist care, education, health, leisure, and wellbeing services for some of London's most vulnerable children. Local authorities place children and young people in secure children's homes on welfare grounds, when they are a significant risk to themselves or others, and no other type of care placement can meet their complex needs and keep them safe.
The LSCH, a proposed new residential provision, will be located at the current Thames Water Depot site on Lea Bridge Road, near the Waltham Forest/Hackney border. The Thames Water Depot site on Lea Bridget Road on the Waltham Forest/Hackney border was formally announced as the proposed location for the LSCH at the beginning of 2024 when the first round of public pre app consultation for the development was launched. The site is owned by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, which is the legal entity for all government held property and is managed by the DfE.
The site is designated as MOL. However, it is a hard standing area currently used by Thames Water as a storage depot. The LSCH proposal will see this replaced with a new, sustainable building including large areas of green space and soft landscaping. The landscaping, trees, shrubs and pond areas will positively contribute to the sites Biodiversity Net Gain.
The council and DfE are targeting BREEAM 'Excellent', certification afforded to the top 10% of new buildings. BREEAM assesses projects and buildings through a number of measures including carbon reduction, sustainable transport, reducing operational costs, energy, water, resilience, land use and pollution.
The building design will look to maximise carbon reduction measures including PVs on roofs, water attenuation and air/ground source heat pumps. Furthermore, additional design features will be explored such as: (a) Minimising overheating through building orientation and shading. (b) Maximising fabric efficiency using the energy hierarchy. (c) LED lighting. (d) Opportunities for reusing materials on site.
It will be owned by a Pan London Vehicle (PLV), comprising all London local authorities.
Councillor Ahsan Khan, Deputy Leader (Housing and Regeneration), presented the report to the cabinet. The decision means that Waltham Forest Council will oversee design development, submit the planning application, procure a main contractor, and project manage the main works contract.
The council has delegated authority to the Corporate Director of Capital Strategy & Delivery to proceed with the procurement of design and technical consultants and to award contracts. They also delegated authority to the Strategic Director of Place, in consultation with the Strategic Director of Resources and the Corporate Director of Governance and Law, to enter into any legal agreements with the DfE and other LAs in relation to the design and build arrangements for this scheme, including for cost risk sharing. The council’s continuing role as development manager is subject to the London LAs entering into legally binding agreements with the council to share the residual capital costs and these agreements would need to be entered into before the main works contract is signed
The council has agreed to an initial project delivery budget of £3.7m to cover design, technical and other consultant fees, surveys and staff costs, fully covered by the DfE.
The council could have decided not to take on the development manager role and lead the design and build of the scheme, but the council determined that the risks of taking on the scheme could be mitigated and that not taking on the role would further delay the delivery of this strategically important pan London residential provision.
The operational running and associated financial model of the facility are out of scope of this decision and is being managed by London Councils.
