Oyster Wharf Dock: the rare private dock has planning permission for a 1,722 sq ft floating home
(Picture: Radstock Property)A super-rare private mooring “one of the very few private docks in London” has come up for sale for £500,000, with planning persmission to build a floating house in the dock.
On the south bank of Thames, between Wandsworth Bridge and Battersea Railway Bridge, the dock was used by barges delivering coal to the then-called Grove Power Station from the 1800s.
Now known as Oyster Wharf, which has a 146-home and office building, the dock was part of the development site but “no one really knew what to do with it”, says George Franks, co-founder of Radstock Property who are marketing the unusual listing.
Of the residential developer owners, he says: “They’re not boaty people, they’ve decided to sell it to someone who would like to live in one of the very few private docks in London.”
There’s planning permission to hold or build a “floating vessel” of up to 1,722 sq ft, while proposals drawn up by One-world design practice in 2017 show a cylindrical three-bedroom home across two storeys with space for a boat to sit underneath.
Houseboat owners tend to pay from £8,000 to £12,000 in fees to The Port of London Authority and rent for space on jetties each year, says Franks. “That’s just to have your boat in the water, not with services or anything else.”
In the two weeks it’s been for sale, Franks says the private mooring has had interest from people with houseboats, some “romantic tyre-kickers” and some with fantastic ideas who want to put a house there.
“Equally, you could have a high-powered rib bobbing away there ready to blast along the Thames,” he adds. There are 981 years remaining on the lease.
