Armada Way approaching Gallions Reach - geograph

Gallions Reach Shopping Park is a major out-of-town

retail park A retail park is a type of shopping centre found on the fringes of most large towns and cities in the United Kingdom and other European countries. Retail parks form a key aspect of European retail geographies, alongside indoor shopping centres, ...

Beckton Beckton is a suburb in east London, England, located east of Charing Cross and part of the London Borough of Newham. Adjacent to the River Thames, the area consisted of unpopulated marshland known as the East Ham Levels in the parishes of Bark ...

, east

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, England. Located on Armada Way beside the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, s ...

, Gallions Reach is the largest retail park within London and the M25, containing 34 units in an area of 324,000 square feet.

History

The shopping park was developed by Castlemore and completed by the end of 2003, on part of the former

Beckton Gas Works Beckton Gasworks was a major London gasworks built to manufacture coal gas and other products including coke from coal. It has been variously described as 'the largest such plant in the world' Winchester C (Ed), ''Handling 2,000,000 tons of coa ...

. In 2006,

Standard Life Investments Standard Life is a life assurance, pensions and long-terms savings company in the UK which is owned by Phoenix Group. History 1825–2010 The Standard Life Assurance Company was established in 1825 and reincorporated as a mutual assurance com ...

purchased the retail park for £208 million.

Services

Gallions Reach provides 2,000 car parking spaces. It includes retailers such as Smyths Toys,

River Island River Island (stylised as RiverIsland and abbreviated as RI) is a London-based, multi-channel fashion brand, founded in 1948 by Bernard Lewis (entrepreneur), Bernard Lewis. The retailer has a presence in over 125 of worldwide markets, in stores ...

Boots A boot is a type of footwear. Most boots mainly cover the foot and the ankle, while some also cover some part of the lower calf. Some boots extend up the leg, sometimes as far as the knee or even the hip. Most boots have a heel that is clearl ...

and

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation, doing business as McDonald's, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain. As of 2024, it is the second largest by number of locations in the world, behind only the Chinese ch ...

, and is anchored by a large

Tesco Extra Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in the United Kingdom at its head offices in Welwyn Garden City, England. The company was founded by Jack Cohen (businessman), Sir Jack Cohen in ...

store.

Future

In 2018, the owners of the site,

Aberdeen Standard Investments Aberdeen Group plc, trading as aberdeen, is a United Kingdom-based investment company headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. The registered office of the compa ...

, stated to the

London Plan The London Plan is the statutory spatial development strategy for the Greater London area in the United Kingdom that is written by the Mayor of London and published by the Greater London Authority. It is updated from time to time. The regio ...

consultation that they wished to develop the site into a major town centre with commercial and residential development. In December 2020, Aberdeen Standard contributed towards the cost of the planning and technical work of the

Docklands Light Railway The Docklands Light Railway (DLR) is an automated medium-capacity rail system, light metro system primarily serving the redeveloped London Docklands, Docklands area of London and providing a direct connection between London's two major financi ...

extension to Thamesmead, which would include a station at

Beckton Riverside The Docklands Light Railway extension to Thamesmead is a proposed Docklands Light Railway (DLR) extension to serve the Beckton Riverside and Thamesmead redevelopment areas of East London. Mooted in the late 2010s, the extension was first forma ...

to serve the site.

References

{{coords, 51.51, 0.08, display=title Shopping centres in the London Borough of Newham Retail parks in the United Kingdom