Featureless Canary Wharf has finally found its soul

As its corporate vibe is dialled down, this part of London’s Docklands looks poised to become the capital’s next bougie neighbourhood

At lunchtime on a Monday, Canary Wharf is a hive of activity. Workers in navy suits swarm in to salad bars and eat sandwiches on benches, the sunlight glinting off the towers of steel and glass above. With its reputation as a sterile commercial centre, no one could have guessed that the docklands financial district would become London’s next “village” neighbourhood. But that’s exactly what the owners of this eerily neat section of the city are banking on.
When HSBC announced plans to swap its 45-storey headquarters for the Square Mile last year, it seemed Canary Wharf’s fortunes were fading. The magic circle law firm Clifford Chance also plans to jump ship a year later in 2028. In April this year, it was reported that £900 million had been wiped from the value of its office buildings. But long before HSBC announced plans to abandon its “tower of doom”, the Canary Wharf Group (co-owned by an American property firm and the Qatar Investment Authority) had embarked on a new chapter, quietly putting the wheels in motion to transform the featureless financial hub into a new neighbourhood where bankers no longer just work 80-hour weeks; people can live and play there too.  
Quietly, and without much fanfare, 3,500 people have moved into a new residential district on the 128-acre estate since 2020 – a number that will double over the next few years. Roughly 23 per cent of the housing built so far is available for social or affordable rent. New restaurants are flooding in. A new primary school is close to completion. It is also home to an enormous Waitrose, allegedly the largest in the country – so clearly someone is filling fridges and cooking meals. And now the Canary Wharf Group (CWG) has unveiled plans to cut chunks out of the iconic HSBC tower on Canada Square to create terraces, leisure facilities and cultural attractions. There couldn’t be a more obvious metaphor for an area excising its soulless reputation.
Daniel, 44, was one of the first people to move into the shiny new tower blocks lining the residential district, which is called Wood Wharf, back in 2020. A banker working in the area, he was drawn to the “diverse, international” community, having previously lived in France and Cameroon, and has rented a one-bed flat ever since. He is now looking to buy. “It’s the only place I can see myself living in London,” he says. “I decided to move for security reasons, convenience for my work, and the fact that they were building a new neighbourhood and new community where you can come from anywhere in the world.” 
As Canary Wharf is a private estate, there is 24/7 security, and the riverside walkways are spotlessly clean (in stark contrast with most other London neighbourhoods). For its residents, this is part of the appeal. “I usually wake up at 5am to run and can say hi to a security guard,” says Daniel. “It’s one of the most secure places in London. I travel a lot too, and think it’s one of the most secure places in Europe.” Crime rates are six times below the rest of the borough of Tower Hamlets, and 20 times below the City of Westminster.
Wandering around Wood Wharf, it’s clear the area caters to a wealthy and largely international clientele. There are athleisure-clad mums with buggies and a smattering of small, fluffy dogs. There is plenty to do, although much of it is still reminiscent of a corporate playground – there are several “gaming” concepts like shuffleboard and Fairgame, an  “old-school fairground entertainment” chain with arcade games providing entertainment for office socials and nights out. However, you can play padel – the new favourite sport of financiers everywhere – and go go-karting, open-water swimming or paddleboarding. 
It is a perfectly planned, utopian mini-city, with a leafy park at its centre (although some of the grass is artificial), peaceful waterside walkways and a children’s playground. When it is finished, there will be a spine of waterways and green spaces right up the centre, allowing you to see from one end of the wharf to the other. 
There are eight grocery stores – as well as Waitrose there are two Marks & Spencers, a Tesco, an Amazon Fresh and an Asian supermarket – and a forthcoming GP surgery, all within a 15-minute walk. While it still seems to be swarming with bankers, the mix of people who work here is changing, too. CWG says 55 per cent of the office space is taken up by financial services, with the rest a mix of life and health sciences, tech, media and other industries. It is an area that is no stranger to reinvention, having risen from desolate docklands in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain to become a mini-city of skyscrapers, changing London’s skyline forever. 
Early evidence suggests the estate’s attempts to diversify have – so far – been fruitful. Most of the flats in One Park Drive, the landmark riverside tower designed by architects Herzog & de Meuron, have been sold. (It has been said the building looks a little like a corn on the cob.) Many other build-to-rent buildings have sprung up. The apartments currently on the market start from £2,400 per month for a studio. 
Shobi Khan, CWG’s chief executive, says it has been transformed into a “vibrant mixed-used neighbourhood” and “a city within a city.” The number of cafés, bars and restaurants has doubled since 2019, and it has 16.5 acres of green space, a play area, three miles of waterside boardwalks, and a forthcoming dock designed in partnership with the Eden Project, which is aiming to set a global example – via extensive planting and water features – on how to introduce biodiversity in a dense urban environment.  
Rik Campbell, co-founder of the popular Indian restaurant Kricket, is opening a new branch in Canary Wharf later this month, confirming the area’s reputation as a nascent dining hotspot. “I hadn’t been in over 10 years – I had that old-school opinion of it being a place just for City boys,” he says. “I was pleasantly surprised by how much it had changed and gone from a five-day operation to much more of a seven-day, all-week community. 
“The Elizabeth Line has definitely helped. It takes 25 minutes for me to get from my office in Soho to the restaurant here in Canary Wharf. It’s not just Londoners, it’s the bridge-and-tunnellers [visitors from Essex and the Home Counties] from outside London.
“There are great brands, great restaurants coming to Canary Wharf in the last two years – people like ourselves who would never have thought about it,” Campbell adds. “We’re hearing Saturdays and Sundays are as busy as in the week, if not busier.” 
James Robson, the restaurateur behind Fallow in St James’s, central London, has recently opened a new restaurant called Roe on the ground floor of One Park Drive. “We came here because of the waterside terrace – in the end that’s what really sold it to us. It’s about the architecture,” Robson says. He assumed lunchtimes would be busiest, and at weekends it would be a ghost town, but so far the opposite is true. Other popular spots include a vast Hawksmoor steakhouse and a popular branch of the Bombay-inspired chain Dishoom. “It’s become a bit of a foodie destination,” he adds. 
It is all part of a masterplan to reduce the estate’s reliance on financial services, as it is clear post-pandemic hybrid working patterns are here to stay. From its construction in the 1980s to fairly recently, it was 95 per cent offices. Now that is down to 72 per cent, a relatively small but nonetheless significant shift, and the proportion of offices will continue to decrease as new residential and retail buildings spring up. The “new” Canary Wharf is a village in a city with the feel of a gated community – safe and clean, but expensive enough to only appeal to the wealthiest of London’s residents.