Contract award
JJ Rhatigan signs 32 million pound London Chest housing contract
By Staff Writer | 26 August 2026
Bonner Road LLP has signed the phase one main contract for the former London Chest Hospital site with JJ Rhatigan and Co (UK) Limited at 31,991,711 pounds. The contract details notice was published on 26 August 2026 at 09:41am under the identifier 081084-2026 and records the contract as signed on 26 August 2026.
The scope on the notice is the design and construction of 76 affordable rent units across Block A and Block B, with associated landscaping. The notice describes Block A as an HRB and Block B as non-HRB. It does not expand the abbreviation and it does not give the unit split between the two blocks.
The contract period runs from 27 August 2026 to 30 March 2031, with a maximum extent date of 29 August 2031. The notice states that extensions are not envisaged but that the JCT Agreement allows for extensions. It names no form and no edition.
One performance indicator, observed once a year
The notice records a single agreed metric for a contract of four and a half years and thirty two million pounds. It is titled Appendix 11 and described as a mixture of health and safety, site cleanliness and defects reporting management, with an observation period of twelve months.
A single composite indicator reported annually is thin measurement for a residential design and build contract of this length, and it is worth reading against whatever the contract itself says about reporting. What the notice publishes is the frequency, not the consequence: it does not say what happens if the metric is not met, and on a contract that will run past the fourth anniversary of its start, that is the provision to find first.
Affordable rent on the notice, social rent in the client's own record
The wording matters and the two public records do not use the same word. The contract details notice describes 76 affordable rent units. Clarion Housing Group's own statement on the planning consent describes 76 homes allocated for social rent within a development of 274 new homes, with fifty per cent affordable housing overall.
Affordable rent and social rent are different tenures with different rent settings. The notice does not resolve which applies to these 76 units and neither record refers to the other, so the position on tenure is unsettled on the published material. What both records agree on is the number: 76.
The scheme and the procurement route
The London Borough of Tower Hamlets planning committee approved the redevelopment of the former London Chest Hospital site in Bethnal Green in July 2024. The approved scheme is 274 homes designed by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, retaining and refurbishing the Grade II listed main hospital building, the Sanitary Tower and the South Wing, with five new buildings of between five and nine storeys, 125 square metres of non-residential space for community use, and the veteran Mulberry tree kept in its original location.
Speaking when the consent was granted, Paul Monaghan, Executive Director of Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, said: "AHMM's design aims to sensitively restore the disused Grade II listed former London Chest Hospital and secure its long-term future. Working with Clarion, our proposals will deliver much needed affordable homes for Tower Hamlets and for London."
The award was made under a competitive flexible procedure with a tender reference of C2491, under the Procurement Act 2023, and the procurement is recorded as covered by the CPTPP. The award carries the identifier 2 within the same procurement, so it is not the first award made under it. The buyer, Bonner Road LLP, is registered at Greater London House in London NW1 and gives a Clarion Housing Group procurement address on the notice. The contractor is registered at Finsbury Square in London EC2 and is recorded on the notice as a large enterprise.
The published value carries no separate gross figure. The notice states 31,991,711 pounds as both the net and the gross amount, so no value added tax uplift appears on the record. That is a departure from the pattern on most of the week's other awards, where the two figures differ by twenty per cent, and it is worth confirming which basis the published number is on before it is used for comparison.