WORK has started on a new development which will bring 10,000 houses to the borough.

By next summer, 64 of the homes are due to be built at the Barking Riverside site.

Construction has been helped by an �8.5million investment from the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation.

Steve Oakes, director of development at the corporation, said: “This is the first kind of real physical work on the site. It will provide much needed new family housing in the area.”

A new school and health facilities are also being built at the site, and Mr Oakes said that this means it will make it better than other housing developments.

“The criticism that some construction gets is that people build housing without services. We have got the schools and the facilities at the same time, and the development has been designed around the facilities,” he said.

And although the corporation is due to be abolished by the coalition government in 2013, the funding for Barking Riverside is not under threat.

“There is a contractual commitment and the housing will get built, it is a legal agreement. No one will be pulling any chunk of money out of it,” Mr Oakes said.

The work is being carried out by Barking Riverside Ltd., in partnership with the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation and the council.

Are you excited about the development of the Barking Riverside site? Do you think it will regenerate the town?

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