A Year Of Community Partnerships

Through the Canada Water development, our goal is to positively contribute to a community where everyone has a chance to thrive.

We’re proud to be partnered with local organisations to deliver a range of impactful programmes, serving the needs of this part of London and making the most of what the area has to offer.   

British Land support these partnerships with direct funding, access to space, and by co-ordinating volunteers from our supply chain who share their time and expertise with local projects.  

Much of our work with these groups is through Canada Water Connect, a partnership between British Land and charity ELBA that was set up to connect people to opportunities being created by the development.   

To our community partners, thank you for a great year. It’s a pleasure to collaborate with you all.  

Here are some of the local projects we enjoyed working with in 2025: 

Sports

Our partnership with Ballers Academy, a Community Interest Company, offers free-to-access football sessions for local 15-year-olds, promoting equal access to sports, teambuilding, and physical and mental health.

Roosters Boxing Club offer low-cost boxing sessions for local young people and adults. Our funding enables the club to offer subsidised boxing sessions at £5 for young people and £10 for adults, and supports young people to qualify as coaches. Roosters have recently relocated, which will allow them to expand their offer to include martial arts and other physical wellbeing activities in the near future.

At Southwark Park Cricket Club, our funding enables to club to offer summer and off-season community cricket coaching for 9 to 15-year-olds. The programme also involves upskilling and training local residents to become coaches for the youth programmes.

Education and Training 

At Bacon’s College we partnered with London Bubble Theatre Company to offer young people a confidence-building workshop titled “Way into Work”. This programme aims to prepare young people for the world of work through drama-based activities, as well as a “Brand You” masterclass focused on developing a personal brand that young people can use to sell themselves to employers.

Our partnership with educational charity Global Generation provides young people with a safe space and a programme to help them develop green and practical skills through nature-based learning. This initiative empowers them to shape and enhance the natural environment, including public spaces within the Canada Water development. This is achieved this by strengthening relationships with local schools, community groups, and residents, and making Paper Garden space accessible for growing and learning initiatives.

Ignite Hubs are on a mission to help children understand computing, outside of the school environment. We’re supporting the expansion of the Ignite Learning Hub to include Scratch, Roblox Coding, Python, and Lego Coding, complementing in-person classes at CW Library.

The Canada Water development is already creating new employment and business opportunities, and we’re committed to ensuring that local people can benefit from these. Our long-standing partnership with Construction Youth Trust (CYT) provides Southwark youth with insights into construction and the built environment, aligning with the curriculum from Year 7 onwards, and supports job access in the sector. CYT are currently working with Bacon’s College to give students a feel for what it’s like to work in the sector.

Entrepreneurs will be key to the future of Canada Water, and we support local enterprise through Thrive, the low-cost workspace run by charity Tree Shepherd in Surrey Quays Shopping Centre. The Thrive Affordable Space and Enterprise Programme provides local entrepreneurs and SMEs with affordable workspace, mentorship and training. It also supports the monthly mini market and workshops to prepare businesses for the opportunities created by the Canada Water development.

Community Groups  

Time and Talents are a lively local charity who run activities for children and families and for older people. British Land provide the T&T2 unit in Surrey Quays Shopping Centre, which Time & Talents use to deliver programmes for various groups in the community. Funding currently sponsors a monthly repair café and enables students from Bosco college to benefit from paid work experience. In 2025 we funded a development group working with women to enhance their skills in preparation for returning to / joining the work force. Our Senior Employment & Skills Manager has been supporting participants in finding work on completion of the programme.

The T&T2 unit also hosts weekly sessions for our partnership with charity Big Local Works, which provides local people with welfare and benefit support and advice while they seek job opportunities. Support is also provided online.

At Surrey Docks Farm, we supported a Southwark resident in an 18-month apprenticeship. The apprentice leads a number of the farm’s projects, including their youth programme, work experience opportunities and their volunteering  programme, and assists in the delivery of the mobile farm.

Arts

Our partnership with popular local artist Rod Kitson enables local people to access his Art of Isolation gallery, which is open for people to stop and draw or create with equipment and materials all provided. The programme has also encompassed workshops at Bacon’s College where students created a mural expressing their connection to Rotherhithe and Canada Water. They also learned about the business side of making artwork as a career. The gallery is made available for other artists to exhibit their work and run exhibitions, and free submissions are given to entries from Bacon’s College and local charity Bede House.

We’ve sponsored various local festivals this year, including the Bermondsey Carnival, a free event for all generations. In 2025 the festival attracted 8,222 attendees with was a 42% increase on the previous year’s carnival – the best since the pandemic. We also supported the much-loved Rotherhithe Festival, which attracted 7,500 attendees in 2025 with rides, activities and entertainment.

Our funding helps the festivals keep running and provide entertainment and a chance to come together for local people. From our stall at the Rotherhithe Festival, we run children’s competitions and give out free goodies.