Transfer slab cracks have forced residents out of three young apartment blocks in London. Construction News reported on October 26, 2026 that Sovereign Tower, Centurion Tower and St Vincent Court at the Royal Gateway site in Canning Town were evacuated in the early hours of Friday, October 23, after serious structural problems were found.
What happened: transfer slab cracks found in London
According to Construction News, an inspection carried out as part of a building safety case found a sagging and cracked transfer slab beneath the three blocks. The London Fire Brigade said it was called to reports of a dangerous structure on Hoy Street on the Thursday night, and crews helped move residents to a rest centre.
Newham Council’s cabinet member for housing, John Gray, said around 211 private households were asked to leave. The council said it was providing emergency support. Royal Gateway has five towers and 336 apartments; the other two towers, Prince Court and Thanet Tower, were not evacuated. The site was built between 2014 and 2017.
Source: Construction News.
Key details
- Buildings affected: Sovereign Tower, Centurion Tower and St Vincent Court in Canning Town, east London.
- Households asked to leave: around 211.
- Suspected cause: a transfer slab beneath the blocks that inspectors found sagging and cracked.
- How it was found: during work on a retrospective building safety case for the towers.
- Age of the buildings: completed in 2017, less than ten years ago.
- Builders: developed by Galliard Homes with Cathedral Group and built by Galliard Construction; Construction News said it had asked the firms for comment.
Why it matters for homeowners in Nepal
A transfer slab is a thick, heavily reinforced slab that carries columns or walls from the floors above and passes their load to differently placed columns below. They are common when a building has shops or parking on the ground floor and flats above. The same idea appears in many Nepali houses where a column on an upper floor does not sit directly on a column below, or where a wide open shop front sits under rooms of brick walls.
These shortcuts are risky because the load has to travel sideways through a beam or slab, which then needs far more steel and depth than an ordinary slab. In an earthquake-prone country, an open ground floor with heavy floors above is one of the weak patterns engineers warn about. The London case shows that even a modern building can develop transfer slab cracks within a decade, and that regular inspection finds problems before they become disasters.
What to do next
- Keep columns lined up from the foundation to the roof wherever possible; if one must shift, ask a registered structural engineer to design that beam or slab.
- Avoid wide open ground floors under heavy upper storeys unless the design has been checked for earthquake loads.
- Watch for new cracks in slabs and beams, sagging ceilings, or doors that suddenly stick, and get an engineer to inspect them.
- Make sure your contractor builds exactly what the approved drawings show; our guide to choosing a contractor can help.
For more background, see the original report from Construction News and Newham Council’s statement. On our site, read our Building Act amendment explainer and guide to choosing a contractor.
How to use construction news when planning your house
News about laws, roads, power and prices can feel far away from a single family house, but each story here changes something practical: what you pay, how long the work takes, or what paperwork you need. Before you start a build in Nepal, it helps to keep a short checklist and update it as the news changes.
- Rules: is your naksa approved, and does your design follow the national building code?
- Materials: where will cement, steel, bricks and sand come from, and how will they reach the site?
- Utilities: when will you apply for electricity and water connections?
- Budget: have you added a buffer for price rises and delays?
- People: are your engineer and contractor registered, and is their scope written down?
A good plan does not remove every risk, but it turns surprises into small adjustments instead of big problems. We follow construction news from Nepal and around the world every day so you can make these decisions with up-to-date information. If you are not sure how a story affects your own project, talk to a registered engineer in your municipality before you change your plans.
FAQ
What are transfer slab cracks?
They are cracks in a thick slab that carries loads from columns or walls above to supports in different positions below. Sagging and cracking can signal that the slab is overloaded or under-designed.
How many people were affected in London?
Around 211 private households in three of the five Royal Gateway towers were asked to leave.
Do Nepali houses use transfer slabs?
Large ones are rare in small houses, but offset columns and floating columns create the same kind of risk, so they should always be designed by a structural engineer.