Living in Barking: area guide to homes, schools and transport
The cheapest London houses are in Barking & Dagenham and Darren Rodwell, leader of this east London borough, has ambitious plans.
The council now has its own regeneration company, BeFirst, led by former Civil Service chief Lord Kerslake, with a target of building 50,000 homes and creating 20,000 new jobs in the next 20 years.
The biggest single project, Barking Riverside, is also one of the largest in London. This joint venture between housing association L&Q and the Mayor of London is bringing thousands of new homes to an old power station site along the Thames.
Barking town centre projects include Fresh Wharf, with 531 homes overlooking the River Roding; a plan for nearly 600 new homes on the former Abbey Retail Park; the redevelopment of Vicarage Field shopping centre with 885 homes, and the regeneration of the Gascoigne Estate.
Planners have also given the nod to a scheme promoted by BeFirst which will see Crown House, a Sixties office block in Linton Road, replaced with 400 homes in two new tower blocks of 20 and 29 storeys.
Tower blocks are becoming a feature of this former low-rise town, with 360 Barking behind the station nearing completion. This scheme of 195 flats is in four towers ranging in height from 10 to 27 storeys with a distinctive curvy design by architects Studio Egret West.
It is all a far cry from the middle of the 19th century when Barking was a busy fishing village and home to The Short Blue Fleet, the country’s largest fishing fleet, which put its catch on ice created by flooding the local marshes in winter.
In River Road, a large mosaic by artist Tamara Froud tells the story of the lost village of Creekmouth and the Princess Alice paddle steamer disaster.
Up to 700 people on board the steamer drowned in 1878 when it collided with an 890-ton coal collier, The Bywell Castle, off Creekmouth. As for the village, established in the 1850s for local factory workers, it was all but abandoned after the floods that swept down the east coast of England in January 1953.
Barking is off the A13 London to Southend and Shoeburyness road and is 11 miles east of central London with Ilford to the north, Dagenham to the east, the Thames to the south and East Ham to the west.
The property scene
Barking has Victorian, Edwardian and modern homes built from the Fifties onwards, but most houses were built in the Thirties. On the sought-after Leftley Estate, off Woodbridge Road north-east of the town centre, double-fronted semis can sell for £800,000-plus.
The most expensive house for sale on the Leftley Estate now is a five-bedroom home in Upney Lane, at £875,000. Nearer the town centre, the Faircross Estate has smaller houses, mainly Thirties terraces.
One of the most affordable places in London to buy a family house, Barking offers three-bedroom Thirties houses from £350,000 to £575,000.
There are also modern flats, including in award-winning Barking Central, the town centre regeneration scheme that brought 500 new flats and a 66-bed hotel in seven colourful blocks around an arboretum.
It also created a new public square outside the town hall; an arcade next to the new library, and a folly, by Muf Architecture. Barking Central was a joint venture between the council and house builder Redrow.
Designed by architects Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, it was built between 2002 and 2010 but the arboretum now needs a facelift. One-bedroom flats range from £200,000 to £250,000.
New-build homes
The masterplan for Barking Riverside, the area’s largest development, covers the derelict site of a former power station between the A13 and the Thames, south-east of Barking town centre.
The size of small new town, it envisages 10,800 new homes; 65,000sq ft of shops, restaurants and bars; new schools; open space and public squares, and a new station, an extension to the Barking to Gospel Oak Overground line.
Originally a joint venture between housebuilder Bellway and the Mayor of London, the scheme stalled, leaving the original pioneering buyers feeling stranded.
Three years ago housing association L&Q took over from Bellway pledging to speed up the rate of building. Barking Riverside is a place for people who want to play their part in creating a new community that will take another 15 years to complete.
Two developments are currently for sale at Riverside: L&Q’s Parklands and Bellway’s Verde.
Parklands has one-, two- and three-bedroom flats and four-bedroom townhouses in Northgate Road, with one-bedroom flats from £249,500; two-bedroom flats at £319,950; three-bedroom flats at £359,950 and the townhouses at £525,000. Call L&Q (020 8617 1747).
Verde sits alongside Parklands on Sackett Road; one-bedroom flats start at £249,995; three-bedroom flats at £377,495 and four-bedroom terrace houses at £512,995. Contact Bellway on 020 8594 9709.
In the town centre, Fresh Wharf in Fleet Road overlooking the River Roding is a Countryside scheme of one-, two- and three-bedroom flats and three-bedroom waterfront houses, launching soon. Call Countryside on 020 3733 1191.
First-time buyers
Help to Buy and shared ownership are available at L&Q’s Parklands, with 25 per cent shares for sale of one-bedroom flats from £61,875; of two-bedroom flats from £72,500 and of three-bedroom flats from £87,500. Call L&Q (as before).
NU living two-bedroom shared-ownership flats at 360 Barking start at £85,000 for 25 per cent. Call Nu living on 020 3369 0157.
Weavers Quarter in King Edward’s Road is part of the Gascoigne Estate regeneration by the council and L&Q. Two-bedroom flats start at £89,250 for 30 per cent. Call 0333 234 1153.
Rental homes
One-bedroom homes rent from £900 to £1,595 a month at 360 Barking and £1,000 to £1,100 in Barking Central, giving investors a yield of about five per cent. Three-bedroom Thirties houses rent for about £1,600 a month.
Staying power
Barking is a traditional London working-class town where many families have lived for generations.
Postcode
IG11 is the Barking postcode although on its western border it strays into E6, the East Ham postcode.
Best roads
The Leftley Estate roads which run of Woodbridge Road south of Longbridge Road.
Up and coming
Barking is a good place to look for affordable three-bedroom Thirties family homes with potential to extend.
Travel
The range of commuting options from Barking includes 15-minute fast trains into Fenchurch Street in the City.
The station is also on the Underground with services to central London on the District and Hammersmith & City lines.
The Overground runs from Gospel Oak to Barking and the line is due to be extended to Barking Riverside in 2021.
Until then, Barking Riverside residents are dependent on their cars or buses — the EL1, which runs 24 hours, and the EL3, which connects them to Barking town centre and the station.
Barking is in Zone 4 and an annual travelcard costs £2,020.
Council
Barking & Dagenham council is Labour controlled. Band D council tax for 2019/2020 is £1,556.01.
Lifestyle
Shops and restaurants
Barking has a busy and thriving market in the town centre along East Street, Ripple Road and Short Blue Place on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
The covered Vicarage Field Shopping Centre is looking very tired. However, equity investor Benson Elliot and developer Londonewcastle have outline planning permission for a regeneration scheme by architects Studio Egret West, who designed the nearby 360 Barking tower, for 850 new homes, a new primary school, a multiplex cinema and 200,000sq ft of retail space.
The town centre has branches of Asda, Lidl, Wilko, Dorothy Perkins, Iceland, Superdrug and Boots and many independent stores, although nothing very exciting.
Christina’s in North Street proclaims it is a steakhouse by placing a large model cow on the pavement outside. The best bar is the Boathouse Café & Bar in the Ice House Quarter in Abbey Road overlooking the River Roding in Barking’s creative quarter, where there are artists’ studios in former maltings and the ice house which once served Barking’s fishing fleet.
Dagenham Sunday Market in River Road, with 600 stalls, attracts bargain hunters from all over London and Essex.
Open space
Barking Abbey Grounds in the town centre is home to historic Barking; it was the site of Barking Abbey, one of the most important Benedictine abbeys in the country. The park contains the abbey ruins, the listed curfew tower and 13th-century St Margaret’s Church.
Barking Park in Longbridge Road has a boating lake, children’s playground, wildflower meadows, tennis courts, indoor and outdoor bowls, a skate park, allotments and a popular café, The Big Friendly Coffee.
Mayesbrook Park off Lodge Avenue has a nature reserve and two lakes plus a children’s playground, an adventure playground, football pitches, a cricket pitch and an athletics arena.
Leisure and the arts
Barking has its own theatre, The Broadway, which puts on a wide range of events, everything from drama to music, to comedy, with lots of children’s and family shows.
Barking hopes to get a two-screen cinema run by Crouch End’s Arthouse in a proposed development on the former Abbey Sports Centre site in Axe Street.
The local council-owned swimming pool is at the Abbey Leisure Centre in Bobby Moore Way.
Schools
Primary school
Barking state primary schools are mainly rated “good” by Ofsted. Thames View Infants in Bastable Avenue is rated “outstanding”. However, the follow-on junior school “requires improvement”.
Comprehensive
There are some “outstanding” comprehensive schools and the nearby borough of Redbridge has two grammar schools that also have the top Ofsted rating.
“Outstanding” are: Loxford School (co-ed, ages three to 19) in Loxford Lane in Ilford; Little Ilford (co-ed, ages 11 to 16) in Rectory Lane, and Plashet (girls, ages 11 to 18) in Plashet Grove, both in East Ham; and Ark Isaac Newton Academy (co-ed, ages four to 18) in Cricklefield Place in Goodmayes.
The following comprehensives are judged to be “good”: Barking Abbey (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Sandringham Road; Riverside (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Renwick Road in Barking Riverside and Ursuline Academy Ilford RC (girls, ages 11 to 18) in Morland Road.
Greatfields (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in St Marys, a new free school, opened in 2016 and has not yet been inspected by Ofsted.
Grammar
The “outstanding” Redbridge grammar schools – much of Barking falls in the catchment area – are Ilford County High (boys, ages 11 to 18) in Fremantle Road in Barkingside and Woodford County High in High Road in Woodford Green.
Higher education
Newham Collegiate Sixth Form Centre in Barking Road in East Ham is a selective state sixth form college which has not had an Ofsted inspection since it became an academy, part of the City of London Academies chain, last year.
Newham College is a further education college with campuses in High Street South in East Ham and Stratford; it is judged to be “good”.
Private
Lady Aisha (girls, ages 11 to 16) in Victoria Road is a private Muslim school. The other local private school is Park School (girls, ages four to 16) in Park Avenue in Ilford.