Buy on the HS2 rail route: why Old Oak Common is the regeneration hotspot to watch for buyers playing the long game

The go-ahead for HS2 high-speed rail has made this west London area one to watch. It’s the slow-burn creation of a ‘destination.
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Ruth Bloomfield9 March 2020

The view from the railway bridge in Old Oak Common Lane is of a desolate urban landscape with factories, car parks, industrial estates, train depots and the muddy green expanse of Wormwood Scrubs.

It is an unlikely looking regeneration hotspot. But Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s pledge that HS2, the high-speed rail link from London to Birmingham and beyond, will go ahead has marked out this bleak corner of the capital as one to watch.

As well as HS2 it will have a link to Crossrail, between Ealing and Acton stations, giving fast trains to the West End, the City and Canary Wharf.

“It is a very long-term game for now,” says Jack Dann, manager of Robertson Smith & Kempson estate agents.

“But in five years’ time, say, when we are staring down the barrel of an operational line, we are going to get a lot more people wanting to live there.

“Even now people are starting to pick up on the area. Last year we sold a three-bedroom Victorian semi in Wells House Road for £625,000 — a record price.

But then, where else in this part of west London can you buy a freehold house under £700,000?”

The arrival HS2 has the potential to completely transform Old Oak Common
PA

In the mid-19th century Old Oak Common was a large, open space where pigs were farmed. But industrialisation saw the common land steadily eroded.

The Paddington Canal was built across it, as were the Great Western Main Line and several other suburban train lines.

Major roads such as Harrow Road hemmed it in and the common was reduced to today’s unattractive wasteland, just two miles west of Ladbroke Grove.

One positive legacy of the railways are two-bedroom workers cottages priced at £550,000 to £600,000.

A roomier alternative are the streets of Edwardian four-bedroom semis towards the borders of North Acton or Willesden, at £650,000-£700,000.

If recent history is anything to go by, these houses could make excellent investments for buyers with patience: HS2 services will not run until at least 2028.

Pros of buying in Old Oak Common

But the rewards could be huge. In Acton, for example, just a few miles from Old Oak Common, prices rose 69 per cent between 2008 and last year on the back of Crossrail.

Old Oak Common already has good train links, with nearby Zone 2 Tube stations Willesden Junction, on the Bakerloo line, and North Acton, for the Central line.

Wormwood Scrubs adds 200 acres of featureless open space into the local mix, plus football pitches and Linford Christie Stadium, with its multiple sports clubs.

Local schools are generally well rated. Old Oak Primary School and John Perryn Primary School both have “good” Ofsted reports, as does Phoenix Academy, the nearest secondary school.

But for culture or entertainment — or even a place to buy more than a pint of milk — you are going to have to look to Willesden or Acton which, between them, offer a reasonable range of shops, local restaurants and pubs.

For something more glitzy, Kensal Rise and Notting Hill are a couple of miles away.

Where to buy and rent

The most visible change at Old Oak Common since HS2 was first mooted is the arrival of The Collective, a “co-living” block where residents rent en suite rooms from about £1,000 a month (thecollective.com), enjoying extras such as a gym, free wi-fi and a programme of events.

There is also a restaurant, open to the public, which is about the only place to go really locally in the evenings.

In the future, billions of pounds are earmarked to replace Old Oak Common’s warehouses and estates with new homes to rent or buy, and facilities.

There is planning permission is in place for 241 rental homes at Mitre Yard

Steering this change is the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC), set up in 2015 by Johnson during his time as London mayor.

It originally sketched out ambitious plans for up to 25,500 new homes and north-west London’s answer to Canary Wharf. Five years on, progress has been very slow.

So far, the corporation’s main achievement has been to fail to buy a crucial 54-acre tract of land owned by car company Cargiant.

It was too expensive, so OPDC had to go back to the drawing board. It is now focusing on publically owned land to the west of Old Oak Common Lane. David Lunts, OPDC interim chief executive and executive director of housing and land at the Greater London Authority, says a new vision for the site will be published this spring.

That will be the start of a long process including consultation with local councils and negotiations with the Mayor and the Government — both will need to chip in heavily on the funding side — before detailed proposals can be drawn up, building partners found and planning applications submitted.

“I think everyone is frustrated that we have not got further than we have,” admits Lunts. “But having got a positive decision on HS2, all of a sudden Old Oak Common is going to be on the map. It will probably be unrecognisable in 25 years.”

Details of new proposals for the area are under wraps, but Lunts wants a thriving destination, not a “forest of towers” full of identikit flats and offices.

Meanwhile, private developers are already busy working on individual sites.

The first major project off the blocks is a £175 million collaboration between housing association Notting Hill Genesis and football club QPR, which owns several tracts of land in the area.

Oaklands Rise replaces a derelict hostel in Old Oak Common Lane with just over 600 new homes in three blocks of up to 26 storeys.

The project will finish next March and flats will be for rent, with about 40 per cent at subsidised rates. There will also be offices and shops, all designed by leading architects CZWG.

The first shared-ownership homes are set to go on sale this summer (nhgsales.com).

North Kensington Gate will provide 164 flats for sale.

Housebuilder City & Docklands has two projects up and running. At Mitre Yard in Scrubs Lane, planning permission has been granted for 241 homes for rent, with cafés and restaurants lining a stretch of the Grand Union Canal.

At North Kensington Gate, also in Scrubs Lane, there will be another 164 flats for sale in landscaped gardens. Work on both projects will start this summer and take around two years to complete.

Gary Sacks, chairman and chief executive of the firm, believes Old Oak’s value, compared with nearby areas such as White City, will encourage renters and buyers to consider the area.

“If you think back 30 years, Canary Wharf was so different,” he says. “There are going to be some bumps in the road, but for us it is kind of a no-brainer in west London. In the future this will be a destination location, and we are willing to wait.”