Shared-ownership flats in Acton: first-time buyer homes in rising west London Crossrail hotspot start from £180k
The Great Western Railway’s arrival turned the bucolic backwater of Acton from a summer retreat for rich Londoners into a thriving Victorian suburb with swimming baths and a cottage hospital. By 1910 it also had a town hall.
More than a century after Acton’s town hall was opened, the coming of another railway is helping to reinvent this part of west London once more.
From next year Crossrail trains from Acton Main Line station will zip into central London and the City. Journey times to Bond Street will be cut from 27 minutes to just nine, while getting to Canary Wharf will go from a 42-minute drudge to a 23-minute sprint.
In anticipation of the Elizabeth line launch, property prices in W3 have already soared. According to the latest data from Rightmove — and despite a faltering property market — they have grown from an average £543,000 to £593,000 in the past two years.
This kind of price point is beyond most first-time buyers, but housing association One Housing Group is putting the finishing touches to a redevelopment of Acton’s former town hall with homes starting from less than £200,000.
A great selling point for the flats in The Old Town Hall is their location, right on the high street, up the road from Acton Park and with plenty of useful shops and places to pick up a coffee on the 20-minute walk — about a mile — to Acton Main Line station. Acton Central Overground station is half a mile away.
A more interesting option to the high street is the adjacent Churchfield Road, where wine bars and gastropubs are starting to take over from pound stores and payday lenders. An M&S Simply Food is coming to The Oaks Shopping Centre in Acton High Street — a sure sign of gentrification — and the shopping centre itself is having a £135 million redevelopment, with new flats as well as shops and a gym, to be completed in 2019.
Acton already has a multiplex cinema and its old Art Deco Dominion Cinema, latterly a bingo hall and evangelical church, is to be turned into an indoor climbing centre.
The Grade II-listed town hall is a lovely example of municipal grandeur, all red brick and giant windows. One Housing Group is carving up the building, plus a new annexe, into 71 flats.
A 40 per cent share in a one-bedroom flat starts from an estimated £180,000 and will require a £27,999 deposit. Monthly costs will include mortgage payments estimated at £651, rent at just over £600, and service charge of about £60.
A 40 per cent share of a two-bedroom flat will cost about £240,000 and monthly costs will add up to about £1,800.
Affordability aside, another incentive to buy at The Old Town Hall is its potential for price growth. According to recent research by JLL prices could increase in Acton by as much as a third by 2020 as the new rail line beds in.