London family flats: apartments with shared gardens are the new norm for parents who don't want to be priced out of the capital

The traditional property aspiration of a professional couple with a baby on the way used to be a house with a garden big enough for a trampoline and a mountain of plastic play equipment.

But sky-high prices mean that if you’re raising a family in 21st-century London, you probably live in a flat.

Owning a house in the capital is beyond the budget for most young families. An average Victorian terrace will cost them £700,000, while a new-build house could cost even more.

The choice for most is clear: move out and commute or stay in London and live like our European cousins, in a flat with a shared garden.

Gunjan Jain, 31, and his wife Deepali, 29, both management consultants, spent £535,000 on a two-bedroom flat last year, just in time to welcome their son Aarav, now five months old, into the world.

They considered moving out of the city. “In the end we decided to stay,” says Gunjan. “We have a great circle of friends who we didn’t want to leave. It just feels great to be part of London.”

The Greater London Authority says up to 28,000 new family homes, defined as having three or more bedrooms, are needed per year to meet demand in the capital. Only about 9,000 are being built.

Councils have started to insist housebuilders include more of these larger homes in developments. Around 20 per cent is the norm, says David Galman, sales director of Galliard Homes.

However, high land prices and building costs mean provincial-style housing estates simply don’t stack up in London.

So the supply of larger flats is set to grow — but are families willing to live in them? Galman doubts many families would want to live “in a 40-storey tower” but the Jains chose a more human-scale scheme.

Hendon Waterside in NW9 has playgrounds and open space, local schools are good and there are plenty of shops and restaurants nearby.

Two-bedroom flats in the latest phase start at £499,999. Call 0333 9200938.

Martin Fillery, managing director of new homes sales specialist Complete Moves, has seen a sea change in parents’ attitudes towards flats.

“In the past they wouldn’t even look at them,” he says. “But over the last 18 months I’ve really seen that starting to change. Many families don’t have a choice.”

Developers are starting to woo parents with child-friendly extras. When the Battersea Power Station scheme is complete, Mark Hutton, head of sales, estimates about a third of its homes will have three or more bedrooms.

A parents’ group set up on the development’s in-house app has about 800 members. “I can tell you there are plenty of families walking around,” Hutton says.

Battersea is a rarefied example, with three-bedroom flats from £1.9 million. But there are lavish communal gardens and 24/7 security, while entertainment for children includes a swimming pool and a movie theatre.

Visit batterseapowerstation.co.uk for more information on available homes.

There are more affordable family flats in regeneration zones and well-connected suburbs such as Harrow, where trains to Euston take from 12 minutes.

Harrow’s 55-acre Kodak factory is being redeveloped as Eastman Village by Barratt. By 2027 there will be 1,800 new homes in this new urban village, plus a new school, shops, leisure facilities and a medical centre.

The first phase includes three-bedroom flats, priced from £335,000. Call 0333 3559604.

In central London, 12,000 new homes are being built at Greenwich Peninsula, including three-bedroom flats from £934,000.

Similar add-ons to Battersea include cinema rooms, a library for homework clubs, a pool and roof gardens.

Kerri Sibson, marketing director, is convinced millennial professionals will want to swerve the home counties commute: “They can stay in the city, get home and spend more time with their kids and it is ultra-convenient.”

At Barking Riverside housing association L&Q has shared-ownership options for families on tight budgets.

Among the 10,800 new homes to be built on this large waterfront site are three-bedroom flats, priced from £90,000 for a 25 per cent share. The 443-acre development has room for an on-site nursery, while four schools out of seven planned are open.

A new ecology centre opens this autumn and there’s a network of nature reserves, playgrounds, and cycle routes.

Community events include an annual fireworks display and a summer picnic, while the site will also offer shops, restaurants and leisure facilities.

Trains from Dagenham Dock to Fenchurch Street take from 24 minutes.

In Stratford E15, almost six in 10 homes for sale at Telford Homes’ New Garden Quarter have three bedrooms, and the site has a network of play areas.

An on-site nursery and café are on the cards, and there are 22 schools with “good” or “outstanding” Ofsted reports within a mile of the scheme.

Stratford’s future development includes museums and a massive music venue to add to its existing range of shops, restaurants, cafés, sports facilities and theatre.

Three-bedroom homes start at £660,000.

When new houses are built in London they are almost invariably of the space-saving contemporary terrace variety.

In Acton, close to the area’s mainline station with Crossrail to come, three-bedroom houses at Aviator Place start at £750,000.

This development has a communal garden plus private patio gardens. Wormwood Scrubs Park is up the road, along with Acton Market, while Westfield is 15-minute drive away.

JOHNS&CO is selling a three-bedroom house at Royal Wharf, Silvertown, for £900,000, where open space is the key selling point for families.

The Royal Wharf townhouses have their own private gardens and terraces and there’s 550 yards of riverfront for walking, running and kids’ scooters and cycles.

The development has its own 2.4-acre park and borders Barrier Park and Lyle Park, both riverside. Call 020 7510 0700.

At another regeneration zone, on the other side of London, three-bedroom townhouses at Southall Village start from £540,000 with Help to Buy available.

The homes sit by the Grand Union Canal and Southall Tube, another Crossrail location, is a 10-minute walk away.

The village will feature a park and “home zones” offering semi-communal space for play and cycle storage.