Ideas above your station: report calls for 15,000 new homes to be built above London's 'idle' transport areas

There are opportunities to use valuable space for thousands of new homes above and around London’s 559 railway and Tube stations.
Emily Wright24 March 2020

Location, location, location is all very well — but it’s nothing without infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure.

The value of the places in which we choose to live is intrinsically linked to how easy it is to get to and from our desired location. For this reason, the case for building new homes at or around London’s 559 railway and Tube stations is pretty clear.

The capital faces a shortage of land for development and increasing density around some of its major transport hubs would seem a clever way to address this issue. Not least because this new stock would be, by default, underpinned by a prime position along some of the city’s busiest transport networks.

The process has already begun with new-build homes at London stations undergoing major refurbishment.

At King’s Cross no fewer than four residential schemes have been successfully designed to enhance the redevelopement of the station, including the impressive architectural integration of historic gasholders as new homes.

Prices at the striking, canalside 145-apartment Gasholders London scheme start at about £900,000 for a one-bedroom flat, rising to £1 million for a one-bedroom penthouse overlooking Regent’s Canal.

Also at King’s Cross, prices at The Plimsoll Building, a 13-storey tower in Granary Square that includes a fitness suite, private dining facilities and a rooftop winter garden, start at about £595,000 for a studio but a two-bedroom flat will set you back £1.3 million.

From £595,000: flats at The Plimsoll Building, King’s Cross (020 3691 3969)

In Vauxhall, a one-bedroom flat at The Dumont — a project being delivered by the St James development arm of Berkeley Homes — starts from £655,000. It is expected that homes could be priced at a more affordable level around suburban stations.

TOP-VALUE LONDON LAND

So why has there been any resistance at all to building at stations? The simple answer is because the process can be rather problematic. From high costs to complicated logistics and public resistance to disruption of station services, above-station development is not straightforward.

However, a new report published this month by the Centre for London think tank argues that such challenges should not stand in the way of unlocking some of the capital’s most valuable land.

From £595,000: flats at The Plimsoll Building, King’s Cross (020 3691 3969)
Miller Hare Limited

The report — Ideas above your station: exploring the potential for development at London’s stations — highlights how the action of increasing density around these hubs with new homes, offices and shops will not only allow the creation of new civic centres with good architecture, but will also release financing to develop the stations themselves, to ensure that London has “a world-class transport infrastructure in the 21st century to remain globally competitive”.

So how could the capital benefit from such targeted development around existing and future transport hubs? How can the challenges be overcome — and just how realistic is Centre for London’s call for this new “London Plan”, under which higher minimum density standards would apply?

PLACE MAKING FOR TODAY

London’s railway stations have changed very little since they were first built, meaning there is plenty of untapped potential. Transport for London and Network Rail are among the largest landowners in the city. The former estimates that the construction of 10,000 homes can start on its land holdings by 2021, while the latter plans to release land with capacity for around 5,000 homes in the capital by 2020.

From £865,000: One Crown Place is a 33-storey tower with 246 one- to three-bedroom flats, plus offices and a hotel in a converted row of Georgian houses bordering Sun Street, Earl Street and Crown Place next to Liverpool Steet station in the City (020 7205 2697)

Richard Brown, research director for the Centre for London, says the proposal is not about sticking a residential tower on top of a station here or a shopping centre there. Rather, it’s about planning something with true value that can stitch the station into the existing urban fabric: “This is getting another chance at place making.”

He points to successful projects at Broadgate Circus at Liverpool Street station and Charing Cross as examples, and adds that there needs to be a change in attitude when it comes to a fear of high-density development.

Brown is not the only one to hold this view. Chris Choa, president of the UK chapter of the Urban Land Institute — a 40,000-member global research and education organisation set up to provide leadership in the responsible use of land — agrees: “You have to make cities attractive and, in particular, attractive to young people. We know it is very difficult for people to find homes in the UK’s major global cities.

“In London alone there is a huge shortfall in housing, and lack of construction and new starts. But we don’t have many places allowing a great deal of development. So where are those homes going to come up? And how do you make them attractive enough for people to move there?

From £655,000: flats at The Dumont, Albert Embankment SE1, minutes from Vauxhall Tube (020 8003 6349)
stjames2.visualbank.co.uk

“Connectivity. Infrastructure. You can’t just build them in the middle of nowhere, you need to bind them into the system. You have to connect them to economic centres for them to be of use and to allow these centres the possibility of developing and thriving.”

STATIONS WITH PROMISE

For those who might still be wary of such a high-cost, high-density approach, the report is not proposing a blanket, London-wide development programme from the word go. It sets out a number of “station areas” within a kilometre radius of a station — about a 15-minute walk — and works out the residential density of each.

Stations that are well-connected but have lower residential densities than would be expected have been highlighted as those with the most potential for densification and include Clapham Junction, New Cross, Ealing Broadway, Sutton, Surbiton and Kilburn. More up-and-coming areas include Purley, Orpington and Upminster — “suburban areas that are not as expensive as some others and that have the potential to become hub locations,” says Brown.

Whether the new schemes are built as part of an upgrade of existing stations or incorporated early into new networks, there will always be challenges. Making homes part of new stations will likely be easier than retrofitting; there is already commitment around Crossrail 2 and the Bakerloo line upgrade to integrate above-station development.

“The cost and design implications of over-station projects can make uncomfortable reading for those worried about conventional approaches to design, density and height,” says David Biggs, managing director of Network Rail Property.

He adds: “These are long-term projects and there is a cost but look at King’s Cross, over a decade in the making but well worth waiting for. This is about long-term growth, thoughtful planning and essential connectivity… these locations are so strategic that it would be of no benefit to let them lie idle.”

  • Emily Wright is features and global editor of Estates Gazette