Big change in NW London: why South Kilburn is the central London area buyers should get to know

Lined with red-brick mansion blocks and white stucco houses in an elite corner of west London, the wide, gracious avenues of Maida Vale sweep northward from Regent’s Canal to meet the cosier Victorian streets of Queen’s Park.

And in between the two, like the rotten core of an apple, is South Kilburn, dominated by its eponymous post-war council estate.

For decades South Kilburn has been an anomaly in one of the wealthiest locations in the UK and a byword for all that could — and frequently did — go wrong when councils attempted to provide affordable housing.

But South Kilburn is in the throes of a £600 million makeover that is, one by one, razing the concrete blocks to the ground and replacing them with inspiring designs from top architects.

Over the next 10 to 15 years, the estate will be replaced by 2,400 new homes to buy, rent and for shared ownership, finally rehabilitating this fantastically well located no-go zone and turning it into an area buyers should get to know.

Geographically, it is hard to better. You can walk to St John’s Wood, West Hampstead, Kensal Rise or Regent’s Park, and be in the West End by Tube in 10 minutes.

Buying agent Jo Eccles, managing director of SP Property Group, has been recommending South Kilburn to clients for a few years now. “I think it is really overlooked and that is probably because of the estate.”

She is referring to a part of north London where cabbies and delivery drivers historically refused to stop.

Where running battles between its teenagers and those living on the nearby Mozart Estate, and the drugs and stabbings in the menacing network of alleys and walkways, were recorded by local resident and author Zadie Smith in her novel White Teeth.

Brent council is holding a rolling sequence of competitions to choose designs for each phase of the regeneration.

Winners have so far included Alison Brooks Architects, which designed Ely Court, with 43 flats, for Catalyst Housing. Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands, the firm which converted the Oxo Tower, designed luxurious Fitzroy Place in Fitzrovia and is working on the new Chelsea Stadium, added about 100 more homes close to Brooks’s, all set on a newly created, elegant mews with play areas and garden squares.

A crucial element of the plan is to restore the original street layout of the area, knitting the new homes back into the community, while an ensemble cast of architects will avoid the monotonous, concrete jungle feel of some large developments.

The early stages of regeneration focused mainly on homes for South Kilburn residents displaced during the building. But over the next few years increasing numbers of private homes will come to the market.

Brent council chose housebuilders Countryside and Home Group last month for a £160 million reboot of the estate’s grim Peel Precinct with 308 new homes. Four in 10 of the homes, conveniently set between Kilburn Park and Queen’s Park stations, will be affordable and earmarked for priced-out first-time buyers and renters. The development will also include a new market square, local shops and a gym and health centre.

Meanwhile in March, Telford Homes began work on 235 new flats a five-minute walk from Kilburn Park and Maida Vale stations. The first will go on sale at the start of next year, with the whole site regenerated by 2021.

More homes are springing up on the fringes of the South Kilburn estate.

Noma is probably the most luxurious scheme ever to have graced teeming Kilburn High Road, with a gym and wellness studio, landscaped gardens and concierge.

Prices start at £484,500 for a one-bedroom flat and £725,000 for a two-bedroom flat, while three-bedroom flats start at just over £900,000 through JLL.

The first phase of the 195 homes — of which 86 will be affordable and aimed at middle-income buyers and renters — will complete next spring, with full completion in summer next year.

Buyers also have the option of period homes. South Kilburn estate covers 120 acres of old bombsites and semi-slums just west of Edgware Road. However, the odd pocket of Victorian housing survives and SP Property Group’s Jo Eccles believes these homes hold the area’s greatest potential.

She favours locations close to Queen’s Park — Fernhead and Portnall Roads and Saltram Crescent in particular — handy for Salusbury Road’s cafés and restaurants and the Zone 2 Bakerloo line Tube.

“The architecture is great, very similar to Fulham or Chiswick, and the rooms have really good proportions and light,” she says.

Prices vary considerably here. In Fernhead Road, Knight Frank is selling a two-bedroom flat, recently renovated, for £800,000 (call 020 8012 5409), while in adjacent Saltram Crescent Dexters has a two-bedroom flat in a Victorian house for £670,000. Call 020 7266 2020.

A street or two nearer the estate prices start to drop. Foxtons has a two-bedroom Victorian conversion flat in Princess Road for £625,000 (call 020 3841 4150), while in Malvern Crescent, in the shadow of one of the estate’s towers, a two-bedroom period conversion in a smart Victorian townhouse is for sale with Oakhill Residential for £475,000. Call 020 3544 4444.

On average, Jo Eccles says flats in the area sell at about £850 per square foot, compared to £1,000-£1,100 in “proper” Queen’s Park.

“For anyone looking to invest for eight to 10 years it would be a very good choice,” she says. “It will take time to bloom but the buds are there.”