The Earls Court Project

My Earl's Court - www.myearlscourt.com

The London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham, the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea and the Mayor of London have formally granted outline permission for Sir Terry Farrell's Masterplan for the Earl's Court Project.

This is an £8bn regeneration plan on a 77 acre site over the next 20 years.

The location is excellent, bounded by Earl's Court Tube station (Zone 1), West Brompton & West Kensington. (Both in Zone 2).  See below for the map of the 77 acre plot.

Artistic impression of the regenerated Earl's Court.

The Executive Summary of the Planning Application contains a lot of exciting and useful information.
http://www.myearlscourt.com/sites/default/files/earls_court_pdfs/EarlsCourtExecSummaryWeb.pdf

Quick Facts (From the Executive Summary)

Up to 7,583 new homes, over 7 Phases, see below. The development will take about 20 years.  Phase 1 has started with Lillie Square, which has recently been launched.   The location of Lillie Square is bottom right of the graphic below. This plot of land used to be the carpark for the Earl's Court Exhibition Centre. See this blog post for more info on Lillie Square, Earl's Court.

Many Interesting Features with Emphasis on Green
 A new “lost river park” covering five acres will run through the middle of the site and follow the line of the submerged Counters Creek stream. Just over three acres of the park will be open to the public.

Landscaping will be carried out by top gardener Andy Sturgeon who was awarded “Best in Show” at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2010. He will oversee planting of 450 new trees and 20,000 new flowers and shrubs.

There will also be two crescents, garden squares and a new public space the size of Sloane Square.
There will also be a new high street running east to west through the 77 acre site.

A Singaporean View
This re-development plan in West London took a very long time to get approved.  The Mayor of London had to step in.  The fact it could get final approval was quite an achievement, by London's standards. This entire area is in traditional West London, very built up.

Apparently this building below, the Earl's Court exhibition centre, is quite a local icon.  I think locals would loathe to see it go.  However, take note that this building was originally built in 1887 and rebuilt in 1937. It is a very old building, but by now, I think you realise that many British love their old buildings as well as their old (and very old) estates.

British Also Do Not Like Tall Buildings
In the Executive Summary, it was written that

1) No new building will be taller than the Empress State Building (28 storeys, 100m)
2) Medium-rise buildings and taller buildings will be located along the primary routes
3) Building heights step down at the edges of the site

The Empress State building (see picture below), was completed in 1961.  It stands at 100M, 28 storeys tall, and is considered a London skyscraper.

Unfortunately, the Earl's Court redevelopment plans did not propose the demolition of this building.  Perhaps they decided that it would have been too radical?  It would be converted from commercial to residential use. Not sure if I would buy a unit here.  1961 building, remember that.

You can see that even after massive regeneration, this area will still be very low rise.

I think this is one advantage of buying in London.  Very few tall buildings, making for a nice low-build environment, unlike in Singapore where 40 storey and above skyscrapers sprout up overnight.

Huge Opposition to Earl's Court 
There was huge local opposition to the re-development and frankly, I'm surprised that the local councils and Mayor managed to push this through.

760 homes had to be demolished to make way for this spanking new development.  A majority of these 760 homes are social housing tenants.  They are a diverse bunch, "including poorly pensioners, Somali refugees and a recovering drug addict with a big dog".

Even though all of them would be offered new homes under the regeneration plan, they still do not wish to support the scheme.

Well, the bottom-line is the income inequality. Apparently, these social housing tenants do not wish to live beside very expensive flats and have rich(er) neighbours.

Happy Investing!