South Acton Estate

Introduction

South Acton is the council's largest estate.  The area was originally developed in the 1850s, but by the time of the Second World War was already in decline. This was exacerbated by extensive bombing during the war by the Luftwaffe owing to its closeness to busy railway junctions.

The old estate was cleared under post-war slum redevelopment from 1949 and rebuilt as the large tower block estate that we know today. This redevelopment took over 30 years to complete, and South Acton eventually became one of the largest municipal housing estates in West London, with almost 2,100 homes.

In 1999, a series of stand-alone schemes took place to address issues with specific blocks that were life expired, or suffering structural issues. In 2008, the council took the decision to comprehensively regenerate the area, as this is considered to be the best way to achieve the transformative effect desired by residents and the council.

Acton Gardens (a collaboration between L&Q, one of the largest housing associations in the UK, and house-builder Countryside Properties) won a competitive competition to become the council's developer partner in 2010, and a widely-consulted "master plan" to guide future development was given the go-ahead in 2012 after one of the most comprehensive consultation programmes of its type.