Building above London's open railway could solve capital's housing crisis, major report suggests

Railway overbuilding: The plans could pave the way for about 250,000 new homes, experts claim
WSP

Building above London’s open-air railway tracks could be the answer to the capital’s housing crisis, infrastructure experts have claimed in a major report.

Research from WSP, the engineering group that delivered the Shard, suggests that such dramatic changes could pave way for about 250,000 new homes.

About 10 per cent of the 1,142km of London’s rail lines could be enclosed to create space for enough new dwellings to meet housing need for five years, the firm claims.

The railway lines would be enclosed beneath structures and then homes could be built on top, according to the report.

The study, named Out of Thin Air, comes amid rising pressure to build after the capital’s population exploded in recent years - passing the eight million mark in 2010.

There were an estimated 8,787,892 people living in London in June last year, up by 114,179 on the 8,673,713 in June 2015, according to Office for National Statistics’ calculations.

But just 6,423 homes were completed between April last year and March 2017.

According to official figures, about 50,000 new homes are needed every year to keep up with the demand.

WSP has identified enough land that is “associated with railway infrastructure” on which to build more than 250,000 homes, the report read.

“Put into perspective, that is around five times the annual minimum needed by the capital,” Bill Price, the firm’s director and author of the study added.

The process of building on top of rail lines – known as overbuilding – is fairly straight forward, according to Mr Price. This would mean work on the homes themselves could begin shortly after a project is launched.

The report highlights existing developments across the capital which include railway overbuilding, including Amazon’s London HQ which sits aloft tracks near Liverpool Street.

“Existing projects show that the engineering is possible; we can start to deliver rail overbuild now,” Mr Price said in the study.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in