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19th JANUARY 2007
By LUCY ALEXANDER
The borough of Elmbridge in Surrey is classic Home Counties stockbroker belt: an exclusive little collection of dormitory towns, gated estates and golf courses. Residents of the region’s mock-Tudor mansions and moneyed towns – Weybridge, Cobham and Esher – enjoyed the highest quality of life in Britain last year, according to a study by Halifax Home Insurance. Yet one area, Walton-on-Thames, has, until the arrival of a smart new development, always been rather the poor relation.
The town, despite being surrounded by wealth was until recently deeply grotty. Its centre consisted of a depressing Sixties concrete car park, some council tower blocks of the same ilk, and a decrepit shopping centre, the grim domain of bookmakers and charity shops. Much of that has now been flattened to make way for The Heart, a vast and impressive mixed-use development consisting of 279 contemporary flats over five floors, above a swanky new shopping centre and library.
The site had a long history of aborted regeneration projects by the time O&H, The Heart’s developers, bought it in 2003. According to Alison Allen of O&H, Elmbridge Borough Council had “processed endless planning applications and the experimental building works meant shops had to be closed, so the town centre was deteriorating and house prices stagnated. “Only a large Sainsbury’s had been completed, a resource for the residents of nearby country mansions, who then escaped as quickly as possible.
O&H began building in June 2004, and the entire shoppi8ng centre and most of the apartment blocks are now complete, except for one quarter acres of garden, around which the residential blocks curve, and the top layer of three-bed-room penthouses. Selling began in September 2005, when the site was a hole in the ground, Eighty- five flats have been sold so far, and a new batch will soon be released. (One-bed flats at up to 551 sq ft for £205,000-£210,000, and two-beds at up to 940 sq ft for £260,000-£405,000). According to O&H, buyers at The Heart range from young singletons to downsizing retired couples. One buyer is in her eighties. Walton is convenient for Heathrow, and many buyers live abroad but want to keep a foothold in England. Demand has been particularly strong for the five unfinished three-bed room penthouses on the sixth floor, all of which have private roof terraces and are likely to sell for about £600,000 (for 1,096 sq ft to 1,300 sq ft).
The flats vary in size and outlook – choose from a rural, garden or urban view – but each has a wood-and-glass balcony and a kitchen that leads into an open-plan living area. The two bed-room flats are decorated slightly more expensively, with fun touches such as built-in padded headboards stretching to the ceiling and walls covered in faux-leather or sparkly cork.
Buy-to-let investors can buy furniture packs for up to £10,000. The lettings company Annesley Peers & Ware estimates rental returns of £900 to £1,000 a month for a one-bedroom flat and £1,400 to £1,500 for a two-bed.
In line with government requirements, The Heart also contains 100 social housing flats at the same specification as the private properties. O&H felt that it had to distinguish somehow between the two categories of resident, “or the people paying lots of money for their flats wouldn’t of been best pleased”, according to Allen. So housing association tenants have a separate entrance, no access to the garden or the 24-hour concierge service, and are accordingly exempt from paying the annual service charge, which is £1,200 a year for a one-bed flat.
The success of the residential development obviously depends partly on the quality of the shopping centre upon which it sits. Accordingly O&H decided to attract a better class of retailer by scrapping plans to house the car park on top of the shopping centre, and instead spent £11 million digging a basement car park (residents pay £7,500 for a space), thus allowing the shops plenty of height. The centre opened in October last year, all 45 retail units (L.K Bennett, etc, plus local independent shops) are now trading strongly, and the high street has been vastly smartened up by the imposing double-height glass entrance. (This required the demolition of a shabby mock-Tudor branch of Dorothy Perkins, an architectural style so dear to the hearts of the Surrey set that residents signed a petition in objection).
Walton still has a little way to go. Sixties tower blocks still linger opposite The Heart. The average detached house in the town may cost more than £1 million, but that is at best a third of the price of houses in nearby gated developments such as St. George’s Hill (formerly home to various Beatles), which soared in value partly because of the buying power of Chelsea Footballers relocating close to the club’s new training ground in Cobham.
Yet The Heart has had a salutary effect on local house prices, helping Walton to achieve an eye-popping 368 per cent rise in ten years, according to the Halifax. Warren Fraser, of Curchods estate agents, says that Walton is now “very much catching up”, having long been renowned for being cheaper than its neighbours. The Heart, says Fraser, “has inspired confidence in the town. Last year was our best year ever – prices went up 15 to 20 per cent”. The day will come when Surrey’s wealthier residents linger in Walton after shopping at Sainsbury’s. |
