Network Rail is retendering its property project frameworks, including architecture, M&E and structural engineering. Speaking at our London’s Major Estates Development Plans Conference Norrie Courts, Stations Director at Network Rail, said that it is rejigging all of its property project frameworks whilst a new umbrella agreement would ‘hopefully’ appear in August or September.

Network Rail have also begun initial design work on a major revamp of Clapham Junction, which will include installing a deck capable of accommodating up to 12,000 new homes on top of the UK’s busiest interchange. Courts said that they should know by 2020 whether the project, which will also realign the tracks and create a new station box to preserve the Crossrail 2 line, will go forward.

Other projects he highlighted in Network Rail’s 200 project-strong future programme include 115 units and a new station at Twickenham which should be complete next year, the exploration of a new deck on top of Gatwick Station, and 252 homes which are coming forward in three phases on land next to Wembley North.

Network Rail has a target to release land for around 12,000 homes by March 2020.

Liz Peace CBE, Chairman of the Old Oak & Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC), told the event that the former railway lands could be the ‘perfect site’ for hosting international conventions in London.

The 650-acre site is big enough for the international convention centres found in US cities, she said: ‘’It would be a perfect site for international conventions, which London doesn’t have.’’

She also said work carried out by AECOM had helped to identify around £1bn worth of infrastructure is required to bring forward the site in north west London which has been identified for 25,500 new homes and 65,000 new jobs. New bridges and tunnels will be needed to open up the site, which is landlocked by a ‘phenomenal number’ of railway lines.

The mayoral development corporation is currently focused on unlocking the north of the site in order to ease the passage of the HS2 station at the southern end, which is not due to open until 2026. But Peace added that the OPDC is working with HS2 to future proof the station in order to ensure that the development potential of the surrounding area is not constrained once the project is complete.

On the Park Royal industrial estate, which falls under the corporation’s remit, Peace hoped to intensify the mostly single storey industrial space by trialling two to three level units, and she said there is ‘huge potential’ for development to the north of the Willesden junction station.

Ian Ailles, Director General of the House of Commons, told delegates that the first phase of the Northern Estate Programme is due to commence early next year. The £1.2bn programme to refurbish the Parliamentary estate around Portcullis House will include getting rid of leaking windows and rotting stonework, and it would be overseen and delivered by two authorities which would be set up on Olympics-style arrangements.

Peter Elliott, Head of Property Development at Transport for London, said that the surface car parks it owns in the capital’s outer suburbs provide a ‘huge opportunity’ for housing development.

Referring to the relatively healthy state of the outer London housing market, he said: ‘’There is much more interest in zones 3 to 6 in which TfL happens to hold a lot of land.’’

But redeveloping the capital’s bus and Docklands Light Railway stations is ‘potentially more transformational’, said Elliot: ‘’Putting bus stations at ground floor creates a shed load of cash and better interchanges between bus and tube stations.’’

Other projects being worked up by TfL include a ‘potential brand-new town centre’ in Edgware and new homes on top of the Harrow on Hill station. Redeveloping its station a Poplar in London’s east end is also on the radar which could improve the integration between high rise Canary Wharf and the less heavily built up east end neighbourhood next door.

The property team at TfL has been tasked with starting 10,000 homes on site by 2021, 50% of which should be affordable, as well as generating £500,000 of revenue per annum.

Finally, the conference heard from Craig Egglestone of One Public Estate. They’re expected to be made available around October, releasing around £50m to plan projects to rationalise existing sites and release land for housing.