Property: Vauxhall

The Times

December 01, 2002

London: Vauxhall takes the rough with the smooth

Nobody pretends it’s elegant and the traffic can be terrible, but Vauxhall is appealing to a new class of buyer, reports John Elliott

For thousands of anguished motorists, London’s Vauxhall Cross roundabout has become a daily obstacle course. Every morning they find themselves caught up for ages in a gigantic set of roadworks that makes it impossible to be on time for work or for that crucial meeting.

The good news is that Transport for London says the worst of the roadworks will be finished next month. Traffic will once again be able to proceed at more or less the same pace as before the work started.

But just as the holes, diggers, cones and workers in fluorescent jackets are about to disappear, another factor threatens to increase the pressure on roads in the area. Vauxhall Cross, Vauxhall Bridge and Kennington Lane are on the edge of mayor Ken Livingstone’s congestion charging zone, which comes into effect in February.

As in other areas on the perimeter, drivers hoping to skirt the zone and avoid the £5-a-day charge are expected to scurry down local roads, which means even more cars and even more fumes. Residents fear that rat runs will develop down side streets, and that Lambeth council may close off roads to prevent this, making it even more difficult for car-owning locals.

In the meantime, there are plans to build a bus station in the middle of the gyratory system by the summer. Other adjustments to road crossings and pavement layouts should make the area easier for pedestrians.

According to estate agents, despite the expected extra traffic caused by the congestion zone, property prices may rise, thanks to the bus station and gyratory. “The better roundabout and nice bus station will make the area look tidier and safer, and at the end of the day how things look matters a great deal,” says one agent. “We expect that to have a positive effect on prices. It’s true that locals aren’t keen on the charging zone, but maybe that’s just resistance to change.”

If we’re being honest, Vauxhall Cross is one of the ugliest patches of central London, and will continue to be, even after the new bus station and adjustments to the roads. Fiddling with the roundabout is not going to turn this eyesore, dominated by railway arches and the curious MI6 headquarters building, into St Mark’s Square.

But the area is changing. All along the southern riverbank from Battersea eastwards, gleaming steel-and-glass towers are being built, offering flats close to the centre of town for professionals who want to be within walking distance of the West End.

The most prominent is St George’s Wharf, a collection of towers across the road from the MI6 headquarters, where a two-bedroom flat with views over the Thames can be had for £425,000 from Foxtons. At Parliament View, opposite Lambeth Bridge, the television presenter Carol Vorderman bought two adjoining penthouses for £7m, and at Riverside Court, on Nine Elms Lane, a three-bedroom flat fetches £835,000.

But what are the brightly scrubbed professionals at whom such properties are being targeted letting themselves in for? There is a large Sainsbury’s on Wandsworth Road, but aside from some decent Italian delis and Portuguese cafes and restaurants, that’s about it in terms of obvious attractions. Vauxhall, which boasts one of London’s highest crime rates, is not the place for people who want to insulate themselves from the less agreeable aspects of life in a big city.

But for the more adventurous, it does boast some relatively modestly priced property, including pockets of attractive Victorian housing scattered among the huge council estates. A four-bedroom early Victorian family house can be bought for less than £580,000 — a bargain in central London — while former local authority flats are available for less than £140,000.

Hidden away off the South Lambeth Road is Albert Square, where the actress Joanna Lumley lives. It offers beautiful, high-ceilinged stucco houses of the type more common in South Kensington, as does Fentiman Road, with its sprinkling of young corporate lawyers and television researchers.

The author Will Self lives in the area, and Gordon Brown’s right-hand man, Ed Balls, and his wife, Yvette Cooper, who is a minister in the lord chancellor’s department, live in a sweet Victorian terraced house. Growing numbers of young graduates are following their lead and moving into Victorian houses and conversions.

Two months ago, Rosalind Thomas, a 27-year-old theatre designer, and her doctor boyfriend, Guy Smith, moved from Clapham to Bonnington Square, hidden away only a hundred yards from Vauxhall Cross. There, they rent a two-bedroom flat in a grey-brick Victorian house for £1,083 a month.

“You take the rough with the smooth, and it’s tougher than Clapham,” says Thomas, “but the square is really nice. It’s friendly, it’s lovely, it’s got a strong community feel. There are a lot of people here who used to be squatters, so everybody’s quite good at talking to one another.

“Lots of my friends now live round here. I don’t particularly want to live somewhere like Notting Hill or Camden: when Gap arrives in an area, then it’s not so interesting — you lose all the shops run by local people, and I like those. The downside is it’s still quite poor here in some places, so it’s a bit more dangerous.”

The new breed of trend-setting Vauxhall dwellers such as Thomas and Smith is often driven to the area by daunting house prices and rents elsewhere in central London. They speak highly, if not always convincingly, of the virtues of living in a “no-frills” area.

At Estrela, an excellent Portuguese cafe on South Lambeth Road — on a stretch crammed with tapas bars and known as Little Portugal — you can best see the charming side of life in Vauxhall. On summer weekends, the tables outside are packed with locals: Portuguese families, builders, young professionals, Moroccan taxi drivers, the man who runs the car hi-fi shop across the road — all enjoying the excellent coffee and spicy patatas bravas. At night, everybody gathers inside to drink and chat while the television, usually showing a Portuguese football match, blares in the background.

It’s not Notting Hill or Clerkenwell, but that’s the point. To live in Vauxhall is to be pleasantly removed from trendy London, clogged with its fashion victims all clad in the same brand of £200 jeans.

What's on offer

• Victorian terraces go for about £450,000, Georgian town houses for £800,000. One-bedroom flats in a period conversion are about £185,000; two-beds, £235,000
• Prices in new developments are from £200,000 for a studio and £1.5m for a penthouse
• Resident celebrities of SW8 include Lord Archer, Joanna Lumley, John Major and Will Self

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