From 1930s coal fire to Pink Floyd cover art, Battersea Power Station is a Grade II*-listed London icon. The original coal-fired power station was decommissioned in two stages, with the final trickle of electricity coming out of its wires in 1983.
Ever since then, its future has been a hot topic for Londoners – and there have been countless plans over the years, from turning it into a park to a shopping centre to – memorably for football fans – the suggestion that it could become the new stadium for Chelsea Football Club.
Most of those ideas never went far, but seven very serious schemes almost came to fruition, each time collapsing over some detail or other.
That finally came to an end in 2012 when a Malaysian consortium came up with a redevelopment plan. The area will eventually contain over 3,000 homes, with 400m of river frontage. The four chimneys and wash towers are all being retained, with 253 apartments in the power station itself.
The consortium bought the 42-acre site for £400 million in 2012; now, they it seems that after 30 years of back-and-forth, the site will end up going from wasteland to 'open for business' in a mere eight years.
Some of the regeneration has already happened. There are studios up to four-bedroom flats and penthouses and Circus West Village – where the first residents arrived at the start of 2017 – is already thriving, with shops, restaurants, a concert venue, The Battersea General Store, spinning classes at Boom Cycle and office space.
And there is more such development on the way. Apple has already signed up to base its headquarters there and the new Battersea Power Station Tube stop is set to open in 2020 as part of the Northern line extension which will travel from Kennington via Nine Elms.
Apartments in Phase 3, Electric Boulevard, have 997-year leases and benefit from a 24-hour concierge, a bar, a business centre, a screening room, a gym, a pool, a spa and roof gardens; construction is due to be completed in 202o.
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