The Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC) was established in April 2015. It was the second Mayoral Development Corporation set up in London, following on from the London Legacy Development Corporation at the Olympic Park in east London.
Our neighbourhood forum has been working for the past decade in trying to influence the actions and decisions of this Development Corporation. OPDC exercises planning powers for parts of the three London Boroughs of Ealing, Brent and Hammersmith & Fulham. As a MDC it also has a ‘delivery’ role, and seeks to act as the lead agency in overseeing and co-ordination plans for building 25,000 new homes and creating 45,000 new jobs.
The HS2 rail interchange at Old Oak Common was the original motive for the establishment of a MDC. When operational, this £1.7bn station will include platforms for HS2 and GWR trains, and will also become the 42nd station on the Elizabeth Line.
Old Oak Common station was planned to open in 2026, as an interchange for HS2 trains en route to an from a new terminus at Euston. The HS2 project has become one of the UK’s most serious failures as an infrastructure project, with escalating costs and delays. The northern part of the project, beyond Birmingham, was cancelled in 2023.
As of late 2025 the remaining HS2 project is undergoing a comprehensive ‘reset’ in terms of costs and programme. The outcome is due to be annunced in Q1 2026. A timeline for completion by 2033 has been acknowledged by Government as unachievable.
The work of the OPDC has also had setbacks. A Draft Local Plan was submitted to the Secretary of State in October 2018. During the Examination of the plan the Planning Inspector concluded that proposals for a first phase of delivery were unviable. After 460 modifications by the Inspector, the OPDC Local Plan was finally adopted in June 2022.
Against this background of changes and delays, the Old Oak Neighbourhood Forum (OONF) has become a body focused on responding to OPDC consultations. These range from individual planning applications for all major schemes, to the latest 2025 version of an Illustrative Masterplan for what is know defined as a the Old Oak Project Area. This stretches from Willesdeen Junction to North Acton, along with Hammersmith/Ealing border and includes the OOC station site.
The Forum has from 2015 onwards questioned some of basic ambitions of the Development Corporation. From the start, a housing target of 25,000 new homes was seen by local residents as unevidenced by adequate capacity studies and a figure guesstimated from plans for Vauxhall/Nine Elms Battersea. This figure has not been revised in subsequent London Plans (albeit it has been spread over a longer time period). It has led to very high-density development proposals, reliant on a tall building typology that has appeared in many of London’s 47 Opportunity Areas.
In terms of what has been built in the OPDC area over the past decade, the main concentration of new housing has been at what is now known as the North Acton Cluster. Two high rise developments at Mitre Bridge in Scrubs Lane NW10 are now being occupied. A single development of 605 new flats at Oaklands Rise, Old Oak Common Lane, was completed in 2022. In terms of commercial projects, several large data centres are under contruction or have gained planning consent. After a decade the amount of change on the ground at Old Oak has been much less than anticipated (Vue City diagram from 2021 including consented schemes).
While there is a pipeline of further housing schemes with planning consents, the largest of these (at 4 Portal Way and One Portal Way, North Acton) are currently stalled. Purpose Built Student Housing (PBSA) has become a major feature of the demographic of North Acton, with three further schemes consented but not yet at construction stage.
Meanwhile HS2 works at and related to Old Oak Common station have led to a decade of disruption and disturbance for residents in the area, with serial roadworks and temporary traffic signals.
OPDC is currently seeking a ‘master development partner’ with which to embark on the delivery of housing and mixed use schemes across the Old Oak Project area. The MDC has acquired a series of sites from the private sector, which will now form the first phase of ‘delivery’. Land purchased a decade ago by DfT for use as HS2 construction sites will in due course be released and added to a combined ‘land pool’ which OPDC will oversee.
This approach has been agreed with Government (MHCLG and DfT) via negotiations over a series of years on a Strategic Outline Business Case and Outline Business Case.
The OPDC Outline Business Case was agreed in 2023. It has been followed up by a Compulsory Purchase Order made on September 12th 2025, being considered by the Secretary of State. OPDC’s strategy, of proceeding ‘at pace’ with delivery of development at Old Oak, predated the announcement of the HS2 reset. OONF questions the merits of this approach, given that the station will not be operational before the lates 2030s. This will be 10-15 years later than when the original ‘vision’ for Old Oak was conceived.
Designed as a ‘rail interchange’ with the majority of passenger numbers changing trains to continue their journey, the extent to which the station will in reality act as a ‘catalyst’ for regeneration has long been questioned by local residents. For a series of reasons proposals made in 2015 for two new Overground stations and major road connections between the western and eastern side of Wormwood Scrubs have either been dropped or remain unfunded aspirations.
Despite HS2 claims of ‘unrivalled connectivity’ the area of Old Oak has poor public transport and road connections. Our Forum’s views is that other Opportunity Areas in London (and poteentially the two proposed New Towns at Thamesmead and Crews Hill in Enfield have better potential for housing delivery in the next decade.
We continue to discuss ideas for a ‘Plan B’ for Old Oak, involving direct provision by the GLA for 15 year modular and self-build housing, on the land now in public ownership at Old Oak.