WHETHER it’s Hyde Park, Regent’s Park, Valley Gardens in Harrogate or Wollaton
Park in Nottingham, an address on the park can add up to 10 per cent to the
price of your house. This, at least, is the view of Liam Bailey, the head of
residential research at the upmarket estate agent Knight Frank. “In London
and elsewhere, the better properties were built facing onto the park,” he
says. “These are still perceived as the most attractive properties and are
priced accordingly.” In a stalling market, such well-placed homes will hold
their value better than those in less-favoured locations.
Whether the park is at the back or the front of your house makes a difference.
In 2005, CABE (the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment)
produced a study called Does Money Grow on Trees? which found that:
“Relatively higher values can be seen where properties face onto a road that
overlooks the park rather than backing on to it.”
The CABE study interviewed local agents and property experts at eight
locations across England (Mesnes Park, Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside; Queen
Square, Bristol; Boston Square Sensory Park, Hunstanton; Hulme Park,
Manchester; Mowbray Park, Sunderland; Mile End Park, London; King George
Recreation Ground, Bushey; and Lister Park, Bradford), and analysed the
effect that a well-maintained and popular park has on house prices in the
immediate area.
Two of its most notable examples were Queen Square and Mesnes Park. The grand
Georgian houses of Queen Square had been dissected by a 1930s dual
carriageway that was closed in 1999. The space was then transformed into an
oasis for office workers and residents. By 2005, flats in converted
buildings overlooking the square commanded a 16 per cent premium over those
in nearby streets.
In the late 1990s, at Newton-le-Willows, an area once dominated by heavy
industry, the park was regenerated and expanded from its semi-derelict
condition. CABE found that there was a 19 per cent increase in property
prices on or close to the park compared to similar areas near by.
In the suburb of Hulme, south of Manchester city centre, where the new Hulme
Park stands in the middle of an area once notorious for social deprivation
and ugly tower blocks, the on/off park premium was more modest at 7 per
cent. But as Martin Ellerby, an urban planner at Sheppard Robson architects
in Manchester, explains, it exemplifies the crucial role that parks can play
in urban regeneration. “Hulme Park should become a green thoroughfare to
join up parts of the city which have been regenerated,” he says. “The idea
is that parks act as a glue which pulls everything together and gives an
uplift to the whole area. As well as offering green space, they provide
pedestrian and cycling routes into and out of the city centre. The major
challenge now for Hulme Park is to make people feel safe as they walk
through it.”
This is the crucial point. Although no one can deny that an attractive park
can make you a nice profit, a rundown park can put prospective buyers right
off. “Parks are volatile places,” wrote the American urban philosopher Jane
Jacobs in her 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities. “They
further depress neighbourhoods that people find unattractive . . . for they
exaggerate the emptiness, the dullness.”
Nevertheless, homebuilders are prepared to take that risk for the sake of the
possible pay-off. After all, a park in the middle of a new-build estate
gives it soul, a quality that is otherwise often lacking. For one of the
most imaginative examples, look to the 330 new apartments and penthouses
being built at Wolverton Park near Milton Keynes by the developers Places
for People. The units are designed around a former velodrome, which will be
turned into a two-acre landscaped park. Prices start from around £150,000
for a one-bedroom apartment.
In Darlington, Cleveland, the volume housebuilder Bellway Homes has created
the town’s first new park for more than a century at its 215-home
development at West Park. Working in partnership with the local project
managers, Bussey & Armstrong, it has reclaimed 33 acres of former
industrial land and created a modern green space with ponds, walking tracks,
works of art and educational facilities. It is used for community events and
has a thriving Friends group.
“What else could we do with the land?” says Rob Armstrong, the sales director
for Bellway Homes. “It had been contaminated, so we were never going to be
able to build houses on it.” He estimates that houses that front the park
attract a premium of 5 to 10 per cent. The park was certainly a draw for
Karen Hall, who bought a three-bedroom townhouse at West Park a couple of
years ago with her husband, Jim, and 15-year-old son, James, for £205,000.
Similar properties now sell for about £240,000.
“We lived in a modern house in Darlington before,” says Karen, who works for a
publishing company, “but we felt a bit hemmed in. Here, wherever you look
you can see green space. I spend part of the week working at home, and when
I’m in need of a bit of inspiration I just stick my head out of the window
and look at the green.” Karen also likes the fact that she can walk through
the park to her sister’s house within ten minutes. “It’s not a park you go
and sit in,” she says. “It’s a park you meander around in. It feels like the
countryside, yet we’re only two miles from the centre of Darlington.”
The art and social critic John Ruskin (who has a park named after him in South
London) wrote: “The measure of any great civilisation is in its cities, and
a measure of a city’s greatness is to be found in the quality of its public
spaces, its parks and its squares.”
Who could argue with that? The power of the park not only puts a premium on
your property, it’s good for civilisation too. Wolverton Park:
Knight Frank, 01908 255911, www.knightfrank.co.uk
. West Park: Bellway Homes, www.bellway.co.uk
Are house prices moving up or down in your area? Find out at: timesonline.co.uk/buyingandselling
OPENSPACES
London: Battersea Park, Albert Bridge Road. Former vicarage with six
bedrooms, four reception rooms, 3,332 sq ft. £3.25m. John D. Wood: 020-7228
0174.
Leeds: Roundhay Park, North Park Avenue. Three-bedroom, mid-20th
century house with 1,320 sq ft and planning permission for extension.
£469,950. Dacre, Son & Hartley: 0845 1178569.
Harrogate: The Stray, York Place. Eight-bedroom detached Victorian
house, 3,404 sq ft, opposite 200 acres of greenery. Currently it is flats
and staff cottages. £1.75m. Verity Frearson, 0845 4026800.
Bristol: Queen Square Apartments, Bell Avenue. New, two-bedroom, 653 sq
ft apartment with open-plan kitchen and living space, balcony. £365,000.
Hamptons: 0117-923 9230.
Birmingham: Park Central. One and two-bedroom flats and two to
four-bedroom houses (pictured right) on an eight-acre park. £137,000 for a
450 sq ft flat, rising to £267,000 for a 1,202 sq ft four-bedroom house.
Crest Nicholson: 0121-666 4666.
FORSALE
The artists Samuel Palmer and William Blake stayed at this Grade II* listed
farmhouse, top, overlooking Hampstead Heath. It has five bedrooms, three
bathrooms, three reception rooms, a large garden and plenty of parking
space. Price: £2.495m (Savills, 020-7472 5000). The townhouse below
overlooks gardens and borders Regent’s Park. It has four bedrooms, three
bathrooms, three reception rooms, parking, a balcony and a garden. Price:
£3.25m (Knight Frank, 020-7586 2777).
