If you’ve walked past the green near Highcliffe on the Alton Estate recently, you’ll have noticed a large excavation site on the grass. Diggers have been working for days, carving out a hole roughly 20 feet across and nearly as deep on the slope leading down from the Grade II* listed tower blocks toward Minstead Gardens.
The answer: underground water tanks.
The tanks will serve the Highcliffe tower blocks, replacing the estate’s ageing water infrastructure. Putting tanks underground rather than on rooftops avoids adding structural load to the 1950s buildings, eliminates freezing risks, and makes maintenance easier. It’s part of a water tank upgrade programme for council tower blocks that Wandsworth first announced back in 2022.
The water tank work is one of four visible construction projects currently underway across the Alton Estate in Roehampton, as the council begins delivering on promises made before last October’s regeneration ballot.
At Downshire Field and further up the hill contractor Elite Landscapes has been carrying out significant groundworks since late last year. The old (and tired) play areas have been demolished and are being prepared for new landscaped play spaces including a climbing structure, nature trail, trim trail, and sand pit. The council says these should open “in time for the summer holidays.”
The old co-op to come down
And this week, hoarding started going up around the old Co-op building on Danebury Avenue which has stood empty for years. The council submitted a planning application earlier this month to demolish the building and replace it with a new community hub containing a library, youth centre, GP surgery, and 55 council homes. The site preparation suggests demolition could begin once planning permission is granted.
These three projects represent what’s actually likely to get built on the Alton Estate this year.
The council announced its plans for Block A (the Co-op site) last week with characteristic enthusiasm. Cabinet member Aydin Dikerdem said the council had “promised we’d hit these timelines and we have.”
But residents who followed the regeneration ballot closely may recall that the full picture is more complicated. Six weeks after the October vote, council papers revealed the scheme’s costs had risen from the £123 million presented to voters to £163 million, with a £77 million external funding gap that remains unsecured.
The grander visions of the Alton Renewal Plan, including up to 650 new homes and major estate-wide improvements, depend on funding the council doesn’t yet have. What residents can expect to see this year is more modest: infrastructure upgrades like water tanks, playground improvements, and preparatory work on the first building site.
For families on the estate, the playground openings before summer will be the most tangible change. The water tanks, once buried and covered over, will be invisible but essential. And the Co-op site will likely remain a construction site well into next year, assuming planning permission comes through.
The Alton Estate voted 82% in favour of regeneration last October. Three months on, the digging has begun.
