WRLtH 'will be game-changer for Slough'

Western Rail Link to Heathrow (WRLtH) could offer a major boost to the housing market in Slough, delegates heard at the latest UK Prop Social.

Network Rail was due to submit the scheme to Government this Winter to seek its development consent order but that was delayed by a year last December due to Covid.

However, delegates at our May 6 event heard it could prove a significant help to attract investment in Slough.

The meeting looked at Berkeley Homes’ Horlicks Quarter scheme (pictured) where 1,300 properties are being built in and around the former factory.

Slough’s transport links to London had already proved an attraction to buyers but Alexa Peters, head of Reading RDS for Savills, which is working with the housebuilder at Horlicks, told the meeting: “The Great Western link that will link Slough to Heathrow in six minutes is a game-changer.

“I do genuinely feel that there will be plenty of people who will look at this, perhaps frequent travellers, and say ‘I want to be somewhere really beautiful, I want fantastic facilities and I want to have the ability to get to all the beautiful parks surrounding it’.

“You can be in Windsor Great Park. You can walk through Slough, through the Eton College playing fields and over the bridge into Windsor in a very short period of time, so I do think there will be a lot of demand from a lot of different markets.”

She said the scheme has attracted a wide range of potential buyers with many people interested in the types of facilities and features not seen before outside London.

Elkie Russell, managing director, Berkeley Homes (Chiltern), said the facilities for residents were what people would expect from a London development ‘but without the price tag’.

Horlicks Quarter’s first block of 79 units is now 80 per cent reserved and a second of 33 is about to launch.

Visit: https://www.berkeleygroup.co.uk/developments/berkshire/slough/horlicks-quarter