Home to the controversial ‘sky pool’, this south western region is a monument to the changing face of modern London. Dominated by a hodgepodge of finished, semi-finished and newly-started towers full of luxury flats, much of the area remains uninhabited and many amenities remain unfinished. With the iconic chimneys of Battersea Power Station, which re-opened in October 2022 as a high-end retail and residential destination, to the west, and Vauxhall station to the east, the area has some of the most sought after land in the city, but what was a riverside hub of local employment is now populated predominantly by those who can afford the flats that overlook the Thames. With the opening of Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms stations on the Northern line, locals and visitors alike now have easy transport connections to and from the rest of London. Alongside the humming train tracks extending out from Vauxhall, New Covent Garden Market is one of the few hints to the area’s industrial past, remaining the largest wholesale fruit, vegetable, and flower market in the country, at a staggering 57 acres!

Nine Elms Lane has existed since about 1200, but was named around 1645, after a row of elm trees that lined the popular track between York House and Vauxhall. The area was described as ‘a low swampy district occasionally overflowed by the Thames’. Nine Elms station was opened in 1838 as the first London terminus of the London and South Western Railway, but was closed in 1848 when the line was extended to Waterloo. The terminus itself became a locomotive works but was damaged in the Second World War, and turned into the flower section of New Covent Garden Market in 1968. Development of the area began in the early 2000s, and the U.S. Embassy announced that it would relocate to the area in 2008. It moved to the area in December 2017 and began operating from Nine Elms in January 2018.

Battersea Power Station, which sits to the area’s west, is one of London’s most well known landmarks, and as such has been featured in a number of films including Alfred Hitchcock’s Sabotage from 1936, Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life from 1983 and The Dark Knight from 2007. It has also been frequently used in the TV series Doctor Who, and was photographed on the cover of Pink Floyd’s 1977 album Animals with a large inflatable pig tethered to one of the four iconic chimneys. The pig accidentally came loose from its bindings and flew into the Heathrow flight path, forcing many planes to remain grounded while the pig was dealt with.

At the moment, the neighbourhood is rather unfinished, making it a dusty, polluted area, that is constantly blighted by the sounds of building works and train lines. Nine Elms Lane itself is a congested thoroughfare filled with industrial vehicles, and lined with building hoardings that obscure any view of the Thames that may be glimpsed between the huge blocks of flats.

The whole area is one large future-site, with numerous buildings nearing completion. Battersea Power Station has recently finished a £9bn residential, retail and leisure development, much of which was designed by Foster + Partners and apartments by Frank Gehry architects. The initial proposal included 50% affordable homes, but only 9% of the properties ended up falling into this category. The $1bn mixed-use skyscraper One Nine Elms is another significant construction project being overseen by the Chinese property developer R&F Properties, and is predicted to be one of the country’s tallest residential buildings when it opens in November 2023. Further still, both the Netherlands and Chinese embassies are looking to follow the U.S. and relocate to the area. That said, buyers do not seem to be flocking to the area enthusiastically. Fears are even growing that much of a multi-billion pound development at the heart of the regeneration project will lie empty with developers selling just one third of the apartments on offer. R&F has stated that it will increase its commercial and office offerings at the expense of some residential units. They claim that this is being done in response to an increase in demand for such uses, but one can also speculate that they are attempting to compensate for the lack of demand for luxury residences in the area. That said, 90% of the luxury apartments developed for the Battersea Powe Station conversion are already sold, so there may still be home for the area’s future activity.