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Where do you live?

Antonino Surace
3 hours ago
2 min read

Wimbledon, Southfields and Colliers Wood are changing — but where does that leave the people who already live here?

Walk through Wimbledon, Southfields, South Wimbledon and Colliers Wood and you can see how quickly south-west London is changing.

New developments are appearing, older sites are being redeveloped and more homes are being planned. In fact, the Mayor of London has identified the Wimbledon–Colliers Wood–South Wimbledon area as an Opportunity Area with the potential for around 5,000 new homes and 6,000 jobs by 2041.


On paper, that sounds like exactly what London needs.

But there is another side to the story.

Building more homes does not automatically mean making housing more affordable.

Colliers Wood alone has several major sites earmarked for development, including land around Britannia Point, Colliers Wood station and Priory Retail Park. The plans could deliver hundreds of additional homes.



Wimbledon is also seeing significant development pressure, while Southfields and the surrounding areas continue to face the same fundamental problem: London is an expensive place to live, and simply increasing the number of properties does not guarantee that local people will be able to afford them.

And there is an important distinction that often gets lost in the debate.

A home described as "affordable" isn't necessarily a social-rent home. It may still be beyond the reach of families who are struggling with private rents or waiting for social housing.

Merton itself says that its housing strategy needs to focus particularly on genuinely affordable homes, alongside a wider mix of housing.

So the real question for Wimbledon, Southfields, South Wimbledon and Colliers Wood isn't simply:

"How many new homes are we building?"

It should be:

👉 Who are those homes being built for?

👉 Can local workers and families actually afford them?

👉 How many will be genuinely affordable or available for social rent?

👉 And will the infrastructure — transport, schools, roads, healthcare and public spaces — grow alongside the population?

Development isn't necessarily a bad thing. New investment can bring better buildings, new businesses, improved public spaces and much-needed housing.

But regeneration should also mean creating communities that people can continue to afford to live in, rather than simply replacing one generation of residents with another who can pay more.



The transformation of this part of south-west London is already happening.

The question is whether we are building more homes, or actually building more affordable places to live.

And those are two very different things.

 

 
 
 

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