Underneath the arches: Transport accessibility and commercial property price for businesses using railway arches in London

This study examines the relationship between transport accessibility and commercial property prices, focusing on railway arches - the UK’s largest estate of properties leased to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). By analysing this unique property class, which serves dual roles as railway infrastructure and commercial space, the study provides insights into the distributional effects of transport accessibility improvements on SMEs. Whilst considering concerns raised of gentrification and of Network Rail’s 2019 arch estate privatisation. Using Valuation Office Agency (VOA) data for rental values and hedonic price models, we assess arches used for industry in Greater London. These are categorized into three subsectors: manufacturing, storage, and vehicle repair/servicing. Sector-specific models are constructed at a London-wide level for arches. For manufacturing - we develop additional models comparing arches to similarly sized non-arch manufacturing properties in two case study areas, to isolate rental premiums or discounts specific to arches. We model forms of walking accessibility using gravity measures (calibrated to National Travel Survey data) to capture local agglomeration effects: business-to-business (B2B), business-to-labour (B2L), business-to-customers (B2C), and public transport footfall (B2P) that integrates railway station and bus stop usage. From analysis of changes in manufacturing floorspace across 2010-2023, we found arch floorspace used for manufacturing has declined much less than across the sector generally. Our London wide model confirmed the importance of localised B2B and B2C linkages, our eastern case study consisting of the boroughs of Hackney and Tower Hamlets highlighted that, manufacturing arches exhibit stronger rent correlations than non-arch properties with: (1) walking-distance population density and (2) higher proportions of residents in upper NSSec socioeconomic classifications. A finding of a price premium for arches is notable given their inherent physical disadvantages. As previous work on the arches has been qualitative, our quantitative findings offer a new perspective on arches and gentrification.