The Rail Belt
The Davidson Prize is a competition organised by the Alan Davidson Foundation. In 2025, the organisers called for multi-disciplinary teams to propose inventive solutions to the UK housing crisis.
ReCreate led a team comprising housing specialist, Nathaniel Welham, and WSP consulting engineers. To address this year’s theme, our team proposed building homes on The Rail Belt. Central to our approach was creating homes in cities where demand is highest and improving living conditions for people living near major infrastructure.
WSP have identified 1,142km of exposed track in London suitable for supporting Rail Belt development. Conservative estimates suggest 10% of this land is suitable for over-build, which could provide upwards of 250,000 homes in the capital alone. These developments require little or no demolition of existing structures and reduce pressures on cities to expand into the greenbelt.
We identified the Grosvenor Sidings site near London Victoria as a suitable platform to provide new city centre homes. The site boasts 4.5ha of prime development land in Zone 1 and faces the River Thames and new Battersea Power Station development.
The Rail Belt development will improve the quality of life for people living track-side by encapsulating the infrastructure and thus reducing levels of pollution and noise. Connectivity for pedestrians will be greatly improved and new green spaces are created.
Development is proposed to be built in two phases, using the sidings as a platform for construction. Delivery by rail will mitigate the impacts of a major construction project on traffic in the city. The development will utilise the UK’s growing modular and prefabrication industry to speed up construction on complex sites and enable quicker delivery of homes.
Title: The Rail Belt
Location: Victoria, London
Year: 2025
Client: Davidson Prize
Status: Competition, Longlisted (winner TBA)
Collaborators: Nathaniel Welham, WSP