This page provides information about the Old Oak Village Alliance (OOVA). This website is independently run and is not an official OOVA website.

Old Oak Village Alliance

Bringing our community together to shape the future of Old Oak

The Old Oak Village Alliance (OOVA) is an independent, community-led alliance bringing together residents, local organisations, schools, businesses and community groups across Old Oak, East Acton and the surrounding neighbourhoods.

The aim is simple: to help make Old Oak a stronger, greener, safer, fairer and better-connected place to live. We exist to unite communities, strengthen representation, foster collaboration and ensure that local people have a meaningful collective voice in the decisions shaping the future of our area.

Old Oak is going through extraordinary change. The arrival of HS2 and Old Oak Common station, together with major regeneration and plans for around 8,000 new homes across the wider area led by the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC), will transform this part of West London over the coming decades.

A central principle behind The Old Oak Village Alliance is that the communities already living here should be part of that transformation - and should benefit from it.

Working together for Old Oak

The Old Oak Village Alliance provides a way for people and organisations across the neighbourhood to work together on issues that affect us all.

The group is independent and non-party political, with no affiliation to any political party or corporate interest. OOVA works constructively with councillors, MPs, public bodies, developers and other organisations, while remaining firmly community-led. Its approach is collaborative and practical: bringing people together, sharing local knowledge, examining the evidence and working with the organisations capable of making change happen.

That might mean campaigning for better transport, responding to major planning or regeneration proposals, protecting our green spaces and biodiversity, supporting community projects, improving public spaces or simply helping local organisations find ways to work together.

Residents and participating organisations remain independent. The Alliance exists as a platform to gives the community of Old Oak a stronger collective voice when there is something we can achieve better together.

Old Oak Village Alliance flagship campaign:

Step-free East Acton

One of the most important current priorities is securing step-free access at East Acton Underground station.

For many people in our community, East Acton is the only practical gateway to the London Underground Yet the station remains inaccessible to anyone who cannot easily manage stairs.

With more than 40 steps on a narrow staircase and no lift, this affects wheelchair users and people with disabilities, parents with pushchairs, older residents, people carrying luggage and anyone with temporary or long-term mobility difficulties. The nearest step-free rail and Underground alternatives are more than a mile away by pedestrian route.

This lack of accessible transport is becoming increasingly significant as Old Oak undergoes one of the largest infrastructure transformations in the country.

Since construction of HS2’s new Old Oak Common station began in 2019, our community has shouldered a significant share of the impact of this nationally important project. Residents have lived alongside years of intensive construction, noise, disturbance, the effects of compulsory purchase orders and constant road closures, with substantial further disruption still to come:

Most significantly, HS2’s plans include the closure of Old Oak Common Lane from 2027 for up to four years, severing one of only three roads connecting our neighbourhood to the surrounding area. Old Oak is already unusually constrained geographically; bounded by the A40 to the south, railway lines to the west and Wormwood Scrubs to the north — leaving residents with relatively few routes in and out.

For a community already poorly served by accessible public transport, losing one of those vital connections for several years will make reliable, accessible transport alternatives more important than ever.

And this is not a short-term construction project. With the current programme extending towards 2039, people living in Old Oak could ultimately experience close to two decades of disruption in order to deliver one of the most significant new transport hubs in Britain.

Against that backdrop, we believe there is a compelling case for the enormous investment taking place on our doorstep to leave a meaningful and lasting legacy for the existing community. Making East Acton station step-free could be exactly that.

It would transform everyday journeys for local residents, improve access to employment, education and healthcare, and provide a permanent piece of accessible transport infrastructure that continues to benefit Old Oak long after the construction compounds and road closures have gone.

Old Oak Common is being built to transform connectivity across London and the country. We believe the community that has lived alongside its construction should share in that promise.

If Old Oak is helping to deliver a better-connected Britain, Old Oak itself should become better connected too.

Building the case for change

The Old Oak Village Alliance, led by Eleanor Botwright MBE, has been working to understand exactly what would be required to make East Acton step-free — and whether previous work might provide a route forward.

Research has established that TfL commissioned substantial engineering feasibility work for East Acton in 2017 as part of its wider step-free access programme.

That work included consideration of potential engineering solutions, drawings, costs, planning and consent requirements, project risks and programming, as well as structural, operational and maintenance issues.

Importantly, documents indicate that two possible external lift-shaft arrangements were identified.

More recent desktop assessments have described East Acton as difficult to make accessible, but appear not to have revisited those earlier engineering options.

TfL has also been unable to identify a formal governance record showing that East Acton was definitively removed from consideration and has confirmed that the station could potentially progress if sufficient funding were found.

OOVA therefore believes there is a credible case for looking again.

What happens next?

OOVA are asking TfL to retrieve the original engineering work and undertake a targeted update rather than beginning again from scratch.

The immediate objective is to establish whether the previously identified lift solutions remain viable, identify any new constraints and obtain a realistic indication of what a step-free scheme might cost today.

With that information, OOVA wants to bring TfL, Hammersmith & Fulham Council, OPDC, HS2, elected representatives and other potential partners together to explore whether a funding package can be found.

We don't yet know what the answer will be. But we believe East Acton deserves a proper, evidence-based assessment and that every reasonable opportunity to make our neighbourhood more accessible should be explored.

A community benefiting from regeneration

The East Acton campaign reflects a much bigger principle behind OOVA.

Old Oak should not simply be a place where regeneration happens. It should be a community that benefits from regeneration.

Old Oak Common is set to become one of the best-connected railway stations in Britain, with major development and investment following in the surrounding area.

For that transformation to leave a positive local legacy, investment must also reach the neighbourhoods around it; through better transport connections, accessible public spaces, greener streets, improved community infrastructure and opportunities for local people.

The Alliance aims to work constructively with the organisations responsible for that change to help make that happen.

A network for our community

OOVA is not intended to replace the many brilliant charities, residents' associations, CICs, schools, businesses and organisations already doing important work across Old Oak.

It exists to connect them.

By sharing knowledge, coordinating campaigns, developing partnerships and bringing different parts of the community together, we can tackle issues that are difficult for any one resident or organisation to address alone. Old Oak belongs to all of us - and everyone should have the opportunity to help shape its future.

Whether you're a resident, community organisation, school, local business or simply someone with an idea or a project for improving the neighbourhood, The Old Oak Alliance would love to hear from you.

Join the Old Oak Village WhatsApp community using the button below and get involved!

The Old Oak Village Alliance gives our community a stronger collective voice, helping to ensure that the enormous changes taking place around us leave a lasting and positive legacy for Old Oak.

For press and other enquiries please contact: oldoakvillagealliance@gmail.com