Green Light for North Acton Business Improvement District
Local businesses vote in favour of investment programme
An aerial view of North Acton . Picture: OPDC
March 30, 2026
A new business improvement district is set to reshape North Acton after local firms voted to approve a £2 million investment programme that will run over the next five years. The decision follows a February ballot of businesses and property owners, delivered jointly by Ealing Council and the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC), with the BID due to launch on 1 June.
North Acton becomes the first area within the Old Oak and Park Royal Opportunity Area to establish a BID, joining a wider network that already includes Make It Ealing, Your Acton and In West Ealing. BIDs are business‑led partnerships that pool resources to improve commercial districts, with priorities set directly by the companies that operate there.
The new BID arrives at a pivotal moment for North Acton, which sits at the heart of OPDC’s regeneration plans. The wider Old Oak project is one of London’s largest brownfield redevelopments, with a target of delivering 8,000 new and affordable housing units, thousands of jobs, up to 200,000 square metres of commercial space, and new public facilities and green spaces next to the future HS2 station at Old Oak Common.
The BID’s business plan focuses on improvements that local employers identified during months of consultation. These include:
- Upgrades to lighting, wayfinding and the public realm
- Action on littering and fly‑tipping
- Support for local events, markets, artists and creative activity
- A coordinated business voice responding to major developments such as HS2
The BID’s founding members include West London Business, Imperial College London, City & Docklands, Downing, O’Shea Group and ADD Properties.
Councillor Kamaljit Nagpal, Ealing Council’s cabinet member for decent living incomes, said the result showed clear support for investment in the area.
“North Acton is undergoing extraordinary change, and the successful ballot arrives at exactly the right moment,” she said. “It shows the strength of support from businesses that want a cleaner, safer, more dynamic place to work and invest.”
Matthew Carpen, chief executive of OPDC, described the BID as a key piece of the wider regeneration programme.
“North Acton is a vital piece of the jigsaw in the transformation of Old Oak and business‑led investment through the BID will ensure it thrives as a place,” he said.
Niall Watters, chair of the new BID and managing director of ADD UK, added, “Local employers have given us a strong mandate to drive forward the improvements they want to see — a safer environment, a cleaner public realm, a stronger identity and a more coordinated approach to growth,” he said. “Our focus now is on turning this strong vote of confidence into real, visible change.”
Alice Sewell, vice‑chair and investment director at Imperial College London, said the BID would help North Acton become a hub for innovation. “It supports our collective ambition for the area not just to be a great place to live, but also an exceptional location to start, scale and invest in a business,” she said.
The BID will begin operations in June, with its first five‑year term running until 2031. Businesses can view the full business plan and further details at parkroyal.westlondon.com/northactonbid.
Like Reading Articles Like This? Help Us Produce More This site remains committed to providing local community news and public interest journalism. Articles such as the one above are integral to what we do. We aim to feature as much as possible on local societies, charities based in the area, fundraising efforts by residents, community-based initiatives and even helping people find missing pets. We’ve always done that and won’t be changing, in fact we’d like to do more. However, the readership that these stories generates is often below that needed to cover the cost of producing them. Our financial resources are limited and the local media environment is intensely competitive so there is a constraint on what we can do. We are therefore asking our readers to consider offering financial support to these efforts. Any money given will help support community and public interest news and the expansion of our coverage in this area. A suggested monthly payment is £8 but we would be grateful for any amount for instance if you think this site offers the equivalent value of a subscription to a daily printed newspaper you may wish to consider £20 per month. If neither of these amounts is suitable for you then contact info@neighbournet.com and we can set up an alternative. All payments are made through a secure web site. One-off donations are also appreciated. Choose The Amount You Wish To Contribute. If you do support us in this way we’d be interested to hear what kind of articles you would like to see more of on the site – send your suggestions to the editor. For businesses we offer the chance to be a corporate sponsor of community content on the site. For £30 plus VAT per month you will be the designated sponsor of at least one article a month with your logo appearing if supplied. If there is a specific community group or initiative you’d like to support we can make sure your sponsorship is featured on related content for a one off payment of £50 plus VAT. All payments are made through a secure web site. |