Why Grocery Store Parking Lots Are Disappearing in London

Anyone who thinks housing-starved inner London doesn’t have any space left to build on probably hasn’t been grocery shopping in the area recently. While inner London’s supermarkets aren’t as sprawling and vast as their suburban counterparts, they still take up large areas of prime land, including parking lots and buildings that are often single-floor. In an urban area where the number of drivers has been falling for some time, leaving parking spaces to gobble up valuable real estate like this is a real waste. And in fact, these spaces are in the midst of a big change.

Inner London is poised on the edge of a grocery store parking lot building boom, one that will see homes replace cars. Right now inner London has 15 major grocery store sites that have either just been sold, are coming to market or have residential planning permission agreed. Parceled together, that land could accommodate up to 7,500 housing units and have a market value of up to £3 billion ($4.33 billion). It’s not that the stores themselves are closing (at least not in London). They’re just shedding parking space that once seemed essential but increasingly looks like an overhang from another era.