Plan to Convert Aircraft Factory into Flats
Planes were built at site off Glenthorne Road during First World War
The Aircraft Factory site on Cambridge Grove. Picture: Google Streetview
March 20, 2025
A block of offices in Hammersmith could be turned into 76 new flats after a plan was submitted to convert the Aircraft Factory Building.
The Property Fund of the owner, Legal and General has submitted plans for a change of use for site on Cambridge Grove off Glenthorne Road.
The location was once home to the Alliance Aeroplane Company.
An Environmental Assessment filed as part of the application outlined how the site is understood to have been a Waring and Gillow furniture factory from the early 1900s before being used to manufacture aircraft during the First World War. The facilitiy assisted in the building of several hundred biplanes and triplanes for the de Havilland and Handley-Page aircraft company. The Alliance P1, a prototype fighter, was developed for the RAF at the Hammersmith site but never put into service. The Alliance P2 Seabird was a long-distance civil aircraft developed post-war but based on wartime experience. It was planned that it would undertake a flight to Australia but a fatal crash in 1919 resulted in the end of the programme.
It was later turned into offices in the 1970s, with the site largely unchanging since the mid-1980s. Most recently, it has been run as an office campus, with facilities including a coffee bar and work space.
Known as ‘The Aircraft Factory’, the premises consists of a five-storey building which itself comprises three inter-connected blocks. It is a short walk from Hammersmith Broadway station.
A spokesperson for Legal and General told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) that the change in use is being requested due to ‘changing market conditions’.
“Features at the Site are understood to have included a main shop, examination & testing facilities, stores, mills, a metal fixing shop, a machine shop, tool room, assembling zones and later a boiler house and tank tower were present at the Site,” the assessment continued.
In documents submitted with Hammersmith and Fulham Council, property company Savills, on behalf of Legal and General, detailed how all 76 of the flats are to be sold privately. Of those, 44 are to be one-bed, 18 two-bed, 10 three-bed and four four-bed.
The development will be car-free, with the exception of eight accessible parking spaces, though will have 128 long-stay and three short-stay cycle spots.
An internal target date to decide the application by the council is listed as 6 May.
A spokesperson for Legal and General said: “In accordance with good estate management practice, we are underpinning the future value of the asset by seeking alternative options in the event of changing market conditions.”
Ben Lynch - Local Democracy Reporter
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