West 12 Shopping Centre to be Redeveloped

W12 viewed from Rockley Rd

Landsec, the company that owns the West 12 Shopping Centre ,has revealed plans to demolish the back half of their shopping centre site and build a new tower.

During the redevelopment, some businesses will have to close - at least temporarily - such as Vue, Fitness First and Lidl.

Go around the back of the West12 and you can see why they might want to do this. The pizza Express restaurant (which would presumably also have to go) is only a one-storey building. Building up definitely makes sense for the developers.

Elephant Cafe - How it Turned Out

Elephant - how it was meant to look

Last summer the old Esso petrol station on Wood Lane got taken over by Elephant Magazine, who promised to turn it into "a new space to act as a meeting place and hub for performance, discussion, film screenings, talks and workshops". Plus, of course, a  "café, shop and outdoor garden area". As often happens these days, the plans were accompanied by a shiny digital image of what the development might actually look like. So, how did it actually turn out?