Redeveloping Warwick Road
The number of people choosing to live and work in the Royal Borough is constantly growing and for this reason the area's infrastructure needs to be able to adapt. Creating new living space is essential, but this needs to be balanced with a suitable infrastructure which can support a growing community.
A large area– made up of four separate sites– at the north end of Warwick Road, in the central part of the borough, has recently come to the Council’s attention as a potential site for complete redevelopment. The four sites consist of Charles House, currently an office block with a frontage to Kensington High Street, a vacant site formerly used by the Territorial Army, the Empress Telephone Exchange and Homebase with its accompanying car park. Prior to the 1960s the site housed a coal yard but since then it has had a variety of commercial uses.
The sites became the focus of a wider scheme after individual owners for two of the sites submitted redevelopment plans. Rather than developing the sites in isolation the Council believes an opportunity now exists to create a lively, sustainable neighbourhood.
With that in mind, senior planners from Kensington and Chelsea Council have created a large-scale planning brief which envisions a sustainable community on the existing site. In the plan the four neighbouring spaces are replaced by a joined-up, environmentally-friendly area containing hundreds of new homes, retail units, associated community facilities and a primary school.
Though not a rigid master plan it does outline a number of options designed to bring any future development closer to such a co-ordinated plan.
Housing for the future
The principal aim of the draft brief is to provide residential accommodation and the space is large enough to potentially provide hundreds of new flats, many of which would be set aside for families.
Under the draft proposals up to half of the flats provided would be affordable housing. The remainder would range from single bedroom units to larger four-bedroomed dwellings and would be sold on the open market. At least 10 per cent of the new units would be built with wheelchair access.
With such a large number of potential residents, there will be a pressing need to provide adequate facilities for families. Though there is currently a surplus of primary school places in the area south of Notting Hill Gate, the Council predicts that this is likely to become a deficit from 2008. To address this potential problem the design brief includes plans to provide a primary school and nursery on the Charles House site.
Providing more opportunities
The site has been used as commercial space for more than 50 years and in keeping with that the draft planning brief includes a provision for retail space. This includes plans for a series of small-scale retail convenience shops, cafes and restaurants with fronts facing onto Warwick Road. In a bid to create an enhanced sense of community, there will also be an open public space, in the form of a park or a garden square.
The Kensington and Chelsea Primary Care Trust has already indicated that a further capacity for health and social care is needed for the Warwick Road area. An external space within the new site will therefore be allocated as a health polyclinic with a provision for up to five GPs.
Creating a greener environment
In developing the site, the planning brief has paid particular attention to the need to create a sustainable development. The housing and retail units would therefore be designed with environmentally-friendly heating and cooling systems with a significant amount of energy generated on site. In terms of sustainable transport, the provision of on-site charging facilities for electric vehicles and a pedestrian and cycling friendly environment will be encouraged.
Though the planning brief is detailed, at this stage it is just a plan. If adopted though, such a development on these sites has the potential to become a genuinely sustainable community and a highly desirable environment in which to live.
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