Issue 48 AUG 25 web - Flipbook - Page 111
West End Project
– From grey to green
West End Project is Camden Council’s £40m investment to transform public realm around Tottenham
Court Road, bringing nature in, improving air quality, and strengthening climate resilience.
London’s population is rising by around 100,000 a year.
Over the next decade, the city is likely to grow denser,
hotter, and more congested. West End Project is public
space as antidote. This complex renewal programme
unpicks decades of vehicular dominance, taking busy
London streets and spaces and reimagining them as places
fit for the future, with climate, people and nature inspiring
the new designs.
The project also contributes to London as a sponge city
by expanding soft landscape to cover, in total, an area well
over one thousand square metres. These new spaces are
planted with a total of more than 8,000 herbaceous plants
and 13,000 plus bulbs, a mix of flower-rich natives and
non-natives to improve biodiversity, pollination, and
bio-resilience.
Overall, 59 new trees have been added to the 77 mature
trees retained. Studies into microclimate, responding to
the pressures of climate change and Camden’s Biodiversity Action Plan have guided an attractive, practical
planting plan. The scheme has also introduced 2,433m2
of permeable paving, which slows the discharge of storm
water.
The project has reclaimed road space to create almost one
hectare of public space. Pavements have been widened
and decluttered and 2.6 kilometres of cycle lanes added.
The scheme removes the one-way systems on Tottenham
Court Road and Gower Street, reducing traffic including
across neighbouring streets. It has created the first new
park in the area for 25 years and a new public square. A
treasured community space, Whitfield Gardens, has been
restored and there are five new pocket parks.
Camden Council’s West End Project won a Civic Trust
special award for sustainability. The scheme demonstrates
the potential of places to flourish once road space
becomes a park or a green public square and that there's
value in doing this for people and for nature. The project
Traffic volume has been reduced along Tottenham Court
Road by up to 70 per cent during the day and on Gower
Street by up to 45 per cent. Air quality has improved with
NO2 levels 34 per cent lower on Tottenham Court Road
than in 2018.
Below, Whitfield Gardens, credit Mike Massaro
for Michael Grubb Studio
Conservation & Heritage Journal
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