Three LDA Design projects feature on this year’s Planning Awards shortlist.
Church Street in Westminster, with Westminster City Council and Peter Brett Associates (PBA), has made it to the final in the plan-making category.
Vying for the top prize in the Stakeholder Engagement category is UCL East (with Soundings, UCL and the London Legacy Development Corporation) and Community Planning in Central Bedfordshire with Central Bedfordshire Council (CBC).
Church Street, Westminster: Plan-making
Westminster City Council is committed to making ‘Church Street the most liveable ward in London’. The masterplan response by PBA and LDA Design is equally ambitious. It aims to achieve transformational change for local residents by creating great places, a new cultural quarter, more jobs, and opportunities for a healthy and more prosperous lifestyle.
The masterplan, Westminster’s largest regeneration scheme to date, will guide economic growth and physical development for the next 15-20 years, and deliver real change for the community along with 1750 new homes. It is expected to create more than 4,000 jobs through construction, as well as new retail and leisure opportunities.
Community Planning, Central Bedfordshire: Stakeholder Engagement
Central Bedfordshire Council’s Community Planning initiative is the first of its kind in England. It takes meaningful public engagement to the next level, bridging the gap between a local and neighbourhood plan. In Central Bedfordshire it aims to give local people a stronger, collective voice in shaping where they live.
The information gathered through this LDA Design approach is informing the council’s decision-making. Developers can also use it to ensure their schemes meet local needs and deliver the right kinds of opportunities. Through Community Planning, CBC has proactively sought to understand what people love about where they live, identifying issues around infrastructure, education, health and wellbeing. This is being fed into future plans, influencing policy beyond the emerging Local Plan. It also ensures that any money arising from development is spent in areas outlined by the community.
UCL East: Stakeholder Engagement
UCL East forms part of the next major phase of a globally significant legacy within the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, providing a new campus for University College London (UCL) that complements its central London Bloomsbury Campus. The development represents the largest ever single expansion of UCL since the University was founded nearly 200 years ago.
UCL East is a radical new model of how a university campus can be embedded within the local community, as an inviting and inclusive institution. It will also provide world-leading research and education accompanied by entrepreneurship and innovation, encouraging new socio-economic opportunities and creating significant and wide-ranging economic benefits to the local and national economy. The design thinking behind the masterplan is based on a positive and thorough consultation process. In addition, a series of engagement programmes aim to establish effective relationships with local organisations and residents over the next five years to raise excitement.
