OPDC PlaceLab1 – 15 minute city

We attended the first Placelab session held next to the North Acton gyratory at Gypsy Corner, to help shape plans for Old Oak West.  Representing our affiliate Old Oak Neighbourhood Forum, Henry Peterson was there, as were a good cross-section of neighbours and resident groups.  For those of you unfamiliar with Old Oak, please read Henry’s piece Taking a View from last year, where he sets out the issues around this Mayoral Opportunity Area, and its planned expansion westwards in the wake of the CarGiant debacle. 

Currently the area comprises around 90 acres of post-industrial no man’s land, and is proposed to provide 9000 homes and 2.5m sq. ft. of commercial space to the northwest of Victoria Road, between North Acton and Harlesden/Willesden Junction.

Old Oak West

With notable resonances of Earls Court, including comparable planned housing density of 250/ha, though twice the land area and in a rather less salubrious spot, the main development area is triangular in shape and similarly surrounded by railways, which provide mixed blessings for access, but it has the benefit of the Grand Union Canal rather than the West London Line through the middle. It doesn’t include the large Elizabeth Line depot alongside, because as reported, someone unfortunately forgot to specify foundations strong enough to support over-development! HS2 enabling works currently occupy a significant portion.

Why is it important to Hammersmith?

Boat race + North Acton towers [BBC]

Though strictly in Ealing, it’s right on our borders, closely associated with Wormwood Scrubs and HS2/Oak Oak Common, and your skyline is likely to be affected as it has been already, by the 55 storey tower pictured below and adjacent, during the boat race. We think Historic England could ‘champion England’s Heritage’ better by proactively managing this ‘listed building setting’ rather more effectively.

If the developers have their way unfettered, as Henry describes, and as is the M.O. in Opportunity Areas where the normal planning shackles are largely off, they’ll add several more, and significantly overbuild.  The leader of our council was the sole dissenter at the Local Plan adoption last year as Henry describes – the plan really must be deficient.

Workshop

The workshop format was a sort of mini-charrette organised on behalf of the Mayoral development organisation, OPDC, by consultants Soundings, where about 30 people spread among 3 tables, were asked a series of questions about desirable locations for particular types of infrastructure, beit shops, parks, workspace, housing etc. There were, unsurprisingly, no picture cards of anything like Pilbrow’s planned 50+ storey towers for Imperial at 1 Portal Way.

Old Oak West placemaking

The fashionable subject of 15 minute cities was aired as we show above, which these days is a byword for walking and cycling. We were asked to prioritise what type of infra should be located in annular zones 5 minutes’ walk apart from the centre.  The range of views you can see shows how difficult placemaking can be, not least with a lack of an identifiable ‘centre’ or even definition of what a centre looks like, causing significant consternation on our table. In another similarity with Earls Court, we didn’t get a strong steer from OPDC as to any particular identity, making the area again fall into the awkward category of all things to all (wo)men.

Those who’ve participated in such events will know that it can sometimes be challenging to leave with a sense of a specific future direction, but you get the satisfaction of registering a viewpoint, albeit the gamification aspect tinging it with a sense of infantilisation, always aware of the risk that you may be used as consultation-fodder, such is the modern process. But even with the diverse range of views, there were important common themes that OPDC must surely respect:

• All three tables agreed that human-scale development was of the utmost importance. The photos of Parisian streets with trees and a sense of enclosure were universally liked, whereas park areas trying to satisfy everyone – but being essentially too small to satisfy anyone – such as we’ve seen in Earls Court recently were felt to be either lacking purpose, or slightly hostile by some. Pocket parks were felt to be a particularly purposeless tick-box exercise.
• More tall buildings were felt undesirable.
• Maximising the benefit of existing features such as the canal were felt important. The canal is already much appreciated during the day but felt to be dangerous at night.
• 7-8 storey developments canalside were unsurprisingly the most popular picture cards.

North Acton gyratory

Of course the elephant in the room was in fact roaring just outside the door, which opened right onto the gyratory, separated only by a 2m pavement. Welcome to the dystopian set of Bladerunner in the year 2019 – complete with the rain – and beware the replicants.

Notwithstanding joyless Nine Elms, another Mayoral opportunity area, this is possibly one of the coldest, least green and most hostile areas of public realm in London, created in just the last 5 years at the joint behest of the Mayor and Ealing council, egged on by Imperial College for student housing (PBSA). There are 2 mini supermarkets, 2 takeaway pizza joints and a Mailboxes Etc, but little apparent activity, and rather too much of unoccupied retail space on the ground floors of the towers. The Castle pub has been boarded up.

The driver of this dormitory has been the PTAL value of 6a, with North Acton Central Line station in the middle of the development, formerly just serving a significant industrial hinterland, the new Elizabeth Line stop down the road at Acton Mainline, and the eventual arrival of HS2 at Old Oak Common adjacent.  Doubtless these provide popular escape routes, for the best the developers could provide in terms of public amenity space looks like this:

North Acton Square

In another surprising reflection of Earls Court,  where the Grade I listed Brompton Cemetery has been identified by locals as potentially preferable to a generically planned small park, those familiar with this area naturally preferred Acton Cemetery adjacent.  We made the point that the area outside the door was the polar opposite of any kind of acceptable post-pandemic placemaking.

OPDC Follow up newsletter

Please do attend the important further PlaceLab sessions that are shown in the diary and help shape their ideas.

The OPDC follow-up is adjacent.