A case study about transport and placemaking Royal Arsenal Riverside s you stroll down towards the pier, a view breaks open For some of the time, it has been a white-knuckle A across the water, where the sea surges upstream to ride through recession and a battle to secure Crossrail. meet the Thames. Climb up the steps and you gaze along Commercial development wobbled and the public one thousand metres of this riverside development. sector partners had to deal with deficit reduction and restructures. This is the Royal Arsenal in south-east London. Now halfway through a 30 year transformation. The But a decade down the line since the first homes were regeneration of this site has a lot to say about breathing completed, the Royal Arsenal shows how bold visions life into brownfield sites and understanding the role accompanied by robust balance sheets can yield of infrastructure in tackling the housing crisis. spectacular results, both in the value generated and the community created. Fifteen years into this process, a disused 300-year old munitions site has been transformed into a beautiful, enjoyable location, home to more than 5,000 people. What has been delivered so far? Restored and refurbished Georgian listed buildings sit • 1,992 homes (1,364 private and 628 affordable – next to bold contemporary apartment blocks. A new public 46% of the first phases) museum has been created housing paraphernalia which reflects the site’s industrial and military heritage. It sits • 500,000 sq. ft. of retail, leisure, community, alongside a café, gastro pub and restaurant. The outside office and light industrial space. areas are landscaped with lawns and paving. • 20 Grade II listed buildings restored The approach taken here is an illuminating example of the kind of deal that can be struck between developers • 3,000 construction jobs created and public authorities to get ambitious and complex • Over 1,000 permanent jobs created housing schemes off the ground. • £15.5 million invested in the community through For the local council there has also been a great deal Section 106 riding on the scheme. It is a key driver in the long term regeneration of Woolwich, one of the capital’s most • The below ground infrastructure for deprived conurbations. Until recently, 98% of dwellings a Crossrail station here were council housing. www.berkeleygroup.co.uk Before After A tale of persistence hen Berkeley won its bid in the spring of 2000 to Berkeley’s £150m winning scheme was for 700 homes, W develop 700 homes on the Woolwich Arsenal site mostly in the form of apartments in the 4 grade II-listed against stiff competition, little did it know what the sheer buildings dating back to 1806. The scheme was expected scale of its involvement would turn out to be. Or how to be completed by 2005 and included a one hectare park. the scheme would shape its approach to regeneration However, by 2003 Berkeley’s plans had changed and elsewhere in Greenwich and other parts of the capital. having bought adjacent offices, it sought consent to What’s immediately apparent is that embarking on a extend the number of homes to 1,250. A year later, scheme like this has called for a team with tenacity, thwarted by a series of commercial developers stalling vision and a healthy balance sheet. It has required 15 years on the mixed use part of the site, Berkeley acquired of upfront investment funded largely from Berkeley’s the rest of the land from EP to put in bars, restaurants balance sheet. It would have been impossible to do this by and a cinema. applying the business model of a traditional house builder. Berkeley saw this as essential to create a strong sense ‘A key challenge is persuading your board and shareholders of place. It then reworked the masterplan to deliver an that the return is attractive. You’ve got to be patient about additional 2,500 homes, including provision for returns on a site like this,’ says Rob Perrins, the Berkeley a Crossrail station. Group’s Managing Director. The masterplan by Broadway Malyan was, however, called In the beginning… in by the Secretary of State during 2005. So Berkeley This particular story begins in 1997 when English turned to Allies and Morrison to rework the scheme. But Partnerships (EP), the Government’s regeneration agency, the development was then dealt another blow when the took ownership of the site from the Ministry of Defence. Treasury decided that to save money, a Crossrail station It had remained disused since the late 1960s. Some 22 would not be built at Woolwich after all. It was one of the buildings on the site are listed, including a Grade I Royal deepest points on the line and not building a station there Brass Foundry. In its First World War heyday, the Woolwich was considered an easy saving to make. Arsenal turned out mounted guns, ammunition and other There ensued a five year campaign to get the decision supplies for front-line troops. It has also produced a reversed. Once support was finally secured from the certain football club, now resident near Highbury. committee drafting the Crossrail Bill, Berkeley then EP gave the Ministry of Defence £1 for the site. In return, decided to take on the risk of constructing a box for it got a £43m dowry from the MoD and the Treasury for the station. In addition, it bought the freehold of the site decontamination and making safe the structures. EP from the London Development Agency to create more commissioned architect Llewelyn-Davies to draw up a scope to invest in the infrastructure and public realm. masterplan with Greenwich Council and the Woolwich This again upped the risk, but gave it greater control Development Agency. The masterplan involved splitting of its destiny to generate a critical mass of housing and the site into four distinct quarters: mixed use, cultural, forge a complete environment with its own unique residential and industrial. character and identity. Winning the battle for integrated transport ike Stratford, in east London, Woolwich is now on The Thames Clipper course to be one of the best connected places in L Berkeley also subsidised the running of a riverboat service south-east London. Crossrail will take commuters to out to the Royal Arsenal for three years to encourage the Bond Street in twenty minutes; Canary Wharf is just operators to extend the service from its previous last stop twenty six minutes away by Thames Clipper and City in north Greenwich. Now that 5,000 people are living on airport six minutes away by the Docklands Light Railway. the development, the service is viable and runs regularly This is in addition to overland rail lines with a frequent from the pier during rush hours and in the evening. service to London Bridge and Charing Cross. These new links have come about through a mixture of vision, lobbying and financial contributions from the private sector, offset against reduced Section 106 demands. Delivering the DLR Having made a strong economic case for the Docklands Light Railway to be extended to Woolwich, work started on the DLR station in 2003 and was completed in 2009. At the time, the decision to build Crossrail had not been taken and it was essential to keep the site viable through visible improvements to transport links. Berkeley helped reduce costs for delivery by changing the phasing and construction programme to accommodate DLR infrastructure. The DLR station is in the centre of Woolwich town but the tunnels and tracks run through and underneath the Royal Arsenal. The arrival of the DLR was a critical early part of the placemaking, providing a direct connection with Canary Wharf and to Stratford International. Crossrail coming There was considerable debate with the Department It was not until July 2013, five years after the original of Transport about whether there should be a Crossrail agreement, that the Department for Transport and station at Woolwich. The problem was this station Transport for London officially confirmed that Crossrail was the most expensive on the line because of its services would call at Woolwich. This followed the proposed depth. conclusion of a funding agreement for the completion of the station. The fit-out was ultimately dependent The original Crossrail route passed in a tunnel underneath on Transport for London, the Government, Berkeley Woolwich, with the only station south of the river planned and the Royal Borough of Greenwich all sharing the cost for Abbey Wood, a relatively small and inaccessible of the works. site. The argument went back and forth. Eventually, the Parliamentary Committee charged with scrutinising Crossrail is now proceeding with the procurement process legislation was convinced, and provision for a Woolwich for the station fit out, and the station itself will open in Station was added to the scheme. 2018, alongside the rest of the central section of the line. Nick Raynsford the MP for Greenwich said at the time, ‘an historic opportunity to improve transport in south-east London and to boost regeneration at Woolwich would have been wasted.’ Berkeley agreed to build the station box. This required the acquisition of additional land at the riverside to develop a ‘These new transport links have come new masterplan which allowed planning consent for 1,000 more homes. At the same time, it worked with Crossrail about through a mixture of vision, to ensure a more cost-effective design. The tunnels were raised by 10m. To make this possible, buildings lobbying and financial contributions had to be moved and a park reconfigured to a more linear arrangement leading up to the town centre.