Futuristic vision for Park Royal City
Thursday August 11, 2011
Futuristic images of a major new development built in one of Britain’s poorest neighbourhoods and around the nation’s first high-speed rail super hub were released today.
The regeneration vision for Park Royal City shows 12,000 gleaming new homes, 115,000 extra jobs and a light-railway, dubbed the ‘jobs express’, built on an unrivalled convergence of transport routes in north-west London.
The artists’ impressions, which have been drawn up by internationally renowned architect Sir Terry Farrell, show vast tracts of derelict or underused industrial land - around Old Oak Common in NW10 - transformed into London’s newest city.
The images show new homes, businesses and a new waterside park along the Grand Union Canal, known as Park Royal City, built around a 21st century transport super-hub. The vision is compared to others designed by Farrell in China - at Guangzhou, Kowloon and Beijing.
Around half of working age adults within 1.2miles of the new city, including residents in the neighbouring boroughs of Brent, Ealing and K&C, are unemployed and some parts of Old Oak are in the bottom 1% of most deprived areas nationally.
Cllr Stephen Greenhalgh, H&F Council Leader, says: “HS2 is the fastest way to deliver much need new homes, jobs and opportunities in one of London's poorest areas as well as adding much need capacity to our creaking rail network.”
“The Old Oak super hub is vital to making the overall HS2 plans work properly as it will relieve pressure on central London terminals, like Euston, that will not be able to cope with the huge number of additional passengers on their own. In turn HS2 will be the catalyst to create Park Royal City - transforming the capital's Bermuda Triangle of inactivity into a thriving new city.”
The images were prepared as part of Hammersmith & Fulham (H&F) Council’s submission to the Department for Transport (DfT) backing the Government’s plans for a high speed rail line (HS2) from Birmingham to London. H&F Council is arguing that Park Royal City International is vital to the success of HS2 as:
- It would take pressure off central London terminals like Euston which would have to cope with 13,000 extra passengers an hour without the high-speed hub at Old Oak
- It would properly link four of the nation’s major airports to the high speed rail network for the first time. Heathrow would be just 11 minutes away. Three other airports (Luton, Stansted and City Airport) would be within 30 minutes
- The site possesses unrivalled road and rail connections e.g. Great Western and West Coast mainlines, Crossrail, West and North London Lines, Bakerloo and Central Underground lines, Heathrow Express, A40 and North Circular Road
Sir Terry Farrell says, “High Speed Rail is not just a transportation strategy it's a nationwide economic catalyst that requires creative place making. This is an incredibly exciting opportunity to reshape and unblock the development of a critical part of north-west London, and crucially to have a huge impact on the country as a whole."
Residents and business in the area have also welcomed the plans, which would strength the economic capacity of Park Royal, while prominent rail enthusiasts have criticised the small minority of people who are against the current HS2 plans.
Paul Keegan, Chairman of the Old Oak Tenants and Residents Association, says local residents are ‘100% behind’ the Old Oak interchange. “We are all for it,” he said, “Anything that brings regeneration and jobs to this area will be welcomed. We are just crying out for new businesses and jobs.”
Music mogul and rail enthusiast Pete Waterman added: “It’s all very well for NIMBYs in the Chilterns to worry about their lawns, but with the demand for rail travel predicted to continue to grow, the railways are facing serious capacity issues. A new High Speed Rail line will not only address the problems with capacity, but dramatically reduce journey times.”
