Old Oak & Park Royal – Opportunity Area

Old Oak and Park Royal is London’s largest Opportunity Area and the UK’s largest regeneration scheme. The Mayor of London established the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC), on 1^st April 2015, with the potential to deliver thousands of new homes and jobs over 30-40 years.

Since 2015, nothing meaningful has developed at Old Oak. There is still no land-owning strategy, nor an infrastructure funding plan.  Without either, it is inevitable that the OPDC has stalled and the whole project has widely been referred to as a “cock up”.

This cannot continue and the elected Mayor in May 2020, will need to get a grip.

In order to ensure that the next Mayor delivers a new neighbourhood for Londoners over the next 20 years, that regenerates the whole of Old Oak, from a remote space to a meaningful place, Earth recommends the following:

• Implement a land owning / co-mingling structure and infrastructure funding plan. Earth suggests that this is similar to that implemented by English Partnerships at Greenwich Peninsula in 1997.
• Open an Elizabeth Line station for Crossrail at Old Oak as soon as possible (2022), with the HS2 station to open in 2026.
• Design the station to enable commercial development to be around and / or, overbuilt above the station, creating at least 30,000 new jobs around, and above the station.
• Design the residential development masterplan to incorporate traditional safe streets and mansion blocks capped at 10 storeys, creating some 14,000 homes that Londoners want to live in and, with a 50% delivery target by 2030.
• Promote a life sciences campus within the OPDC, including a new major NHS hospital to support the area.
• Create a vibrant cultural neighbourhood with urban landscaping and street market activities, along the Grand Union Canal towpath, that runs through the centre of the OPDC.
• Promote a new international conferencing and exhibition centre with associated development, within the OPDC, benefiting from the new Elizabeth Line and HS2 station.
• Create links from the new “Elizabeth Station” through to Wormwood Scrubs Common, to ensure easy access to the regenerated recreational and exercise facilities at the Linford Christie Stadium site, whilst also safeguarding the Scrubs as an ecologically friendly environment for the perpetual use and enjoyment of all Londoners.