Last month, recently Chartered Town Planner, Galina Fomina BA MSc MRTPI, visited the Battersea Power Station development with London Young Planners Committee for a sneak peek at the progress this redevelopment has made ahead of the planned grand opening. Here, Galina shares her experience…
The history of the site is fascinating and begins back in the middle of the 20th century when Power Station A was built in the 1930’s, after the Parliament decided that the power grid should be a single and unified system with uniform standards, under the public ownership, to provide electricity for the growing parts of the city. The second Power Station B was developed in 1950s. The different eras of development have resulted in completely different interiors of the machinery halls: Battersea A is in Art Deco style, while the Battersea B machinery hall was completed in modernist style.
The large volume of protests, objections and concerns from the local community, authorities and activists were overcome by the outstanding architectural proposal by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and various technical innovative proposals like the washing of the smoke to reduce the emissions and particles that were polluting the air.
After the Power Station was decommissioned, this astonishing building went through several attempts to be redeveloped. The major ideas included a theme park, Parkview international, real estate opportunities, a biomass power station, and an urban park, among other proposals.
The development proposal now being implemented involves a master plan with almost a full mix of uses, excluding the industrial. Some phases are already delivered, and people are enjoying their properties with one-of-a-kind views, various unique cafes, restaurants and other small businesses, together with outstanding landscaping and architectural forms of new buildings erected as a part of this masterplan.
The main building is planned to be open to the public in October 2022 and will accommodate a shopping mall, event venue, luxurious accommodation and much more.
This visit proved that the adage that there is no big or small development, just development, is spot on. Persistence, creative approaches and hard teamwork by skilled professionals will give this redevelopment a great future and give a second life to a place that might appear at first as a relic of the past.
We at Norton Taylor Nunn share the same values and aim to deliver the best service to each of our customers. Our skilled staff are trained to the highest professional standards and will be happy to assist you in any project you have, even if it might first look overly ambitious – or even impossible.
