The first stage of the £8 billion redevelopment of Battersea power station was approved in December 2013 and was due to start early in 2013.
Residential development will make up 57 per cent of the regenerated site, with retail, leisure, office and other commercial uses taking up 43 per cent.
After several failed proposals to redevelop the site since the power station’s decommissioning in 1983, Malaysian investors SP Setia, Sime Darby and EPF have made a swift start to regeneration since buying the site last autumn.
Wandsworth Council has approved plans for 800 homes and a hotel as well as space for restaurants and bars, offices and a six acre park on the banks of the Thames.
Chancellor George Osborne confirmed in his autumn statement in December that the extension of the Northern Line to Battersea and Wandsworth would be underpinned by a £1 billion loan guarantee. The proposal would create two new Tube stops - one on Wandsworth Road, the other at Battersea Power Station.
Berkeley Group’s St James is already on site in Riverlight, in the heart of Nine Elms, building a high-end new residential development.
There's been a little bit of controversy surrounding the proposals to renovate this iconic London building but I think people are finally coming around to accepting that the best way to preserve this building as part of our London skyline heritage is to give it a new lease of life. Although some of the proposals we saw were not quite in keeping with the style of the building and make somewhat of a parody of it, I feel the chosen design will do this great building justice. See below for details on how you can visit the popup park that has opened temporarily at the power station.
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Battersea Power Station is one of the world’s most famous buildings and it is now at the heart of Central London’s most visionary and eagerly anticipated new development.
The iconic Power Station, one of the finest surviving examples of art deco architecture, served London’s energy needs from 1933 through to 1983.
For 30 years the Power Station site has lain dormant but work will shortly get underway turning this riverside venue into a vibrant new community. It will be served by its own Battersea Power Station tube stop and offer shops, cafes, restaurants, bars, hotels, offices and residences. At the heart of the community will be the Power Station itself, fully restored and open to the public, accessed via a new High Street and Town Square to the south, and opened up on the riverside with a new 6 acre public park.
As you’d expect, all of that takes time, but we wanted to give people an opportunity to get up close and personal to the Power Station as soon as possible. That’s why we’ve created this temporary park for visitors. It’s not as big as the final Power Station Park will be, and the landscaping isn’t quite as creative, but it gives people a chance to come up and marvel at the scale and glory of this architectural masterpiece.
For those that are curious, the Pop-Up Park is actually located on the site of the original coal bunkers that stored 75,000 tonnes of coal at any one time. At that time the coal was brought in by barge along the River Thames.
Whilst the days of coal barges stopping at the Power Station are clearly a thing of the past, soon we will offer river bus services for passengers so keep an eye on the website for further updates. We hope you enjoy the Pop-Up Park as much as we do, and if you’ve any suggestions by all means drop us a line.
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