Scheme

Riverside Business Centre in Earlsfield, LB Wandsworth is a locally significant employment centre, located adjacent to the Henry Prince Estate. The proposals will redevelop the existing light industrial business centre to deliver 21,403sqm of flexible light industrial space, 402 residential units, a riverside walk, pocket parks, café and community use space.

Strategy

Following the initial consultation with current Workspace customers and local residents, Meeting Place embarked on a wider programme of community events, including window box painting sessions for local children, storytelling workshops and a skateboarding event which attracted skaters from the nearby skatepark.

The events were held in partnership with the Paradise Co-operative, a local charity, and Wandsworth Lifelong Learning. These community events attracted individuals and families who would be unlikely to attend a traditional consultation event and enabled us to communicate to a wide audience the benefits the proposals would provide for the area.

Our work was intended to open up the existing site to local residents, to provide them with a sense of ownership of its future, and to confirm that the redeveloped Riverside Business Centre would be a place that residents could use, in contrast to the existing industrial site.

Outcome

The application was approved unanimously at Wandsworth’s Planning Applications Committee meeting and construction is now underway.