A dynamic urban quarter designed along a revitalised canalside and parkland

The Green Quarter is a 45 hectare brownfield site that lies alongside the Great Western Railway between the Grand Union Canal and the Southall Crossrail station in the London Borough of Ealing. The site was formerly home to the Southall Gasworks which closed in 1973, leaving behind an underutilised and inaccessible site requiring revival.

The new quarter is one of London’s most significant regeneration and complements the existing town centre to provide a fully integrated community, delivering 3,750 new homes in line with the Southall Opportunity Area Policy Framework. The neighbourhood will be surrounded by almost six hectares of characterful public spaces, squares and parkland, including a kilometre of rejuvenated canalside walkways, cycle paths, walking trails, and footbridge connections to Minet Country Park.

The masterplan delivers a sequence of eight interlinked character areas amongst three distinct hubs of activity, to provide interest and identity throughout the site focussed around ‘The Flow’, a remarkable public promenade and new leisure destination for London.

Alongside almost 20 hectares of landscaped public realm and parkland, a hub of social infrastructure includes a primary school, health centre and community centre featuring over 70,000 sqm of mixed uses and a curated mix of retail, food and leisure experiences enlivened with pop-up retail, community facilities and cultural events.

The Placemaking Vision includes a ‘Hardware’ strategy – a framework of characterful streets, squares, parks, walking and cycle trails defining distinct parcels, and ‘Software’ tactics, activating the public realm through curation of mixed uses and meanwhile projects, cultural engagement, community networking, and events programming.

The vision was shaped through stakeholder workshops including the local community, Ealing and Hillingdon Councils, the GLA and Catalyst Housing – essential to address the complex planning and technical challenges of a site straddling the boroughs of Ealing and Hillingdon.