The Site
The UK is widely considered to be in a housing crisis, caused by a combination of factors including, rising house prices, increasing rental costs and not enough housing development to meet demand. The Hyde Park site contains a multi-storey car park and number of office buildings, which are 3 to 5-storeys in height and providing approximately 18,000sqm of floorspace.
We have seen a change in work habits, and greater remote working has reduced demand for traditional offices. The vast majority of buildings on site are largely vacant, despite investment in renovations and sustained marketing, making them unviable in the present form.
This creates an opportunity to redevelop this site for vital new sustainable homes responding to the current housing crisis. Redevelopments like this create vibrant, safe places where people want to live and relax.
We have worked over many months to prepare a residential development that respects its surroundings. Highway surveys and other technical investigations have been undertaken to carefully analyse the sites constraints and identify the opportunities for development.
Our objective is to positively transform this site into a pleasant place to live while also meeting housing needs in the local area. A high-quality development is envisaged to match the character of the area.
The proposals are for an initial ‘Outline’ application determining the principle of redeveloping the site, including the number of homes to be delivered, building locations, maximum building heights and other key design principles.
Our proposals will include an illustrative scheme to demonstrate how the site could potentially be developed in the future (these plans will be refined and finalised once a development partner for the site has been identified at a future stage).
Whilst the detailed design of the scheme will be developed via a future Reserved Matters application, we have undertaken a rigorous design process at this stage.
We are also preparing a comprehensive ‘Design Code’ to demonstrate potential solutions which achieve the aspiration to transform the site into a residential-led development, whilst also ensuring sufficient flexibility for future developers to bring the site forward.