Croydon South End Public Realm

Reversing the fortunes of a London High Street
The South End High Street Public Realm project was the first in a programme of projects being delivered by the London Borough of Croydon to renew and enhance key high streets in the area. The Council wanted to re-establish the high street as a place of enterprise and community.

It wanted to improve movement and transport networks along the street to prioritise people over cars and rebuild a sense of civic pride in the heritage and character of the Borough.

The HASSELL plan was to stitch together the streets, squares and open spaces of Croydon to create welcoming, vibrant and safe public places that people wanted to be part of. More people using the street would boost the number of people shopping locally and using local services, it would increase natural surveillance and help to attract new businesses to the area.

Creative collaboration brings life to the street
As the lead consultant on the project, the first step for HASSELL was to ask the people of Croydon what they wanted from their High Street. Working with architecture and design practice We Made That, a vacant property was transformed into ‘The Ideas Shop’ for community consultation. Over the course of a month, residents of all ages, business owners, community groups and visitors stopped in to share their vision for the street.

The final concept for the street addressed many of the challenges raised by the community. The design was driven by the philosophy of a ‘right to graze’ – the historical term given to the right for livestock to feed in certain areas – to promote increased and more diverse uses of the high street. We wanted to create an environment where visitors could move easily between restaurants, shops and businesses. We Made That led the improvements to tired shop fronts, while HASSELL designed the reinvigorated public realm and focused on removing clutter from the street to put the heritage of local buildings back on show. Newly planted trees helped soften gathering areas and a variety of public art and graphics along the street brought a splash of colour and life to walls and windows.

The design team worked with engineers Buro Happold to coordinate the extensive traffic and transport changes that were needed to narrow the width of the road and expand the footpath to create a more pedestrian friendly environment. New cycle facilities were also added.

The team also looked beyond the physical elements of the street to find new ways it could be activated. Young people from Croydon’s Turnaround Centre created artwork for vacant shops and We Made That led a program to create a ‘Meanwhile Tool Kit’ to bring vacant shops back to life through a variety of pop up uses.

A vibrant, successful and self sustaining street
The result has been an overwhelming success, with shop vacancies reducing from 25% to just 5% by the time the project was completed. There have also been an increased number of successful licence and planning applications for restaurants to extend their custom to include alfresco dining to make the most of the enhanced public realm.

Croydon Council has received positive feedback from local businesses and residents who feel a greater sense of pride in their high street.