New Earl’s Court masterplan unveiled with 4,000 homes and cultural centres

Following years of consultations and the collapse of a previous scheme, a new masterplan has been submitted for the former Earl’s Court exhibition centre site.

The Hawkins\Brown and Studio Egret West designed masterplan is more of an overview of what’s planned, with detailing to come later, but will eventually lead to some 4,000 new homes, three new cultural centres and around 8 hectares of new open spaces being created.

Crucially for existing residents in the area, the plan will open up the Earl’s Court site for the first time, allowing people to walk through it instead of always having to walk around it.

In essence, the site would consist of a series of blocks of flats rising to the tallest towers in the centre. Most would be on an elevated podium surrounded by new street-level passages. Around 100 retail and dining outlets would be included, along with childcare and a new community hub. They expect that about 35% of the homes would be classed as affordable.

Three cultural venues would be included, and on a previous site visit, it was explained to me that this aims to avoid the problem that large exhibition centres suffer from — which is very large but also very infrequent use, which leaves the surrounding area either empty or overflowing.

Three more modest sites are expected to be able to offer daytime and evening events, spreading the load out and ensuring local businesses don’t experience periods of feast and famine. An interesting idea is that one of the original train sheds of the neighbouring Lillie Bridge Depot could be converted into the larger of the three venues, preserving some of the site’s railway heritage.

With the core of the estate needing to be lifted to the same height as the railway deck, there will be a large “basement” space at street level that could be used for local delivery hubs and storage, although those options are a long way from being finalised at this stage.

The development is not expected to noticeably change passenger crowding at Earl’s Court tube station but would eventually cause overcrowding problems at West Brompton station. To alleviate those, they propose to fund station upgrades, including an improved ticket hall, a new footbridge, and lifts to provide step-free access to the Westbound District line platform. The other three platforms already have lifts.

The first phase would deliver around 1,500 new homes and the first set of public spaces, which would sit on an existing large concrete deck built above the National Rail lines that run through the middle of the site. If planning is approved, then construction could start in 2026.

The rest of the phases would follow over the next decade, with the aim of completing the entire site by 2043.

The site sits across a boundary between Hammersmith and Fulham on the west and Kensington and Chelsea on the east, so both councils will need to approve the plans.

You can read all 716 documents (and tens of thousands of pages) before commenting about the plans here.

AND: There are free site tours each month that take you onto the concrete deck above the railway – details are here.