Plans for a regenerated station have been revealed with a wide variety of improvements
The Waterloo Station vision document was commissioned by Lambeth Council and Network Rail, with South Bank Employers Group, South Bank BID, We Are Waterloo, LCR Property, HB Reavis, Bourne Capital, and SB Royal Holdings as partners.
The document was completed by Grimshaw Architects.
Sustainability and safety are key
Improvements to navigation, congestion, and interchange times are all featured in the document, such as a new southern concourse to aid in onward connections.
More than 40 walking and cycling routes are also highlighted, and 15 gateways marked for improvement into Waterloo and Central London. This reduces road danger, encourages healthier forms of travel, and eases navigation.
Green infrastructure, including hundreds of new trees, raingardens, and community parklets, will improve the area in both health and sustainability, as well as improve public spaces.
Some bus and taxi stops are also set for relocation to a new enhanced interchange to the south-east.
Plans are still being refined
The Waterloo Station vision document must now go through consultation with residents, businesses, and stakeholders in order to ensure the improvements laid out are beneficial to all involved.
Lambeth Council are set to invest £1.5m into local regeneration and improvements, and London is to see many train station improvements with Old Oak Station set to bring £10bn to the economy.
The documents for the Waterloo Station vision, written by councillor Claire Holland and Lord Peter Hendy, say: “Waterloo and South Bank plays a vital and central role in London’s economy and culture. As a key city destination, it attracts 30 million visitors every year, hosts a vibrant mix of major cultural attractions, as well as leading educational and healthcare institutions – and is increasingly a major focus for the city’s emerging economic growth sectors. At its heart is London Waterloo, one of the UK’s busiest railway stations, and wrapped around the station is a diverse, engaged and active resident and business community.
“London Waterloo Station is the gateway to the Capital’s Central Activities Zone but the area immediately around the station is changing fast, with its own growing population of workers and an extensive pipeline of high-quality developments bringing new homes and workspaces, enhancing a neighbourhood which already hosts a world leading health and life sciences community – the SC1 life science district – and Europe’s biggest cluster of cleantech entrepreneurs at County Hall. The cultural powerhouses of the South Bank are at the centre of a strong local creative and digital economy.
“To ensure that London Waterloo is fit for the future and supports the movement of more people to and through the area and ensures that the benefits of change are widely spread, the right infrastructure, connections and mechanisms are needed.
“Waterloo faces the same challenges and tensions that many central London neighbourhoods face; balancing high volumes of traffic and people movement, construction, noise and bustle and commuters’ desire to get to their destinations as quickly and directly as possible, against residents’ and visitors’ desire for open, green, safe and inclusive spaces to dwell, rest and connect in. The station embodies this tension; successfully moving a huge number of people daily into the city, while at a local level acting as a barrier, blocking movement across the neighbourhood.
“Waterloo and South Bank needs and deserves a world-class railway station that facilitates efficient movement to and through it, and which responds to the qualities of the neighbourhood it sits within, utilising its profile and dominant physical position to support the wider economy and communities.”
The masterplan can be read in full here.
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