Overview
Preparation of a town centre regeneration master plan for Epsom, to inform the emerging Local Plan. The master plan promoted a context-led approach to change, drawing extensively on the character of the town centre and its important heritage assets, informed by extensive community and stakeholder engagement.
Project Highlights
Clients
Epsom & Ewell Borough Council
Date
2022-Present
Scale
Town Centre and hinterland
Our master plan puts people and placemaking at the heart of the regeneration of Epsom Town Centre. It strikes a balance between the competing tensions of the pressure to build upwards on brownfield land and protect greenfield sites from potential development, and a responsibility to protect and enhance the quality and character of the existing built environment. The outcome is a carefully crafted context led approach to each opportunity site, and a strategy that enhances the public realm, improves actives travel routes, and binds the town centre, to create a setting for sociability and economic activity.
Joanne Cave, Chair, David Lock Associates
The Project
The Epsom Town Centre Regeneration Master Plan was developed to establish a vision and guiding principles for regeneration, while defining the scope for redevelopment on key opportunity sites. This process was informed by capacity testing and the creation of urban design frameworks. Epsom town centre is experiencing development pressures, with a notable increase in proposals for tall buildings to maximise site capacity for new homes. Utilising 3D modelling, the findings of the townscape and heritage assessment were key tools in building an understanding of the character of the town centre and testing the potential for different forms of development.
The Process
We undertook extensive analysis of the town centre area, which was complemented by a programme of community engagement, combining PropTech funded digital consultation and in person events, to build an understanding of what was important locally and where there was potential for change. This process revealed a clear desire for improvements to secure the future vitality of the town centre as a well-loved, walkable service centre, offering a unique mix of national and independent services. Draft proposals were presented to key stakeholders including site promoters, to build an understanding of the Council’s intended approach to policy formulation for identified town centre sites.
A key consideration of the master plan was to understand opportunities to meet housing demand and strengthen Epsom’s green infrastructure and public realm networks. In response to the latter, the master plan incorporates a high-level strategy for public realm enhancements intended to better balance the needs of pedestrians and cyclists with high volumes of through-traffic, and to encourage longer dwell times through an improved pedestrian environment.