The 3.5 acre Gasworks regeneration site lies across the urban River Wandle, railway viaduct and the dual carriageway of Wandsworth's Swandon Way - a complex industrial hotchpotch that currently turns its back on its meandering neighbour.
BD have been working on this ambitious urban scheme since 2020, alongside an award-winning design team including SHEDkm, Max Architects, Carmody Groarke and engineers Whitby Wood. SGN Place and Mitheridge Capital Management set the brief for a major residential-led mixed-use scheme, including 700 new homes for the London Borough.
The site presents an amazing opportunity to stitch the Wandle back into its urban context: a new bridge link across the River; an active urban riverside park; and the centrepiece of a new Wandle Trail.
We have designed the Trail to form a strategic link alongside the River - opening up views of mature tree lined banks, naturalised with biodiverse waterside planting, and connecting people on foot and cycle into the wider Gasworks development. Connected pocket play parks will also meander alongside the River, and will celebrate the site's rich industrial and natural heritage through playable mounds, tunnels, slides and revealed gas infrastructure such as the Gasholder Ring Beam.
155 semi-mature trees are proposed along the Wandle Trail and the new street network, which also incorporates public art, social seating, and space for pop-up events. These will lead people up from the River and into the heart of the repurposed gasometer and Gasholder Gardens.
Revealing, celebrating and expanding the green lung of the Wandle will bring huge benefits to the population of Wandsworth - providing breathing space, urban cooling, and biodiversity, as well as up-close glimpses of the Wandle's herons and kingfishers enjoying an expanded habitat.
The scheme received planning in 2025.
"This site has long sat empty and unused in the centre of one of the most well connected and desirable parts of London. We are proud to have been able to secure a future for the site that will benefit both existing and new residents, and provide space for the hugely important local music industry."
Steve Sanham (Founding Director, Common Projects)
