New market and design district coming to Greenwich on park site

The park beside Peninsula Square on Greenwich Peninsula will be built over with a new “design district” under newly submitted plans. A total of 16 buildings will cover the site.

The area will be entirely pedestrianised with an emphasis on creating bustling areas centring on a square and market. Emphasis is made in the plans that this is not like the dated big-box retail model seen further south.

The market is site C4 on plans. To ensure variety, eight different architects will design the 16 buildings.

There’s a lot of nice touches in the plans, including a plan to reduce all unnecessary clutter by using a suspended lighting system on catenary cables between buildings. This is very common across many European cities.

This is intended to “reduce vertical lamppost provision in the district and
will be a key design feature of providing light fixtures located centrally on streets and alleys between buildings at first floor level.”

Although a very positive contribution to the area, it’s a shame in many ways that this district is being built on the site of a well-used and designed piece of greenery instead of one of the acres of car parks in the area. The maintenance of the space isn’t the best, but that is due to how popular it can be.

Is there scope for an interim box park on part of those giant car parks that still cover much of the Peninsula? No building plans are imminent on many. It would help avoid severance between the o2, Tube station and new housing to the south.

The planning reference is 17/2261/R