I have been walking the streets with TfL this week, looking at the diverse range of businesses (customers) which operate within their portfolio, and it is clear that the mix of those customers has a massive influence over the feel of a place.

There is a hidden London of arches and small commercial units housing a diverse range of businesses, a world where high end gyms mix with motor mechanics and sculptors. Serving the local communities in which they operate.

Pre-Covid there was a rich debate on how our transport hubs should evolve, albeit the focus was on capacity more than the eco-systems around them. With the changing patterns of work and travel over the last 18 months and uncertainty over those in the future, a fresh debate about the role of our transport hubs is timely. So, it was with pleasure that Montagu Evans worked with the TfL and the Voice of Authority to host a webinar on this topic.

The headline theme was “making use of transport hubs to shape successful places”, and you can hear my thoughts on this alongside those of Eleanor Pursor of Lambeth about the work going on at Waterloo and Vauxhall, Siobhan Jared of TfL on how the customer is key to the TfL strategy and Puja Jain of TfL on how they are working hard to drive development around their sites.  Catch up on the webinar with the video below.

Montagu Evans and the the Voice of Authority is hosting a series of discussions on TfL-related planning and development issues. The series began in December 2020 with an examination of the opportunities to deliver homes on railside sites – case studies of four schemes presenting technical challenges and design solutions. A second event in June 2021 looks at the challenges and rewards of converting car parks to residential and other uses; and the third in the series focuses on the role of mass transit hubs in creating places that can succeed post-lockdown.