Nine Elms: how to deliver a mega-project

It seems a giant leap from a waste­land of vacant indus­tri­al sheds, derelict ware­hous­es and a long-defunct, albeit icon­ic, pow­er sta­tion, to the home of Apple in the UK, new US embassy with adja­cent glass “sky pool” and a clutch of des-res sky­scrap­ers, dubbed mini-Man­hat­tan.

This, how­ev­er, is the trans­for­ma­tive effect the Nine Elms regen­er­a­tion mega-project is hav­ing on an unloved stretch of London’s South Bank. Spec­tac­u­lar in scale, if not with­out con­tro­ver­sy, the scheme might be named after a num­ber of trees, but fig­ures that real­ly tell the tale are much, much big­ger.

Nine Elms cov­ers an area of 227 hectares or almost enough to accom­mo­date 300 foot­ball pitch­es. With more than 42 inter­con­nect­ed devel­op­ment sites, its total val­ue of approx­i­mate­ly £15 bil­lion is half as much again as the entire bud­get for the 2012 Lon­don Olympics.

Pro­vid­ing around 20,000 new homes for near­ly twice that num­ber of res­i­dents, Nine Elms will boast a pop­u­la­tion equiv­a­lent to that of a large Eng­lish town, some­where in size between Chor­ley, Lan­cashire and Rams­gate in Kent.

Regen­er­a­tion will also bring invest­ment in terms of employ­ment, with some 25,000 new per­ma­nent posi­tions in prospect, on top of the 22,000 con­struc­tion jobs in phas­es through to 2022.

On mul­ti-stake­hold­er, big-bucks schemes as high-pro­file as this, the oppor­tu­ni­ty is huge, but so too is the com­plex­i­ty. True part­ner­ship work­ing is there­fore key, explains coun­cil­lor Ravi Govin­dia, co-chair of the Nine Elms Vaux­hall Part­ner­ship and leader of Wandsworth Coun­cil.

“For a part­ner­ship of this scale and com­plex­i­ty to work, pub­lic-sec­tor part­ners must have a clear vision and last­ing com­mit­ment to deliv­er­ing their col­lec­tive ambi­tions,” he says. “You also have to under­stand what each part­ner needs and be flex­i­ble enough to make sure every­one shares in the growth and suc­cess.”

The Nine Elms Vaux­hall Part­ner­ship was cre­at­ed in 2010 to co-ordi­nate and dri­ve for­ward the trans­for­ma­tion. Co-chaired by the lead­ers of Wandsworth and Lam­beth coun­cils, it includes the area’s main devel­op­ers and landown­ers, the Lon­don may­or, Trans­port for Lon­don (TfL) and the Greater Lon­don Author­i­ty.

Infrastructure

The part­ner­ship is respon­si­ble for set­ting and deliv­er­ing the strate­gic vision for the area, includ­ing the £1‑billion infra­struc­ture invest­ment pack­age, while exten­sion of the North­ern Line from Ken­ning­ton brings the lifeblood of the Lon­don Under­ground into the heart of the devel­op­ment. With con­struc­tion start­ed in 2015, the two new sta­tion stops are due to be oper­a­tional by 2020.

Vital as the Tube may be in devel­op­ment terms, it is only one aspect of a wider mobil­i­ty and infra­struc­ture plan, which includes road and round­about upgrades, inter­change improve­ments, new bus routes and river­bus pas­sen­ger piers.

An 11-acre lin­ear park from Vaux­hall to Bat­tersea Pow­er Sta­tion also pro­vides a green cor­ri­dor of car-free bio­di­ver­si­ty, with the Thames Riv­er Path extend­ed the full length of the area, plus a net­work of new cycle­ways and foot­paths intro­duced.

Tak­ing a col­lab­o­ra­tive approach to design and site-man­age­ment issues has proved vital to deliv­er­ing sus­tain­able solu­tions

Green infra­struc­ture rep­re­sents a crit­i­cal com­po­nent of the place-mak­ing and pedes­tri­an-cen­tred urban design, says Mak Gilchrist, found­ing direc­tor of land­scape archi­tec­ture and design con­sul­tan­cy The Edi­ble Bus Stop (EBS). “Land­scape and green infra­struc­ture are key in inte­grat­ing exist­ing com­mu­ni­ties with new res­i­dents. These spaces pro­vide an inter­face between old and new, encour­ag­ing vital oppor­tu­ni­ties for social cohe­sion,” she says. “These sites become the cen­tre for the com­mu­ni­ty, enabling social expe­ri­ence as they pro­vide the ‘third space’ after the home and work­place.”

EBS was engaged on Nine Elms to trans­form Thes­saly Road, at the perime­ter of the New Covent Gar­den Mar­ket rede­vel­op­ment. Neigh­bour­ing res­i­dents had faced a dark and unat­trac­tive bound­ary wall, one kilo­me­tre long and three metres tall, topped with razor wire. So, while a mur­al artist cre­at­ed a con­tin­u­ous white-line draw­ing along the wall, EBS installed sculp­tur­al white pick­et-fence break­outs with fold-out seat­ing, plus sen­so­ry, edi­ble and orna­men­tal bee-friend­ly plant­i­ng.

Collaboration

Core to the con­cept was the com­mu­ni­ca­tion piece with local peo­ple, says Will Sandy, EBS cre­ative direc­tor. “The inter­ac­tive com­mu­ni­ty engage­ments were a cru­cial part of the projects suc­cess, as our con­cept evolved through con­ver­sa­tions with locals,” he says. “Ini­tial­ly, it gave us the oppor­tu­ni­ty to invite them to be part of the cre­ative process and there­fore engen­der a sense of own­er­ship and pride.”

For Nine Elms Vaux­hall Part­ner­ship, col­lec­tive prob­lem-solv­ing has helped ensure momen­tum is main­tained, as the pro­gramme devolves to local-author­i­ty lev­el, pro­gress­ing from plan­ning and enabling, to place-mak­ing and deliv­ery, says coun­cil­lor Govin­dia.

“Co-ordi­na­tion across dif­fer­ent sites and agen­cies is a key chal­lenge in a fast-mov­ing devel­op­ment area,” he says. “As an exam­ple, a num­ber of landown­ers formed a com­pa­ny to pro­vide a sin­gle enti­ty which engages with util­i­ty com­pa­nies, so pow­er, drainage and dis­trict heat­ing net­works could be planned strate­gi­cal­ly.”

Some of the indi­vid­ual devel­op­ments con­sti­tute mixed-use, mul­ti-stake­hold­er projects in them­selves, bring­ing their own bas­ket of com­plex­i­ties to the man­age­ment table. A prime exam­ple would be Nine Elms Point, a Bar­ratt Lon­don apart­ment scheme, incor­po­rat­ing a flag­ship Sainsbury’s retail store and adja­cent to one of the new sta­tions being built. The project team were also involved on the mas­ter dis­trict heat­ing net­work.

Over­all, tak­ing a col­lab­o­ra­tive approach to design and site-man­age­ment issues has proved vital to deliv­er­ing sus­tain­able solu­tions, says Sam Sin­ni­ah, project direc­tor at Bar­ratt Lon­don: “Nine Elms Point is a bespoke prod­uct and was one of the first schemes in the Vaux­hall, Nine Elms, Bat­tersea Oppor­tu­ni­ty Area. We have worked close­ly with our imme­di­ate neigh­bours, Covent Gar­den Mar­ket Author­i­ty and TfL, to co-ordi­nate con­struc­tion tech­niques and ensure the most suit­able mate­r­i­al choic­es for the pub­lic realm. This includ­ed the co-ordi­nat­ed mas­ter­plan with the piaz­za lead­ing up to the mar­ket,” he says.

In a bid to fos­ter ongo­ing team-work­ing, key devel­op­ment part­ners on Nine Elms signed a spe­cial con­struc­tion char­ter in March 2014, mark­ing their com­mit­ment to work col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly to deliv­er a bea­con of best prac­tice.

The char­ter is based on the approach pio­neered by the Con­sid­er­ate Con­struc­tors Scheme (CCS), but with an enhanced focus on devel­op­ers and high­ways author­i­ties active­ly work­ing togeth­er, which is essen­tial giv­en the com­plex logis­tics asso­ci­at­ed with the rede­vel­op­ment of the new dis­trict.

The advan­tages have been clear for both the respec­tive part­ners and the image of the con­struc­tion sec­tor as a whole, says CCS chief exec­u­tive Edward Hardy. “The con­struc­tion char­ter has proved huge­ly valu­able in improv­ing con­sid­er­ate work­ing stan­dards on site, with those involved per­form­ing well above the indus­try aver­age,” he says. “The char­ter demon­strates the huge ben­e­fits that can be achieved for the local com­mu­ni­ties, work­force and envi­ron­ment through work­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly.”

His sen­ti­ments are echoed strong­ly by coun­cil­lor Govin­dia. “Once part­ners see the ben­e­fits of col­lab­o­ra­tion, there is a clear will­ing­ness to com­mu­ni­cate. That said, ded­i­cat­ed staff on the ground and points of con­tact are essen­tial to ensure effi­cient and time­ly com­mu­ni­ca­tion. This has proved valu­able in our area-wide arts and cul­ture pro­gramme, logis­tics and joined-up con­struc­tion train­ing ini­tia­tives, which have seen hun­dreds of local peo­ple start work on Nine Elms sites,” he says.

Nine Elms is unique and its com­plex­i­ty a real chal­lenge for project man­age­ment. In essence, though, many of the solu­tions appear found­ed on sim­ple truths com­mon to joint enter­pris­es, big and small, that it pays to col­lab­o­rate and com­mu­ni­cate.