How does heritage-led regeneration create a genuinely mixed, long-term neighbourhood on a historic civic site? Join us for a field trip to Fellowship Square at Waltham Forest Town Hall to find out.
Fellowship Square is transforming the Grade II listed Waltham Forest Town Hall campus into a new neighbourhood and cultural centre, delivering 433 new, high-quality mixed-tenure homes, with 50% affordable, alongside a new Civic Building, nursery, public squares and green space, all shaped around retaining and celebrating the site's historic character.
Event details
When: Wednesday 5th August, 2 - 4.30pm
Where: Waltham Forest Town Hall, London
Why visit Fellowship Square?
The field trip will explore Countryside Partnerships and Waltham Forest Council's phased regeneration of the Town Hall campus. The scheme balances significant densification with the retention and restoration of the Grade II listed Town Hall and Assembly Hall, designed to remain the civic and cultural heart of the borough rather than being converted to another use.
At the heart of the scheme, new residential buildings are designed to be sympathetic to the original Stripped Classicism style of the historic buildings, using matching brick and stonework detailing to connect old and new.
You will hear from the project team about the challenges and opportunities of regenerating a live civic site, including how they have navigated key tensions around heritage, density, and placemaking, including:
- Balancing heritage retention with the delivery of new homes at scale on a constrained, historic site
- Designing tenure-blind, mixed housing alongside market sale, shared ownership, and affordable and social rent homes
- Creating public realm that works for the whole community, including lessons learned on play areas
- Embedding sustainability and biodiversity into the public realm, from planting and drainage to the wetlands, gardens and allotments nearby
- Delivering a new Civic Building that allows council services to co-locate and unlocks further sites for affordable housing elsewhere in the borough
What to expect on the trip
- A walking route across the site, from the Town Hall through completed housing phases to the future Civic Building
- On-site insights from the project team on build quality, resident engagement, and public realm design
- A closer look at how a council and development partner can balance heritage, density, and long-term social value on a single site
Photo credit: Vistry Group
About the Quality Placemaking in Challenging Times programme
This field trip is part of our Placemaking in Challenging Times programme, which examines how the places we build and regenerate shape the communities that live in them, particularly in a context of increasing demand, limited resources, and difficult trade-offs. (Read more about the programme.)
Through research and events, the programme explores what it takes to create neighbourhoods that are rooted in local context, designed for long-term resilience, and built around the needs of the people who call them home.
Please note: registration is essential for this event.
Thanks to Arup, Countryside Partnerships, Montagu Evans, Pollard Thomas Edwards, Trowers & Hamlins for sponsoring the Placemaking in Challenging Times programme.
RSVP
This event is free to attend thanks to our supporters, but places are limited and registration is essential.
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