We visited Ebury Bridge in Pimlico as part of our placemaking project to find out how London’s place makers are responding to the challenge of delivering high-quality places under significant pressure and constraint.
One of London’s most ambitious council-led regeneration projects, Ebury Bridge Estate is transforming a 1930s housing estate into a mixed, sustainable and well-connected neighbourhood, delivering 781 new homes, more than doubling the number of existing homes, over 50% affordable, alongside community facilities, workspaces, retail units and new public spaces.
What we observed was not a single “model”, but an integrated approach to council-led regeneration, combining stewardship, phasing and engagement to balance quality and delivery. The project forms part of Westminster City Council’s commitment to high-quality council housing and a Fairer Westminster.
The origins of inclusive regeneration
The estate was identified for regeneration in 2010 due to its ageing 1930s housing stock. Martin Crank, Senior Programme Manager at Westminster City Council, explained that early proposals for refurbishment and retrofit were later abandoned following an estate ballot and challenges securing investment.
The regeneration also took place during a wider change in the area, including nearby developments such as Chelsea Barracks. Early on, there were tensions between residents and the council around displacement, gentrification and community identity, with a strong local campaign prompting Westminster to prioritise engagement and trust-building throughout the process.
Martin Crank described how an extensive programme of collaborative resident engagement helped shape both the masterplan and wider development process. Westminster City Council adopted a new approach to stakeholder engagement and delivered a strategy focused on rebuilding trust after the previous scheme did not proceed. This enabled the wider multi-disciplinary team to work more transparently and collaboratively with residents who were empowered to participate in decision making with agency and knowledge.
A key part of this approach was the Community Futures Group, made up of 11 residents and leaseholders, who met regularly with the project team and took part in design and viability workshops. These sessions gave residents a clearer understanding of the choices and constraints shaping the scheme, including development viability, while enabling them to influence priorities, proposals and the way the programme progressed.
Alongside this, full-scale mock-ups of future homes, interactive sustainability exhibits and hands-on workshops helped make complex proposals more accessible, showing how measures such as grey water recycling could reduce waste and lower household costs.
Find out more about our project: Sustaining Quality Placemaking in Challenging Times
Arup provided community engagement support to a dedicated onsite Council team, which provided one-to-one advice from a permanent base on the estate. This provided an accessible community space for drop-ins, consultations and events. Regular newsletters, the project website, targeted community events and live-streamed consultations helped keep information clear and accessible, while also creating channels for ongoing feedback and temperature checks.
This proactive approach helped residents move from consultees to active participants in shaping the development. Feedback from residents and the Community Futures Group was listened to and, where appropriate, acted on, helping rebuild confidence in the project and progress towards a preferred scheme.
The process ultimately led to the co-creation of the Ebury Bridge Community Charter, setting out commitments between residents and Westminster City Council and creating a framework through which residents could hold the council accountable throughout the regeneration programme and helped rebuild confidence in the project.
A revised masterplan was approved in 2021, enabling the phased redevelopment of the site with new mixed-tenure housing and public space. Luke Dowding of McLaren Construction, the contractor delivering Phase 2, explained that although delivered in phases, the scheme was conceived as a single integrated development, with shared infrastructure such as the Phase 1 energy centre which was built to serve the whole site across all phases. Once complete, it will provide around 445 additional homes, replacing the original estate with modern, sustainable and accessible housing.
Community support grew to the extent that residents advocated for the council itself to remain both owner and developer of the scheme. The first completed buildings have therefore been delivered, sold and managed directly by the council, ensuring long-term stewardship remains in public hands. Returning leaseholders and homeowners have been welcomed back into the development, with homes designed on a tenure-blind basis so that affordable and private housing are indistinguishable in appearance and quality.
The making of a masterplan
Westminster City Council partnered with Arup, AStudio and diverse local community to reconfigure the outdoor spaces and upgrade the public realm. The masterplan replaces the original estate’s inward-facing layout with a more open network of streets, routes and public spaces that improve movement and visibility. Five new public squares provide space for recreation, play and community gathering.
Richard Hyams of AStudio, who led Phase 1 architectural vision of the wider masterplan, explained how the arrangement of buildings was carefully designed to maximise daylight and create safe, welcoming public spaces. Taller buildings are positioned towards the rear of the site, while lower-rise buildings frame streets and courtyards, helping to maintain sunlight, openness, and natural surveillance throughout the development. Building setbacks further reduce the visual impact of taller elements and contribute to a comfortable pedestrian environment, delivering a strategy informed by Arup’s wind engineers.
The neighbourhood has been designed as an almost entirely car-free environment, with parking limited to disabled users, limiting spaces available to those surveyed by Arup’s transport team across typical London developments with future integrated into landscape. Informed also by Arup’s transport studies, service and delivery access is accommodated through controlled routes that minimise vehicle movements within public spaces. Walking and cycling are prioritised throughout, supported by extensive cycle parking provision and a pedestrian-friendly street network.
The estate is tenure-blind, bringing social cohesion and adaptability to changing market conditions without requiring major redesigns. Affordable and private-sale homes share the same layouts and architectural standards, enabling units to be reallocated between tenures if necessary while maintaining consistency across the development. The primary differences lie in management and ancillary services rather than the homes themselves. A phased sales strategy prioritised residents and Westminster buyers before widening marketing to the rest of London, the UK and overseas purchasers.
Meanwhile use, immediate benefits
One of the most visible outcomes of the community-led approach is Ebury Edge, a meanwhile-use project delivered before the construction of permanent housing on the future Phase 3 site. Developed through a collaboration between Jan Kattein Architects, Meanwhile Space CIC and the Community Futures Group, Ebury Edge was conceived as a way of ensuring existing residents experienced tangible benefits from regeneration long before new homes were completed.
Ebury Edge emerged from discussions with residents about the services, facilities and opportunities they wanted to see within their neighbourhood. The resulting development includes affordable workspaces, community facilities, independent retail units, a nursery and garden run by grass roots organisation, energy garden creating a vibrant hub that remains active throughout construction.
Gabriel Warshafsky of Jan Kattein Architects, who led the design of Ebury Edge, explained that the traditional local high street inspired the concept. The aim was to create an active, welcoming environment with a mix of businesses and community activity rather than construction hoardings. Around 80% of occupiers are local businesses; the nursery, for example, is operated by a resident who is expected to become the long-term childcare provider for the neighbourhood.
The modular, fully electric buildings engineered by Arup use a demountable timber structural system that can be deconstructed, adapted and re-used. With circular economy thinking, the vision is for the buildings to be disassembled and reused in another location.
Outstanding sustainability
Sustainability has been embedded throughout the project and has informed decisions at every scale. Becci Taylor and Francesco Ferrari of Arup, who led the sustainability strategy, explained how this ambition, alongside the ability to design engagement that builds trust, local ownership, embeds governance, and links participation to deliverable outcomes, contributed to Ebury Bridge achieving BREEAM Communities Outstanding certification, one of the highest standards for neighbourhood-scale development.
At the heart of the scheme is a centralised low-carbon energy network powered by open-loop ground source heat pumps and supported by air source heat pumps. The energy centre serves the entire estate and has been futureproofed for connection to wider district heating infrastructure. Mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems have been consolidated wherever possible, creating efficiencies through shared infrastructure including centralised water storage and treatment systems.
A range of sustainability improvements have been incorporated across the development, helping to reduce operational carbon emissions significantly compared with the original estate. These measures are also expected to deliver substantial savings for residents, with household utility bills projected to fall by up to 70%. This demonstrates how environmental performance can provide direct social and economic benefits alongside climate benefits.
Designed to be all-electric, each home provides a spacious, light and comfortable living environment. The whole-life approach dramatically cut both the embodied carbon in the building materials and the operational carbon emissions. The design allows cooling to be ‘recovered’ from hot water production to achieve quiet comfort at a low energy cost. Ebury Bridge also needs to be resilient to London’s changing climate.
The noisy location next to the main train lines to Victoria meant we needed to tailor ventilation and cooling measures so that residents could keep cool with the windows closed when necessary. The design integrates on-site green spaces and incorporates adaptable infrastructure to cope with flooding, heatwaves and water shortages. Water from sinks and baths is captured to flush toilets, avoiding waste and reducing water costs for residents.
Ebury Bridge Estate sits on former marshland and over a disused canal. To determine exactly where and how foundations could be safely established, our engineers sampled and analysed the ground conditions. Working with the contractor, we adapted the concrete mix for the piles to save over 120 tonnes of CO2e. And by carefully storing and reusing on site around 3,000m3 of concrete and brick rubble from demolition as backfill, we saved the equivalent of 400 lorry trips.
Council housing at its best
Ebury Bridge demonstrates how estate regeneration can combine substantial housing delivery with investment in public space, community infrastructure, environmental performance and long-term stewardship. By placing residents at the centre of decision-making, delivering benefits early through meanwhile uses and retaining public-sector leadership throughout the process, the project has become a nationally significant example of how local authorities can deliver inclusive and sustainable neighbourhood renewal. As later phases progress, Ebury Bridge offers valuable lessons for councils and developers seeking to balance housing growth with community trust, environmental ambition and long-term social value.
Quality Placemaking in Challenging Times is supported by:
Arup | Countryside Partnerships | Montagu Evans | Pollard Thomas Edwards | Trowers & Hamlins |
