The Earls Court Development Company is developing a masterplan for the 16ha former Earls Court Exhibition Centre site. With a vision for a fully inclusive neighbourhood supporting everyone in the community, the Public Realm Inclusivity Panel was created alongside other engagement activities. The panel comprises a broad spectrum of individuals aged 15+, including young and older people, caregivers and those with disabilities.

Who is on the project team? (designer, consultants, etc)

Hawkins\Brown and Studio Egret West are the principal masterplan architects for the Earls Court masterplan. SLA is the landscape architect across the whole development site. For the first phase of the development, ECDC has appointed: Sheppard Robson with Serie Architects and dRMM, ACME, Haworth Tompkins and Maccreanor Lavington. ZCD Architects who facilitate ECDC’s Public Realm Inclusivity Panel and wider work around safety in the public realm.

Describe the context of the community engagement. Why did the engagement take place? How were the results of the community engagement shared with the project team and community?

ECDC is developing a masterplan for the 16ha former Earls Court Exhibition Centre site based on an intent to build a vision for a fully inclusive neighbourhood supporting everyone in the community. Community engagement has been central to our activity from day one, in three years we have had conversations with over 3,000 local people. As part of our masterplan development, we work extensively to get to know, and understand, the priorities of the local community. Establishing trust after years of failed development has been a priority. In February 2023, ECDC unveiled our draft masterplan. Delivering on the vision to ‘bring the wonder back to Earl’s Court’ it will see this long neglected site reinstated as a destination for entertainment, innovation and excitement.

Tell us what you did, and how you did it. What was your approach in talking to the community? How did you ensure participants were representative of the demographic of the place and hard-to-reach groups?

ECDC’s approach to engagement is centred on inclusivity and ensuring representation, particularly from those often excluded from development processes. Working with ZCD we undertook a series of engagements with young people, extending this to older people and those with disabilities. The areas of common ground was striking, leading ECDC and ZCD to recognise the value of bringing these under-represented groups together, giving them a genuine voice in the process. The Public Realm Inclusivity Panel (PRIP) was established, comprising a broad spectrum of individuals aged 15+, including young and older people, caregivers, and those with disabilities. To ensure representation, we actively reached out through existing community groups, deliberately targeting hard-to-reach groups. Various strategies were employed to engage participants, providing platforms for diverse voices to be heard and allowing participants to articulate their perspectives, needs, and concerns effectively. As above in question one, ECDC has a strong presence in the local community with extensive outreach on both masterplanning and broader engagement. Conversation Corner, enables in-depth conversations at leisure with people who can come to this consultation space in their own time rather than over a few specific days. Our Community Masterplanning Workshops test our design ideas with resident groups. Along with participating in around 30 public events, we’ve engaged with groups such as Open Age, Earls Court Youth Club, Action on Disability, local walks, conversations and one-to-one meetings. Our partnership with Open City has allowed us to engage local school students in design challenges with our architects and develop their creativity.

How was the feedback incorporated into decision making? Can you share how the project outcome has been shaped by the engagement?

The initial feedback we received from local people in our early visioning exercises about what was special about the area, including recollections of the exhibition centres, helped shape our masterplan vision to ‘bring the wonder back’ to Earl’s Court. Our Spring 2023 consultation feedback informed the five key changes we presented in our updated plans in November 2023. People were very positive about open spaces, so we increased the provision of public open space in our masterplan by 20% and will ensure this is provided in our first phase. There were a range of views on building heights and the location of tall buildings. In response, we reduced the total amount of development by 10% and the number of buildings taller than 31 storeys (the height of the existing local tall building) from four to one. We have developed our plans to deliver a long-term sustainable development, proposals for three large cultural venues, and sense of place that builds on our understanding of local character, all directly responding to feedback we have received. Feedback collected from the PRIP sessions is integral not only to shaping the public realm design but has facilitated a broader understanding of lived experiences within the team, which is influencing design and approach more broadly. Regular feedback sessions allow the design team to assess and incorporate the panel’s insights into the evolving masterplan, facilitating a dynamic exchange of ideas and accommodating input on issues including inclusive open space, equitable movement, and the provision of amenities.