Waterloo Station Masterplan, London Borough of Lambeth for Lambeth Council and Network Rail with Grimshaw, Gbolade Design Studio, Exterior Architecture, WSP, Hatch, Iceni, Turner & Townsend and Savills

The masterplan vision for delivering improvements to Waterloo station and wider area spans 110ha. It proposes 40 plus safe walkways and cycle paths and 20 plus new accessible station entrances. With inclusive public spaces spanning 30,000m2 and 1,900m2 of green space, the design aims to create 10,000 jobs and 8,800m2 of space for local businesses.

Who is on the project? 

Lead Consultant, Architecture, Masterplanning – Grimshaw 

Placemaking and Meanwhile Uses – Gbolade Design Studio 

Landscape – Exterior Architecture 

Engineering and Transport – WSP 

Social Value and Socio-Economics – Hatch (Urban Solutions) 

Stakeholder Engagement and Planning – Iceni Projects 

Cost and Phasing – Turner & Townsend 

Financing and Viability - Savills

Describe the context of this project, its neighbourhood and people. 

The Waterloo Station Masterplan is an ambitious new vision for London’s Waterloo and South Bank, centred around the transformation of Waterloo Station into a world-class multimodal transport and civic hub. The area plays a vital and central role in London’s economy and culture. It attracts 30 million visitors each year, and is home to world leading cultural, education, health and life-science institutions and start-ups at the forefront of the medical tech, digital, and green economies. At its heart is London Waterloo, one of the UK’s busiest railway stations and a key gateway to the Central Activities Zone around which sits an extensive pipeline of developments and growing population. However, Waterloo faces similar challenges and tensions that many central London neighbourhoods face; balancing high volumes of traffic, construction, noise and poor air quality with pedestrian movement and places that prioritise people. The station embodies this tension; successfully moving a huge amount of people daily, while at a local level sitting as a significant, historical physical barrier, inhibiting movement across the neighbourhood and severing communities. Waterloo is an extraordinary neighbourhood, and this masterplan is designed to respond to this vibrancy, diversity and opportunity, bringing forward its potential through a framework that is visionary and aspirational but critically pragmatic and has a phased approach. The vision will guide the future development of the area to significantly improve the quality of life and economic prospects for both current and future residents, businesses, and communities in Waterloo, South Bank and the wider Borough of Lambeth.

Please describe your approach to this future place and its mix of uses. How will it function as a vibrant place? How does it knit into, and serve the needs of, the wider area?

The masterplan sets the conditions for a more cohesive, legible and permeable network of streets, spaces, transport and development. It reconnects communities that have been historically divided by the station and vehicular networks to create an active, people-centric, sustainable, inclusive, and healthy destination that will attract investment and enable local economies, emerging life sciences hub, neighbourhoods and internationally recognised cultural quarter to thrive. People are at the heart of the masterplan vision: creating a place everyone can feel part of, invest in, and adopt. A focus on air quality, active travel, biodiversity, and open green spaces sits alongside commercial development, maker-spaces, adaptive reuse, safeguarded community spaces, and public realm to create a balanced and thriving community. Waterloo Station will become a more mixed-use and amenity-rich hub, delivering jobs, leisure, training opportunities, services, community assets and range of benefits beyond those offered by a transport node. It will act as a centre and destination in its own right, as a permeable extension of the street – becoming even more important for the local community and the city. A programme of short-term interventions and meanwhile uses will add to and strengthen existing communities, celebrate the diverse identity, people and places that make Waterloo unique. In addition to seeding components of the masterplan and supporting community buy-in, these will ensure that communities benefit from the economic, connectivity and cultural offerings of Waterloo, supporting social equity, attracting talent and investment and accelerating platforms for local enterprises and communities in direct response to local need.

What is the social and environmental impact of the project? For example, how will the carbon use and material impact of the development be mitigated? What is the sustainability strategy?

A strong, holistic sustainability agenda underpins the overall vision, bringing together and building on local partners’ sustainability, social and economic targets such as the ‘Net Zero for Waterloo and South Bank: a fairer, greener Future Neighbourhood by 2030’ and establishing a clear path to delivery. Structured across three core themes: ‘People, Prosperity, and Place’, the social value is built on the existing cultural and social vibrancy of the area and its assets and looks at how development can bring forward an inclusive, sustainable place, without displacement. Key social priorities were identified through process, each aligned with masterplan considerations and responses. This formed a guiding framework for social value and impact across the masterplan lifecycle. The framework balances social, economic, and environmental implications to deliver optimised shared outcomes and meaningful social value creation for local and wider Lambeth communities. These include a net-zero carbon station and neighbourhood, adaptive reuse of underutilised assets, green infrastructure, prioritisation of active travel, greater accessibility, and enhanced employment outcomes. Multiple benefits of interventions, such as a green spine across neighbourhood - where opportunities for community farming, addressing air pollution, spaces for public engagement and safe walking routes - are highlighted. The economic impact of emerging masterplan options was also estimated, aligning built assets with Lambeth economic growth sectors, for these areas of economic inclusion to thrive. With these founding principles Waterloo and South Bank will become one of London’s healthiest, most sustainable, diverse, civic and successful centres with an integrated multimodal transport at its heart.