Twickenham Riverside Playground

The regeneration of the Twickenham Riverside is well under way with Stage 1 offically completed on 1 June with the opening of the Jubilee Gardens and a playground. Soon a Café will be opened as well.

The project has been broken into three phases by the Richmond Council.

  • Stage 1 – site clean up and temporary facilities included the removal of the old pool building, building of gardens, a temporary café with toilets and a playground. (Previously reported here)
  • Stage 2 – The Twickenham Challenge where the Council works with local and national groups to develop proposals for self-sustaining facilities at the site, representing 15-20% of the total space of the site. The goal is for the Council to review and approve plans by this summer.
  • Stage 3 – Build the Site based on which proposals are approved as well as a commercial element, namely housing, cafés and restaurants, and possibly some retail uses. The site will seek planning permission in 2007 and hope to be complete by 2009.

Currently we are in Stage Two – The Twickenham Challenge with four groups all working with the Council and various Council provided consultants to create proposals for the site. The groups in consideration are:

After the groups submit their proposals, the Council will evaluate the proposals against a number of criteria and then short-list all of the proposals that pass those requirements.

Most Twickenham Ward residents, including St Margarets, received a glossy 14 page brochure detailing the entire project, but if you missed it or want it again, you can get it as a (rather large) PDF here or throughout the Borough in Council offices and libraries. It provides a lot of detail on each of these four groups proposals.

Additionally, the Council’s website has more information here and will be updated with news. Finally, the Twickenham Riverside site is an excellent source of news and photos of the site.