The Douglas Bader Park estate regeneration has been granted full planning consent by the London Borough of Barnet. We led the design team as architect and masterplanner on behalf of our client, a joint venture partnership between Home Group and The Hill Group.

We created a comprehensive masterplan vision with residents, which introduces a series of new squares and streets, revitalises the public and private realm between the new residential buildings and opens up new connections through to the underused green space to the west. The streetscape has been designed to draw ‘green fingers’ through from this green space and will be pedestrian-focused throughout, providing improved play and usable outdoor spaces for local people.

The architecture will define distinctive character areas within the new neighbourhood, with the scale varying from two storey houses to nine storey marker buildings, responding to the surrounding context. In total, 753 new tenure-blind homes will be provided, varying from apartments, maisonettes and houses. 272 of these homes will be affordable, reproviding the existing estate homes to meet the residents’ current needs. The residents were a key part of the design process, right from earliest masterplan ideas through to selection of materials and internal layouts of homes.

Andy Hill, group chief executive of The Hill Group, said: “As one of the schemes to be balloted under Mayor Sadiq Khan’s mandate to allow residents a vote on estate regeneration, achieving planning success for the Douglas Bader Park estate is a significant achievement. We will continue to work closely with current and future residents to deliver an exemplar development.”

Work on the first phase of 38 affordable homes is expected to start imminently.