What's happening in Kensington & Chelsea

Open House London showcases great design in every London borough. Click here to find out what you can see in Kensington & Chelsea this year.

Below, you can find out all about the local context of this borough's architecture, areas undergoing change and projects under construction.

Over the next two years Kensington & Chelsea through The Transport, Environment and Leisure Services (TELS) will benefit from a focused delivery plan. The Plan 2009/12 outlines the priorities and concerns for improving the borough. TELS has taken on the Council’s three main aims first outlined in its Cabinet Business Plan, the ‘three R’s’ and these are; Responding to residents, Really good services, Renewing the legacy.

Initiatives for achieving these aims include improving street cleanliness and creating first class roads and pavements, improving parks by continuing the Council’s ten year Parks Strategy and by streetscape improvement projects. The latter project can be seen in the ambitious changes that are to be made on Exhibition Road. The project is a response to the increasing number of visitors to the area and aims to create high quality public spaces. Plans along this line also include the areas of Ladbroke Grove and Notting Hill Gate.

The management of Little Wormwood Scrubs was transferred from Hammersmith and Fulham to the Royal Borough in 2008. Once both Little Wormwood Scrubs and Brompton Cemetery are transferred fully, TELS aims to embark on a major rejuvenation and maintenance programme.

The North Kensington Environment Project (NKEP) has been successful in its cleaning up of neglected sites in the four northernmost wards of the borough. However it’s responsibilities will now be extended, as it will help establish community gardens and improve the Golborne Road Bridge.

The Borough has set sustainability as a high priority. The Environment Strategy was launched in 2006 and the initiatives are intended to be completed within the five-year framework. Nearing the end of its term the strategy is still intensely advocated. The aim is to rebuild Ireton Lodge in Holland Park as a flagship environmental property that should demonstrate sustainable building to residents and visitors.

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Kensington & Chelsea architecture showcased in Open House London 2011

See the listings here

2010 Highlights

A new addition this year was a tour of the streetscape work to transform Exhibition Road launched earlier this year in time for the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics.
A visitor said: “It has a positive, dynamic, exciting feeling.
Now, I am much more aware, and able to see the good
aspects in architecture I might have simply dismissed
previously”

Octavia Housing's retrofit house at Princedale Road was an exemplar of how to green our existing housing stock.

A visitor to Trellick Tower said: “It is fascinating looking
down on the area where I live and seeing how similar small clusters of buildings look, and look different from neighbouring clusters, and thinking about why and how the area has evolved like it has”

Another visitor said: “The area shows the social developments taking place as well as the changing uses of buildings within the city"

 

 

 

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