IN Brief:
- Battersea Power Station’s remaining 16 acres are being shaped through new masterplanning work.
- The future phases have outline permission for up to 3.2 million sq ft of residential, commercial, cultural, and leisure space.
- The plans will complete one of London’s largest brownfield regeneration programmes.
Battersea Power Station Development Company has brought the remaining phases of the Battersea Power Station regeneration programme back into focus, with Studio Egret West shaping the final 16 acres of the 42-acre site.
The remaining land has outline planning permission for up to 3.2 million sq ft of residential, commercial, cultural, and leisure space. Studio Egret West has been appointed as master planner, urban designer, and landscape architect, with a brief to evolve the original Rafael Viñoly masterplan around changing patterns of living, working, retail, and leisure.
Around half of the wider riverside neighbourhood has now been delivered. The Grade II* listed power station has reopened after restoration, more than 2,200 homes have been completed, around 800,000 sq ft of office space has been created, a Zone 1 London Underground station has opened, and retail, dining, and leisure uses are operating across the site.
The remaining phases will determine how the development functions as a complete urban district rather than a restored landmark surrounded by active plots. Future stages are expected to connect with Nine Elms Park, continue the mixed-use neighbourhood around the restored building, and bring forward additional residential, commercial, community, and public-realm elements over a long delivery period.
Major regeneration projects often become more technically demanding once the early public-facing phases are complete. The first visible stages create momentum and market confidence, while later phases have to adapt to new conditions around occupied buildings, live public spaces, established routes, retail operations, and changing occupier demand. Battersea now sits in that more mature delivery phase, where logistics, phasing, funding, and design evolution are tightly linked.
Contractor and specialist activity around the next plots is already moving through the market. John Sisk has been linked with Battersea’s phase 3C package, covering Gehry-designed buildings, homes, commercial space, a community hub, and cycle facilities, while Morrisroe’s order book has been strengthened by work connected to phase 3C delivery.
The final phases will bring different pressures from the early restoration and infrastructure work. Urban construction at this stage requires disciplined site logistics, careful protection of occupied areas, public interface management, utilities coordination, noise and dust control, and consistent communication with residents, visitors, retailers, office occupiers, and local stakeholders.
The design challenge is equally demanding. Large mixed-use districts cannot rely indefinitely on destination appeal; they have to function as everyday places with services, amenity, transport, open space, adaptable workspace, and reliable estate management. Long-running masterplans are also having to adjust to hybrid working, changed retail behaviour, higher expectations for public space, and more demanding energy performance standards.
Battersea’s remaining land sits within a London development market that remains active but more selective. Capital costs, planning scrutiny, building safety gateways, high-rise residential viability, and commercial leasing assumptions are all under closer examination. Developers with major landholdings are having to show how later plots can remain deliverable while still contributing affordable housing, public realm, social infrastructure, and long-term estate performance.
The connection to Nine Elms Park will be central to the next stage. Public realm on a scheme of this scale affects movement, access, land value, heat resilience, drainage, biodiversity, and the relationship between individual buildings. A completed Battersea district must operate as part of a wider urban network between Vauxhall, Nine Elms, the riverfront, and the power station itself.
The appointment of Studio Egret West shifts attention from the restored building to the remaining city-making work around it. The final 16 acres carry the task of turning Battersea from a successful landmark redevelopment into a complete neighbourhood, with construction quality, public realm, market demand, and long-term management all shaping whether the later phases can match the ambition of the earlier ones.
