Plumstead Good Growth is a sequence of interventions improving the public realm and bringing investment to the High Street, including 20 new shopfronts, 5 enhanced green spaces and more.

This programme of public realm interventions is focused on Plumstead High Street. Funded by the Mayor of London’s Good Growth Fund and the Royal Borough of Greenwich, the works are aimed at bringing investment to the town centre supporting independent businesses, uplifting the pedestrian experience through an improved sense of place and identity, and mitigating the impact of climate change.

Improvements to the junction of the High Street and Lakedale Road, and adjustments to White Hart Road, a vital link from the High Street to the Ridgeway and significant new residential development beyond, calm traffic and increase footways. A narrowed, and now one-way, road includes new rain gardens, a small orchard and integrated play. Together, these make a partly industrial road safer and more welcoming for walking and cycling, whilst absorbing rainwater and creating habitats. The centrepiece, a railway underpass on White Hart Road, has been transformed into a welcoming pedestrian place, lit, and animated with vibrant graphics, which also act as wayfinding, complementing signage at both ends of the route: the ridgeway and the town centre.

Enhancements along the High Street include Gavin House Green, where paths, planting and play-on-the-way enliven a previously unused frontage, a reorganised car park at Abery Street now within tree planting, and a new garden at Lakedale Green. In addition, seating, low-level planting and lighting enhance spaces outside shops at both Lakedale Road and Plumstead Plaza.

The 20 improved shopfronts, designed closely with traders who also made a small financial contribution, are necessarily scattered along the High Street recognising challenges of ownership, tenure and marginal economics. Shopfronts, limited by work to the exterior, are characterised by distinctive 3D signage, an integrated public art programme that animates the streetscape.