36 Construction
20 Years of Regeneration in Royal Arsenal Riverside
Twenty years into the regeneration of the £1.2 billion Royal Arsenal Riverside development, Berkeley has transformed the disused former munitions site into a thriving leisure, retail and cultural destination that thousands of people call home. “The rebirth of the Royal Arsenal is one of London’s greatest regeneration stories” Tony Pidgley CBE used to say. The renowned Chairman for Berkeley Homes, who sadly passed away in June this year, was a proud advocate for the regeneration of Woolwich and the partnership work with the Royal Borough of Greenwich and the Great London Authority. “Those who remember the old Woolwich of the 1990s will understand how far it has come. Many factors contributed to this success but at the heart of it all is a partnership based on trust and a shared vision”.
October 2020
Royal Arsenal’s military heritage dates back to 1512. Over the centuries the site expanded and grew, being recognised as the centre of excellence in the design and manufacture of armaments and peaking at 80,000 employees during the First World War. The slow decline began after the Second World War, and eventually in 1994 the site ceased operation as a military establishment. The decline of the Royal Arsenal led to the decline of the wider area. The objective of the new development was not just to rejuvenate
the disused site, but to spread the benefits to the wider area. This was complicated by contamination, a significant number of listed buildings, low land values and a challenging surrounding context. A fundamental objective of the masterplan was to connect the site to the town centre, and the town centre to the river. With centuries of military use the site had been purposefully separated with no access. For regeneration to be a success this had to be reversed.
