Wormholt Park

The London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham
The London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham | 2016 | London

Wormholt Park

The renovation of Wormholt Park was awarded to idverde following a tendering exercise by The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham Council.

More projects for The London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham

Background

Wormholt Park is a small park situated in the north of Shepherds Bush between the Uxbridge Road to the south and the busy A40 to the north, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.

It was opened in 1911; an open-air lido situated alongside it was added in 1923; a bandstand was built in the park in 1931 and a bowling green in 1936. However, by the 1980s the neighbouring swimming pool and bowling green were closed and the park was in need of regeneration.

By the early 2000s the park looked sad and neglected and in 2009 a small group of friends got together to campaign for better maintenance and facilities, and to encourage greater use of the park by local residents. The new plans, designed closely with local residents, included facilities for those who like to keep active, as well as an open space for events and improving the footpaths.

Since 2012 The Council and Friends of Wormholt Park had been working closely together to create a plan for regenerating the park and after funding was finally granted, construction work started in September 2015.

Our Role

The renovation of Wormholt Park was awarded to idverde following a tendering exercise by The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham Council.

The renovation of the park included planting new shrubs in the flower beds, a new spring-flowering witch hazel walkway was planted on the western side of the park and a new entrance from the adjoining Bloom development is now lined with an avenue of trees.

For younger children and families a new dedicated play area was installed, which includes a dragon sculpture, which was designed by pupils of Wormholt Park Primary School. For older children an adventure playground has also been installed in the north-east corner.

The park’s existing ball court was refurbished to a multi-use games area (MUGA) and slightly relocated on the west side of the park.

Challenges

There were a number of challenges with this project. The main challenge was that a major proportion (40%) of the park had to remain open to the public for the duration of the development, meaning the site had to be monitored at all times.

Site access was also challenging as the roads surrounding the Wormholt Park are very narrow; this meant that larger vehicles had great difficulty getting to the site. The original park entrance piers had to be removed to enable delivery vehicles to get into the park and they then needed to be replaced on completion of the project.

Wormholt Park is also situated adjacent to a school meaning that deliveries were restricted between 8-10am and 3-5pm when the school children were arriving and leaving school.

As the play sculpture had been designed by the pupils of Wormholt Park Primary school there were some issues when the designs were sent to the manufacturer. Some slight adjustments were required to the bespoke play sculptures to ensure that the structure was sound and safe.