Barnes’s first public building explicitly designed for climate resilience?
Story 204: Updated proposals for Vine Road Project
The Barnes Town Team Meeting on Wednesday 13 May heard an update on the Master Plan to improve Vine Road recreation ground from Mike Hildesley, of Barnes Common, which is leading the project.
The first plan emerged from informal consultation in 2021, when the charity said proposals for the Vine Road Project received ‘massive support’.
The recreation ground — then known as The Orchard — was acquired by the council in 1929. The paddling pool was added in 1936 and further play equipment in 1952. The pavilion tea room stopped serving refreshments in 1969. The bowling green was last used in 1996.
By 2021, Barnes Common says, just three fruit trees remained from the earlier market garden and orchard: an apple and two pears. The buildings, with their faint civic melancholy add to the sense this version of the recreation ground has done its shift.
Vine Road Project
The plan represents a significant upgrade: better play facilities for different ages, a new skate park and a redesigned public space.
But the most striking element remains the proposed climate-resilient hub.
This would replace the current office and toilet block with a larger centre. It would act as a refuge for at-risk residents during climate-related emergencies: flooding after extreme rain, heatwaves, or extreme cold snaps.
The team behind the plan wants a place large enough to accommodate residents struggling with the hotter days and nights now coming into view.
Welcome to Barnes2050, a place-based futures project asking: how do we make sure Barnes - the place and its people - is thriving and climate-ready by 2050?
There was also a clear commitment to sustainable travel. The plan does not increase car parking capacity. The nudge is obvious enough: bus, train, walk, wheel or bike to the new centre.
Mike Hildesley said Barnes Common hopes to submit a full planning application to the council later this year.
Barnes Common provides all Vine Road Projects updates here.
You can also download the latest public consultation documents below.
The presentations from the Town Team meeting is here.
Notes & thoughts
Plans for redevelopment of Vine Road have been five years in the making. What was striking about this update was the emphasis on the threat posed by both water and heat.
CommunityBlueScapes, which also featured in the Town Meeting, is investing over £6million to make the area more flood-resilient. It is an impressive programme, and a necessary one.
But flood resilience has tended to dominate local discussion of climate change. Understandably. Water is visible. It arrives in the street, in the garden, through the door, across the floor.
Heat is quieter. And just as important.
Water destroys property and heat kills people is an over-simplification.
But not by much.
Barnes2050 has previously called out lack of climate-foresight for street furniture in the village.
Met Office projections for Richmond borough suggests that, at global warming levels of between 2°C and 4°C, Richmond borough can expect the number of hot summer days above 30°C to rise from around two a year now to between 10 and 28. Tropical nights — when temperatures do not fall below 20°C — would rise from none to between three and 15.
This coupled with the age profile of Barnes - an older village in an older London borough - means there’s a pressing need for structural changes like the hub.
Unsurprisingly the Vine Road Hub may be Barnes’ first public building explicitly designed around climate resilience.
Not just climate change
Meanwhile, Barnes Commons believes the plans to be
one of the first in the UK designed with this facility, bringing together climate resilient building design alongside other benefits to wellbeing offered by a park environment.
This is one useful characteristic of many climate adaptations and mitigations. They seldom solve for just one thing.
It’s wise not try to fix everything with one project. But Vine Road Project is an example of something better: do the right thing in the right place, and the benefits accumulate.
A greener village
Ambitious longer-term planning featured in several Town Team updates. Green Barnes included a ten-year ambition for the area:
Emma Robinson, the new Executive Director at Barnes Community Association explained how the BCA aimed to return to this commitment soon.