A greener, more welcoming gateway to Peckham: Queens Road Peckham Station

Dear Southwark Council,

I would like to suggest a relatively small but potentially very effective improvement to the public space immediately outside Queens Road Peckham Station.

The entrance to the station currently feels unnecessarily harsh and unwelcoming. The large areas of paving, limited planting, prominent advertising and signage, graffiti-covered surfaces and the constant presence of buses and traffic on the A202 combine to make the space feel more like a piece of transport infrastructure than a welcoming entrance to a neighbourhood.

This is particularly unfortunate because Queens Road Peckham Station is effectively one of the gateways into Peckham. It is the first thing many residents, visitors and commuters see when arriving in this part of the neighbourhood. The railway arches themselves have considerable character, while the businesses operating beneath them (including Connie's and Blackbird Bakery) already provide activity and life. What is missing is a public realm around them that matches that character.

The opportunity is demonstrated very clearly by the contrast between the existing space and the accompanying concept image. The concept does not require a radical redevelopment. It simply introduces substantially more planting, better-defined seating areas, trees and greenery, while making the existing railway architecture and businesses feel like part of a coherent place.

This would build on work the council has already done

This is not a case for starting again. The forecourt was redeveloped in over a decade ago with the stated objective of creating a “high quality public realm environment” outside Queens Road Peckham Station, alongside bringing the previously redundant railway arches into use by local businesses.

The council's earlier planning work also envisaged this location as a station piazza, with landscaping, lighting, commercial uses within the arches and a pleasant and safe entrance to the station.

The difficulty is that the public realm has now become tired and disproportionately hard in character. The basic infrastructure is there; what is lacking is the level of planting, visual quality and sense of place that would make the investment work properly.

In other words, this does not need to become a major capital project. It could be a relatively inexpensive public-realm enhancement of an existing space.

Green the space

The most obvious opportunity is to introduce considerably more greenery.

Queens Road itself is strikingly deficient in trees and greenery in many stretches, and the station entrance is an opportunity to begin addressing this. There is already some planting around the forecourt, demonstrating that the principle works. It simply needs to be much more ambitious.

I would suggest:

• A series of substantial raised planters around the edges of the existing pedestrian space.
• Additional mature or semi-mature street trees wherever underground services and sightlines allow.
• More substantial planted beds around the existing trees rather than leaving them as isolated trees in large areas of paving.
• Seasonal flowering plants and perennial planting to provide colour throughout the year.
• A mixture of shrubs, grasses and pollinator-friendly species rather than purely decorative planting.
• Climbing plants or green screens where appropriate around otherwise blank walls and infrastructure.
• Opportunities for rain gardens or sustainable drainage planting where technically feasible.
• Seating incorporated into some of the larger planters, allowing the planting to double as informal public furniture.
• A consistent planting palette so that the space feels designed as one place rather than as a collection of individual objects.

The council already has design standards specifically covering street trees, planters and planting beds, including their use where street trees are not appropriate. This therefore appears entirely consistent with existing Southwark policy and design practice.

The ambition should not necessarily be a formal garden. It should be an urban railway garden: robust, slightly informal, green and characterful, capable of surviving a busy transport environment.

Make the railway architecture part of the identity of the place

There is also a much bigger opportunity to give the entrance a distinctive Peckham identity.

The railway viaduct is one of the defining pieces of architecture in this space. Queens Road Peckham Station dates back to 1866 and was originally built by the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway. The brick arches and railway infrastructure give the location a strong historical character that is currently rather lost behind signage, advertising, bins, graffiti and modern street clutter.

Rather than trying to conceal this infrastructure, the council could celebrate it.

For example:

• Commission a high-quality heritage mural telling the story of Queens Road Peckham Station and the railway.
• Use historic railway photographs, maps or illustrations as inspiration for artwork within the public realm.
• Introduce tasteful heritage railway signage or interpretation panels.
• Explore whether some of the large advertising/signage boards could be consolidated or redesigned into a more coherent visual system.
• Use the brickwork and arches as the basis for a distinctive local design language.
• Consider small plaques or artworks explaining the history of the station, the railway viaduct and the development of Peckham.

Work with local artists and residents to develop artwork that reflects Peckham rather than generic transport branding.

Make the entrance feel safer and less dominated by traffic

The traffic on Queens Road is obviously not something that can simply be removed. It forms part of the A202 and is an important bus route.

But that makes the pedestrian space more important, not less.

At present, the road, buses, bus-stop infrastructure and signage visually dominate the experience of arriving at the station. The pedestrian area should instead feel like a deliberate buffer between the transport corridor and the businesses and station entrance.

More planting would help enormously. Larger planters and trees could create a softer edge to the road, provide a sense of enclosure and make the pedestrian area feel calmer without obstructing sightlines or pedestrian movement.

There is also an opportunity to review the amount and positioning of street furniture, advertising, bins, signage and other visual clutter so that essential infrastructure remains, but the overall environment feels considerably less chaotic.

The council's own earlier work identified Queens Road as an important gateway but highlighted precisely these problems: high vehicle speeds, narrow pedestrian areas and excessive street infrastructure. More recently, the council's Streets for People programme has again identified residents' desire for more trees and green space, less traffic, better lighting and better pedestrian environments.

The station entrance is therefore an obvious place to demonstrate what that policy can mean in practice.

A relatively small investment could have a disproportionate effect

I would particularly encourage the council to consider this as a small-scale, high-impact public realm project rather than waiting for a much larger regeneration scheme.

The existing forecourt is already paved and accessible. The businesses under the arches are already there. The railway architecture is already there. The station is already heavily used.

What is needed is essentially:

more green + better planting + better seating + less visual clutter + heritage interpretation + a stronger sense of place.

The accompanying concept image demonstrates how dramatically the character of the space could change without changing its fundamental layout.

This could also be developed incrementally. A first phase could introduce several large planters and additional trees. A second could improve seating and planting beds. A third could introduce heritage interpretation and locally commissioned artwork.

There may also be opportunities to work with the businesses occupying the arches, local residents, community groups and local artists so that the space is not simply designed for Peckham but developed with Peckham.

A gateway worthy of Peckham

There is currently a particularly interesting opportunity to do this.

Southwark is investing heavily in improving the public realm around Peckham's transport infrastructure. The much larger transformation of Peckham Rye Station Square is now underway, with planting, seating, lighting and refurbished railway arches explicitly intended to create a welcoming gateway to Peckham.

Queens Road Peckham should not be forgotten in that wider transformation.

Indeed, the two projects could complement one another. Peckham Rye can have its major civic square, while Queens Road Peckham can have a smaller, greener and more characterful neighbourhood station forecourt.

The two stations are different places and should not look identical. But both should share the same fundamental principle: arrival in Peckham should feel welcoming, green, distinctive and rooted in the history and character of the area.

Queens Road already has the raw ingredients for this. It has the railway arches, historic brickwork, local businesses, an active station, a large pedestrian forecourt and a community with a strong sense of identity.

It simply needs more imagination in how those ingredients are brought together.

I would therefore strongly encourage Southwark Council, in conjunction with TfL, Network Rail, local businesses and residents, to explore a modest public-realm and greening scheme for the Queens Road Peckham Station entrance.

This could be a relatively small investment with a very visible return: a greener street, a more attractive station, a more pleasant place for residents to sit and meet, better support for the businesses under the arches, and most importantly, a much more welcoming first impression of Peckham.

Queens Road should feel like an entrance to Peckham. At present, it feels too much like a road running past a station.

With some trees, planting, heritage and imagination, that could change very significantly.