What’s the vision for Brent Cross Town?

“Could any of us have predicted that as we were starting to build this there would be a global pandemic?” asks Nick Searl, partner at Related Argent. The past 18 months has had people across the world rethinking how they live, where they work, their relationship to nature, and the importance of environmental sustainability. “We’re already evolving.”

At Brent Cross Town, our first permanent park will open in mid 2022. The new station square will open progressively from 2023. But while these first milestones are within touching distance, a town of this size – nearly 7,000 new homes, world-class sports facilities and offices for 25,000 people – is a project that will evolve over the next 15 to 20 years.

All great places, Searl explains, can and must change. “London itself is possibly the greatest city in the world for a reason, because it can adapt. It’s tolerant and it’s open and it doesn’t resist change in the way that some places do. And, to my mind, that is what has underpinned its success for a thousand years.”

Searl is the lead for Brent Cross Town at Related Argent, who are building Brent Cross Town in a joint venture partnership with Barnet Council. Some things are certain about this new park town: it’ll be set around 50 acres of green parks and playing fields, and it will evolve within the context of the masterplan that already has outline planning permission. Becoming the place in London for sport and play was central to Brent Cross Town, even before Covid-19 shone a spotlight on the importance of green spaces.

But for the details? Searl sees Brent Cross Town as a microcosm of this remarkable ability that London has to flex with changing times. He hopes the town will integrate into its surrounding neighbourhoods and become part of the capital’s famous patchwork of diverse places.

“Brent Cross Town will certainly have its own strong identity and sense of place, but equally we want it to become an effortless part of the wider community with blurred edges and strong local connections. The last thing we want is any sense of a gated community.”

We’re here to talk about Searl’s vision for Brent Cross Town. But like the town’s porous edges, it’s increasingly obvious that there is no clear point where this vision ends and that of partners and collaborators begins. Searl believes in trust. And that means not trying to control everything. “We are often referred to as the masterplanners, which gives the sense of some godlike power over this thing. Which you very quickly realise you don’t have. You quickly realise that the magic of the place is to provide the framework and to then allow people to come in and do their thing.”

Brent Cross Town will be where you have a laugh trying a sport you’ve never heard of, where you enjoy dinner with friends, or simply somewhere to walk and unwind amid nature. But the magic, as Searl calls it, won’t come from him, or anyone else at Related Argent. Instead, it’ll be created through mixing together innovative restaurateurs and retailers, talented artists, and inclusive sports organisations.

Already Swedish clean energy pioneers, Vattenfall, are bringing their expertise in fossil-free power to help achieve Brent Cross Town’s goal of net zero carbon by 2030. We’re working with Dr Rock to enhance people’s experience of sound across the estate, from buzzing music venues to ambient sounds so delicate that you don’t even notice they’re there. Our partnership with Women in Sport aims to close the gender ‘play’ gap by creating sports facilities that women and girls love to use.

And where are the existing communities around Brent Cross Town in this collaborative mix? “What we want to try and do is make sure that it’s constantly additive,” Searl explains. You can’t create a new place without disrupting an existing one, at least temporarily. But through consultations, the Related Argent team are keen to ensure that nothing that local people currently enjoy and value is lost, whether that’s green space to walk the dog or a chance to catch a breather from the bustle of busy streets.

One concept that underpins Brent Cross Town and our pledge to build a place where all can flourish is the “15-minute town”. That means that everything you need, from work to play, and doctor to daycare, will be within a 15-minute walk. It’s the idea of the moment in placemaking; Searl is keen to point out that it is not exactly new: “I was brought up in the early 1970s when all towns were fifteen-minute towns because people didn’t have cars in the way that they have now. We walked to school and walked to the doctor and walked to the grocery shop… The whole of humanity has lived in fifteen minute towns forever.”

When you no longer need to hop in the car, your relationship with a neighbourhood can fundamentally shift: “You’re actually in a position where you can interact with people on a regular basis and it’s that regularity and that personal contact that create the community.” Not so much about the 15-minute walk, then, but rather the people you meet on the way.

One day, around 40,000 people will live or work at Brent Cross Town. Many more will live nearby, or visit to play sport and enjoy the parkland. There’s no easy formula for pleasing that many people. “It’s quite a nebulous thing to define and achieve. Sometimes at King’s Cross [another Argent development] when we ask people why they’re there, we get that answer – which is the best answer – ‘We just like hanging out here.’”