“This [placemaking] is something we view as absolutely fundamental as part of our proposition – there may be an increased focus on it, but if you look at some of our previous projects it’s all there,” says Darren Richards, head of real estate. “A lot of people think about it as just a public realm, it’s wider than that and it’s everything you offer alongside the office space. Bars, restaurants, gyms, events, green spaces, it’s all of these things too.

“What you’re doing is creating a place – it’s something there to build and bind communities, not just for the benefit for our customers but the wider area.”

The sprawling brownfield plot on the site of the former Daily Mail printworks has remained largely undeveloped despite sitting across from Canary Wharf, the home of towering glass reflecting concrete below.

Even Canary Wharf has agreed to a partnership with the Eden Project to construct a “green spine” through the financial district. It makes space for paddleboarding, open water swimming and kayaking just a stone’s throw away from Morgan Stanley’s London headquarters.

While the pandemic has incentivised developers to include green space, fresh air and invest in office surroundings as much as buildings themselves, British Land’s Richards attributes much of the changes to a longer term trend: the death of the high street.

“The old fashioned solution was to add loads of retail – that’s no longer the solution. If you have a look at the amount of space unoccupied, you need another solution,” he says.

“If you’ve got happy communities, you get good results. It’s why we’ve been delivering great results recently – we just had the strongest 6 months we’ve had in a decade.”

While developers are eager to champion the positive side of ‘placemaking’, questions remain over whether pledges will continue to be popular with residents. The controversial redevelopment of Nine Elms, for instance, is replete with a ‘linear park’ linking multiple developments, as is a new Quintain development in Wembley, set to open in 2024.

One industry source joked that the focus on placemaking had meant space which was previously put aside to ensure enough parking was now automatically taken up by a park – to the detriment of locals’ needs.

The impact on residents remains to be seen. Developers point to projects in Kings Cross and Paddington as examples of how placemaking can successfully revive an area of London, while reaping profits for the companies behind them. 

Yet a shortage of space and excess of demand for ambitious projects mean solo plans to regenerate an entire area may soon be consigned to the past, as parks and pedestrianisation become favourites of the property industry.