Old Oak and Park Royal

Old Oak is one of Europe’s largest brownfield regeneration projects situated at the site of the new Old Oak Common High Speed Two (HS2) station adjacent to one of the UK’s most successful industrial parks – Park Royal. 

In 2015, Disruptive Urbanism were appointed to provide strategic advisory services to the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC) to provide advice on strategy, set up, and development of regeneration delivery programmes to this new Mayoral Development Corporation for the Old Oak and Park Royal area, established to create up to thousands of new homes and jobs associated with the new HS2 and Crossrail station which at the time was due to open in 2026. 

 

The Founder of Disruptive Urbanism, Paula Hirst was employed subsequently by OPDC in a personal capacity as the Interim Director of Strategy and Programmes initially, and subsequently as the Interim Director of Development at OPDC. In these roles over a period of two years, Paula: 

  • Led successful negotiations with central government regarding government land at Old Oak owned by the Department for Transport

  • Led the development of a business plan for land ownership and development

  • Led the development of land assembly; socioeconomic regeneration; communications and engagement strategies

  • Oversaw the development of strategic options for the delivery of utilities, transport, and social infrastructure

  • Led the development of a Strategic Outline Business Case for oversite development at the HS2 Old Oak Common station

  • Led the OJEU procurement of a world class international multidisciplinary masterplanning team to develop a comprehensive deliverable and viable masterplan for the development at Old Oak

  • Led the liaison with 3rd parties, notably High Speed 2 Ltd, Transport for London, and the three local authorities, and established and managed the main stakeholder forum.