Regent Street, Haymarket and Piccadilly Circus public realm

Presenting a unique global and local opportunity, The Crown Estate and Westminster City Council have been working together to develop a long-term vision for the design of Regent Street’s public realm.

This follows the success of the temporary public realm improvements we trialled in partnership with the Council in 2020. These were installed to support the West End’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and help create a greener, safer and more accessible place.

Looking ahead at a permanent, replacement solution, we want to secure Regent Street’s position as one of the leading urban destinations on the global stage long into the future. A place which is inclusive and accessible to all and which continues to thrive in a changing climate.

Public engagement to date

Across the summer and autumn of 2023, we conducted an extensive public engagement exercise with the area’s residents, workers and visitors to understand what their priorities were for Regent Street’s public realm design. The engagement was specifically designed to be inclusive of a wide range of communities and attracted a high response rate, with 3,500 people having their say.

Following this programme of public engagement, in January 2024, Westminster City Council published The Future of Regent Street Public Realm Vision Report. The report outlines the public’s priorities for Regent Street, as well as providing case studies and learnings from other global cities with streets that are comparable to Regent Street. The following three priorities have emerged as the most important:

Led by these priorities, the report sets the following project Vision to inform the future public realm design:

Everyone’s Regent Street: A place where the past and the future come together for people to celebrate, connect, and discover.

Celebrate its unique heritage and transformation through time.

Connect people, places and surrounding neighbourhoods.

Discover its potential to evolve and flourish in a changing world.

Extending the project to include Haymarket and Piccadilly Circus public realm

In January 2024, Westminster City Council’s Cabinet took the welcome decision to extend the scope of the project to address public realm and traffic challenges as part of a wider programme beyond Regent Street.

Since March 2023, The Crown Estate has carried out early engagement with local stakeholders on the future of the Haymarket area, and this included assessing the public realm opportunities for Haymarket, Charles II Street and Jermyn Street East. As our ambitions for this part of the West End, and those of local stakeholders, are aligned with the wider policy objectives of the Council, it was agreed to expand the scope of the Regent Street Public Realm project to include these streets along with Piccadilly Circus.

The development of the ‘Regent Street, Haymarket and Piccadilly Circus Public Realm’ project presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to unlock a landmark public realm opportunity.

You can access our Haymarket Engagement Report here.

Next steps

Led by the findings of our engagement, we will now begin designing this transformational scheme with Westminster City Council. This will include a series of public engagement and consultation activities over the next 18 months to gather feedback as our designs evolve.

If you would like to be involved and have your say, or want to find out more about this exciting project, please visit Westminster City Council’s website here.