White City's EdCity Given Go Ahead by H&F Council
Education hub would include new Ark Swift Primary, Harmony Nursery and Youth Zone
An innovative education hub in White City, known as EdCity, has been given the go ahead by H&F Council.
The hub, which will include a Youth Zone, new school, nursery, adult
education centre and affordable housing will go ahead after Hammersmith & Fulham
Council’s Planning and Development Control Committee unanimously resolved to grant planning
permission.
The plans will see the site, currently occupied by Ark Swift Primary Academy, Harmony
Neighbourhood Nursery and the Adult Community Learning Centre, redeveloped with state-of-the-art
facilities for a replacement school, nursery and adult education centre.
In addition, OnSide and the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham are working in partnership to
develop Hammersmith & Fulham Youth Zone, the first Youth Zone in west London, offering a huge
range of affordable activities and inspiring sports, arts, music, mentoring and employability
programmes to young people from eight to 19 (and up to 25 for those with additional needs), seven
days a week.
The Youth Zone will include indoor sports facilities and a Multi Use Games Area (MUGA) for
basketball, trampolining, cricket, volleyball, badminton, table tennis and five-a-side football.
The Youth
Zone’s facilities will be used during school hours by the new Ark Swift Primary Academy.
EdCity will also provide affordable office space for charities and social enterprises, 71 new affordable
homes and 61 homes for private rent. A landscaped boulevard connecting the White City estate to
Wood Lane will be introduced, with new trees and a new public square.
Andrew McLean, Vengrove, the development manager for EdCity, said: "We are delighted that the
committee recognised the significant benefits that EdCity will bring to the area, whether you are a
parent looking for great education for your child, a young person looking to discover a new talent, an
adult looking to learn a new skill or a charity looking for affordable office space."
Jamie Masraff, Project Director, OnSide Youth Zones, said: “This will be our first Youth Zone in west
London. It will offer a high-quality, safe and affordable place for young people to go in their leisure
time. From DJ-ing to rock climbing, martial arts to dance, we want to inspire and support young people, giving them a second home where they can flourish. This decision is a major milestone in
bringing us significantly closer to being able to make a difference in west London."
The council’s adult community learning centre will move into a larger, state-of-the-art facility, and one of the major new tenants of
the affordable office space will be Ark, the education charity with a network of schools in
Hammersmith and Fulham, which will move its headquarters
from central London to a site alongside the new Ark Swift Primary Academy.
Harmony Neighbourhood Nursery’s new facilities, meanwhile will allow them to expand from 45 to 75 children,
offering its care and early years education - rated Outstanding by Ofsted - to more local children.
Jana Hassan, manager of Harmony Neighbourhood Nursery, said: "We are currently oversubscribed and so it is wonderful that we will be able to expand our Ofsted-outstanding care and early years education to more parents in White City."
Construction could begin as early as this summer with the new Ark Swift Primary Academy and OnSide Youth Zone opening in 2020, the new Harmony Neighbourhood Nursery opening in 2021 and all construction work complete by 2022.
The full proposals for EdCity, first shown to local people at exhibitions last year are available online.
March 19, 2018