Arup to lead multidisciplinary team for next stage of London’s Stratford station and public realm design

The multidisciplinary team also includes Grimshaw and 5th Studio, alongside BAM, Corderoy, make:good, and Kanda Consulting. The outcome of the latest stage of the project will be the delivery of an enhanced strategic outline business case and design for the station and its surrounding areas.

Stratford is one of the most important public transport interchanges in the UK. However, the station is nearing its capacity limits. It has seen the largest absolute passenger growth of any station in the country since 2021 and was the sixth busiest station in the UK last year. Local communities are fast-growing, with the four London boroughs surrounding the station expanding by over 300,000 residents since the turn of the millennium.

The station serves Stratford town centre and Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, which continue to evolve twelve years on from London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The LLDC has made cementing the legacy of the games a key priority, investing in the East Bank cultural quarter, encouraging inward investment, planning and bringing forward over 5000 homes within new mixed-use neighbourhoods around the park and improving connectivity, such as transforming Westfield Avenue.

The team will focus on developing creative, affordable and deliverable solutions to the station’s capacity challenges, as well as improving the experience for the thousands of passengers using the station every day. The fully holistic redevelopment plans will also consider how station upgrades can be integrated with the delivery of thousands of new homes and significant new employment space. These proposals will sit alongside improvements to the public realm, including new connections that will improve the town centre and better stitch together the wider Stratford community.

Arup will provide a range of economic and engineering disciplines and support the project sponsors with the business case used to secure investment in the project. Grimshaw will focus on design options for the station, while architectural firm 5th Studio will lead on masterplanning, exploring connectivity, the public realm and the potential for further development to support Stratford’s transformation. The work is expected to be completed by late summer 2025. 

The project team will also ensure that the station’s redevelopment supports the aims of Newham Council’s Community Wealth Building Strategy, an inclusive economic approach that aims to address poverty in the borough and ensure that investment benefits all residents. The area served from Stratford station suffers from a poor living environment, with some of the highest levels of air pollution – one in seven of Newham’s population are exposed to levels of nitrogen dioxide above the UK limit value for human health – childhood obesity and crime in the UK.