Vine Road is getting a new skatepark, a wetland and a caf\u00e9, and the building at the centre of it is designed to double as a shelter when the weather turns dangerous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Plans for a rebuild of Vine Road Recreation Ground, at the edge of Barnes Common and in the space between the train track split from Putney, have been formally lodged with Richmond Council. Application PA26\/1786 was validated on 15 July and is now under consideration, with a decision due on 14 October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The scheme would demolish the park’s existing buildings and replace them with a single-storey community pavilion holding a caf\u00e9, a community room, changing facilities and storage. Around it: a new skatepark, a wetland along the Beverley Brook, water play, community growing space and improved paths and access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pavilion’s centrepiece idea is described as a climate refuge: a caf\u00e9 most days of the year, and somewhere for at-risk residents to go during floods, heatwaves or cold snaps. The wetland does some of the same work from the landscape side. It is designed as a flood-resilience measure, taking advantage of the brook that already runs along the park’s western edge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Friends of Barnes Common, the volunteer group that also manages neighbouring Barnes Common on the council’s behalf, drew up the design with architects Studio Weave. Richmond Council owns and manages the park itself. Funding has come partly from the Mayor’s Resilience Fund and the National Lottery Community Fund, and partly from residents: a 2021 crowdfunding campaign on Spacehive raised money from 140 individual donors, matched by the Mayor’s fund. The Friends’ own membership has grown alongside the project, from under 300 in early 2020 to more than 950 by the start of 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A masterplan was submitted to the council in 2021, after Studio Weave was appointed in December 2020 following a public consultation the year before. It won the backing of a council committee, though the council itself has not formally approved the plan; it says a planning application would follow, which is what has now happened. The same group’s most recent planning history at Vine Road, before this one, was an application to install a second polytunnel for the community growing project, approved in 2024: a small step on the way to a considerably bigger one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Richmond Council did not renew the lease of The Pavilion Montessori School, which has run from the park’s old bowling pavilion since 1984, beyond July 2026. The council told parents in May 2025 the non-renewal was part of the redevelopment. Families petitioned against it, calling the school “a second home” but the decision has been made and the Department for Education’s register now lists it as closed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Consultation on the application closed on 14 August. It comes a few years after Barn Elms tennis courts reopened<\/strong> following renovation nearby. The wetland ties Vine Road into the wider Beverley Brook<\/strong> corridor that runs through both boroughs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Years of fundraising and design are now a planning application, decision due in October.\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":41721,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","_searchwp_excluded":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3247,480,492],"tags":[],"widget-form":[],"widget-purpose":[],"ppma_author":[238],"class_list":["post-41717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-barnes","category-community","category-planning","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"acf":{"editorial_slug":"RIC-BAR-VINEROAD-RECGROUND-260817"},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t