Contracts have been signed for the first tenants at Parkside Yards, opening at The Green Quarter this summer. OPEN – the independent arts organisation behind Dickens Yards’ OPEN Ealing – has signed up to be one of the area’s first new tenants and will launch its new community and creative hub in June.
Just 10-minutes’ walk from the Elizabeth line at Southall Station, The Green Quarter is combining modern city life and outdoor living, with nearly 50 per cent of the 88-acre site comprising open green space when complete. Parkside Yards is set to become a vibrant new hub, bringing communities together through an exciting arts programme, flexible working spaces, and an outdoor piazza at its heart offering opportunities to eat, meet, drink, shop and play against the backdrop of green surroundings.
The eagerly anticipated new destination will offer something for everyone, with amenities and activities including:
A community and creative hub through OPEN Southall, including ceramics and textile studios
Retail such as a grocer, clothing store, estate agent, café and airstream offering street food
New tree nursery with woodland walks, nature trails and giant jumping pillow
The new community and creativity hub by OPEN Southall will celebrate the area’s ceramic history – the Martin Brothers, famous worldwide for Martinware ceramics, began their first studio 150 years ago in Southall. With a ceramics and textile studio planned, creatives will be able to produce, showcase and sell their arts, as well as offering courses and workshops for all to enjoy.
Designed in line with The Green Quarter’s aim to be one of the country’s most biodiverse new places, Parkside Yards will also add to the expanding parkland in the area, which already includes Central Gardens.
It will create a new on-site tree nursery, one of the first at a UK development, which will initially feature over 600 air-potted trees, all from species native to the British isles, with more planned. A woodland nature trail for children will run through the green space, featuring carved wooden animal statues. The majority of the trees grown in the nursery will be planted at The Green Quarter as well as at other Berkeley developments across London.
Alongside the retail, creative hub and tree nursery, Parkside Yards will feature a relaxing meadow walk with picnic benches and children’s play areas, creating a great day out for the whole family.
Mandie Wilde, chief operating officer of OPEN, said: “This is an exciting step forward for OPEN and provides local and affordable community studios for creatives wanting to develop their practise in ceramics and textiles. It’s also a great place for beginners to learn new skills.”
Marcus Blake, managing director of Berkeley St George City, said: “Parkside Yards will be a wonderful place for our residents, the wider local community and the environment. It is fantastic to have OPEN, a long-valued partner of Berkeley’s, involved and to link the future with Southall’s creative past.
“Alongside creativity, Parkside Yards supports our sustainability goals – biodiversity is at the heart of The Green Quarter and this tree nursery and woodland trail is another way we’re promoting nature.”
