Hemel Hempstead Town Centre Master Plan

We were commissioned by Dacorum Borough Council to organise and run a series of visioning events to establish key principles to steer new investment and development across the town centre. Working with a range of stakeholders, we gathered views and ideas that helped form the basis of a successful forward delivery plan. With more housing growth planned across Hemel Hempstead, attention was focused on the town centre to ensure it has the capacity and flexibility to support a growing population.

In 1946, the government designated Hemel Hempstead as the site of one of its proposed new towns designed to house the population displaced by the London Blitz, since slums and bombsites were being cleared in London. The initial plans for the Hemel Hempstead new town were drawn up by architect Geoffrey Jellicoe. His view of Hemel Hempstead, he said, was “not a city in a garden, but a city in a park” and this legacy of green spaces and water still define the town centre today. Our work continues his tradition and proposes restoration of many of the original aspects of the new town ambition.