UCL students lead co-visioning event for London's Kilburn High Street Regeneration

Urban Design and City Planning MSc students, part of the Collaborative Planning Project unit coordinated by Elena Besussi, Dr Michael Short, and Hanadi Samhan, designed, organised, and facilitated a knowledge co-production event on Monday 26 February 2024 which engaged groups, residents, and businesses in a critical examination of Kilburn and the identification of vacant spaces and community needs. 

This project is part of an ongoing collaboration and knowledge exchange between community groups in London and Bartlett students. Previous years have seen students providing evidence in support of the community-led Kilburn Neighbourhood Plan. 

The knowledge gathered from fieldwork and community conversations during the 2024 co-production event will inform the vacant space study and strategy for the community-led high street regeneration project ‘One Kilburn’. This project is funded by the GLA High Street Fund and Power to Change’s Community Improvement District initiative. Additionally, the project contributes to the activities of the BSP’s research cluster ‘Innovation in Planning Education’. 

The work of the students, titled ‘What if Kilburn? Imagining Kilburn High Road as a Community Space’, will be showcased at an exhibition in late May in Kilburn. 

Kilburn residents said: "We appreciate Elena Besussi, Hanadi Samhan, and Michael Short from The Bartlett School of Planning, The Bartlett, UCL’s Faculty of the Built Environment, and all their enthusiastic students, for organising and hosting the Kilburn High Road 3D Model presentation at Grange Centre, and the ‘What If Kilburn?’ discussion. It was a very interesting and thought-provoking community event that reached out to local residents and aimed to reflect their unique perspectives and lived experiences of Kilburn High Road."