Cotleigh RoadRomford · RM7
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The wider town

The Romford Town Centre Masterplan

The Romford Town Centre Masterplan is a Supplementary Planning Document that aims to guide the growth and development of Romford, a designated Opportunity Area and Housing Zone within the London Plan. The masterplan proposes various initiatives, including the creation of a new western station entrance, the transformation of the Ring Road into an Urban Boulevard, and the daylighting of the River Rom. The plan also focuses on preserving historic assets, introducing a finer urban grain, and promoting sustainable development. The masterplan has been adopted by the Havering Cabinet and is designed to influence private landowner developments and leverage financial contributions toward public realm improvements.

Updated 4 min read

  • 10,900-12,000 new homes planned by 2041
  • Station Gateway project to maximize Elizabeth Line utility
  • Transformation of Ring Road into an Urban Boulevard
  • Daylighting of the River Rom and creation of a linear ecological park
  • Protection of historic urban grain and introduction of finer urban grain

Romford is formally designated as an Opportunity Area and a Housing Zone within the London Plan. To realise the growth targets attached to those designations, the London Borough of Havering developed the Romford Town Centre Masterplan.

After community engagement running from 2019 to late 2024 and a formal consultation phase involving statutory bodies, major landowners and residents, the Havering Cabinet approved adoption of the Masterplan as a Supplementary Planning Document on 12 March 2025, taking effect immediately on adoption.

The SPD is a binding strategic policy document, designed to influence private landowner developments and leverage financial contributions toward public realm improvements. It identifies capacity for 10,900–12,000 new homes on a trajectory extending to 2041.

An earlier version of this page also carried a figure of "up to 2,500 new jobs". It has been removed: the number could not be traced to the SPD, the accompanying environmental report, the Cabinet report or the adoption statement. The employment figures that are sourceable are the GLA's, and they are an order of magnitude lower — 500 jobs for the Romford Opportunity Area in the London Plan 2021, raised to 700 in the 2021 London Employment Sites Database. Where this site cannot find a source for a number, it removes the number.

Transport and the Station Gateway

A central pillar is maximising the utility of the Elizabeth Line through the "Station Gateway" project, which identifies the area around Romford Station as a primary locus for high-density residential and employment development.

Most consequentially for Cotleigh Road, the SPD proposes a new formalised western station entrance on Exchange Street, developed with Network Rail. It is designed to relieve pressure on the primary southern entrance while drawing footfall westward toward the Waterloo Estate — compressing pedestrian transit times for Cotleigh Road residents and pulling the street deeper into the premium commuter footprint.

Recharacterising the Ring Road

The Masterplan also addresses the severance caused by Romford's vehicular infrastructure. The four-lane Ring Road has historically acted as a concrete barrier isolating the town centre from its residential hinterlands. Using funding from Transport for London's Liveable Neighbourhoods Programme, the SPD directs its transformation into an "Urban Boulevard": removing pedestrian underpasses and guardrails, replacing them with at-grade street-level crossings surrounded by extensive planting and active travel corridors.

Softening that boundary collapses the perceived distance between Cotleigh Road and the commercial core of Romford.

Parking

Alongside this, controlled parking zones — including the ROST zone, which encompasses Cotleigh Road and adjacent streets — have been introduced as part of a rationalised town centre parking approach. All-day visitor permits are priced at £39 for ten visits, protecting residential parking utility from commuter overspill while preserving flexibility for occupants.

Heritage and urban grain

The Masterplan distinguishes carefully between preserving historic assets and modernising commercial zones. It explicitly mandates protection of the "historic urban grain" — narrow building frontages and intricate alleyways — in the Market Place, South Street and North Street.

Conversely, for the mid-twentieth-century retail complexes (the Brewery, Liberty and Mercury shopping centres), which the Masterplan notes did not replace any historically significant urban grain, policy recommends introducing a new "finer urban grain": evolving enclosed big-box retail into networks of open, publicly accessible streets with high-density housing stacked above flexible retail and commercial workspace. The intent is to shift the local economy away from traditional office space toward flexible studios, attracting creative industries displaced from central London.

The Blue Strategy: daylighting the River Rom

The most transformative element is the environmental infrastructure agenda concerning the River Rom. Over the past century vast sections of the river were buried in subterranean concrete culverts to maximise surface area for retail parking and commercial development. The Masterplan mandates systematic deculverting — daylighting the hidden waterways back to the surface.

The flagship project is Brewery Gardens, a 1.1-hectare linear ecological park carved through the town centre. This requires heavy engineering to open the culverts, followed by soft landscaping of the riverbanks, marginal aquatic planting and new pedestrian bridges giving public access to the water.

The rationale extends beyond aesthetics. The renaturalised river functions as a large nature-based Sustainable Drainage System, materially improving the borough's resilience against severe flood events. Consultation feedback noted that deculverting poses significant viability and funding challenges for developers; the Masterplan's position is that the long-term value added to the local environment, public health and real estate economy surpasses immediate point-in-time cost calculations.

Proximity to parks and waterways is often cited as a driver of value, though this site has not tested that on Cotleigh Road and does not assert it. What can be said plainly is that a daylighted river and a linear park within walking distance would be a material change to the surroundings, and that the scheme is at masterplan stage — identified, not funded, and not consented.