Grays Town Centre Underpass

Landolt + Brown is currently developing designs in partnership with transport specialists Steer which will transform Grays Town Centre on the north bank of the Thames Estuary. Commissioned by Thurrock Council, the core of the project will be to replace an existing level crossing which currently severs the town centre from the waterfront, with a generous new under-track link connecting to a pair of graded public open spaces at either end, to reconnect communities on either side of the railway.

Building on the success of the practice’s Hackney Wick project, Landolt + Brown are also working closely with Network Rail and their delivery partner to ensure the complex technical requirements of forming a 10m wide, 30m long subway beneath the railway, are underpinned with a creative design approach which looks to draw the silty, watery landscape to the south of the site, together with the remarkable chalk quarries and their downland landscape, to meet in the underpass. The space to the south of the underpass will address a fine napped flint church and its churchyard, with the space on the north leading directly to Grays’ primary shopping parades.