Designs Published for New Kew Gardens Learning Centre
Building would replace the White Peaks cafe
CGI of the new development. Picture:: Royal Botanic Garden Kew/Hazle McCormack Young LLP
March 14, 2023
The first pictures have emerged showing the planned transformation of a well-known part of Kew Gardens that could cost up to £100million.
As part of the plans, White Peaks café would be bulldozed and replaced with a new learning centre including laboratories at the world-famous botanical garden.
The learning centre would also include a gallery, teaching spaces, offices and a seminar room, along with fresh landscaping. The building would reach up to two storeys tall and would also be available for schools to use.
A planning application for the changes has been submitted to Richmond Council. It says the estimated cost of the proposal is “between £2m and £100m”.
CGI showing the proposed learning centre with a footpath to the newly-built Family Restaurant. Picture: Royal Botanic Gardens Kew/Hazle McCormack Young LLP
A planning statement says learning activities at Kew are currently based in a museum unsuitable for delivering the organisation’s latest learning programmes or ambitions. It says Kew has “relatively few indoor learning spaces when compared to other comparable organisations” like the British Museum and Science Museum given the size of its onsite learning programmes.
It adds, “Consideration has been given to dispersing programmes across the site but this has been discounted because learning programmes share resources and staff work across programmes when necessary, covering staff absences and/or contributing additional support.” Kew’s learning programmes are run by 60 staff and supported by more than 250 volunteers.
CGI of learning hub with surrounding laboratories and teaching spaces. Picture: Royal Botanic Gardens Kew/Hazle McCormack Young LLP
White Peaks cafe, in the northern part of the gardens, has been shut since the Family Kitchen & Shop opened in 2021.
Kew Gardens said in an earlier statement to the Local Democracy Reporting Service the centre would provide first-class learning opportunities for a range of audiences.
The Kew Gardens spokesperson said, “White Peaks has been closed since we opened the Family Kitchen & Shop at Kew Gardens in 2021. Next to the popular Children’s Garden, which opened in 2019, the Family Kitchen & Shop is a multi-sensory eatery offering families a place to eat and drink, but also to engage with the natural world and learn more about where food comes from, discovering the important role which plants and fungi play in all our lives.
“A learning centre on the site of White Peaks will allow us to provide a bespoke and fit-for-purpose learning space, designed to facilitate first-class learning opportunities and inspire a range of audiences – early years, school pupils and teachers, adults, community, and access groups.
“One of our priorities in Kew’s Manifesto for change is to inspire the next generation, we aim to increase the numbers of secondary school pupils visiting Kew Gardens and encourage them to consider plant and fungal science as a career choice, and we hope to enable expansion of learning programmes at Kew onsite through increased indoor space and offsite through live streaming plant science lessons to pupils and teachers in the UK and internationally. Plans for the learning centre are currently in the planning permission phase.”
The White Peaks Café in Kew Gardens. Picture: Steve Daniels
The council will decide on the application in due course.
Kew Gardens has been contacted for further comment.
Charlotte Lillywhite - Local Democracy Reporter