Walk Elephant: Doing the Walworth Walk

LCC partnered with various groups and organisations on a scheme to improve walking routes and encourage a healthier lifestyle for the local community in Elephant and Castle.

The future of Elephant and Castle is ever-changing says Jeremy Leach, chairman of Walworth Society. “It’s still got another 10-20 years of regeneration ahead of it, and we are continuing to work hand-in-hand with new projects.”

One of those is Walk Elephant, a partnership between Southwark Council, the Walworth Society, the charity Living Streets and other local organisations including the university London College of Communication.

The project began in February 2017 with the aim of improving existing walking routes, and creating new ones, to help residents and visitors get from A to B in the safest, greenest and most picturesque way. Another goal was to encourage people to scratch below the surface and uncover the area’s hidden gems.

With 100,000 people  living densely populated areas in and around Elephant and Castle, Jeremy Leach said the Walworth Society wanted the project “to focus on the quality of life for local people”.

Walk Elephant was designed to intertwine with the many new developments happening in Elephant and Castle as it undergoes radical transformation and regeneration. It links local parks, the current shopping centre and the Low Line, a new community asset made up of walking routes running alongside railway arches, connecting Bankside in the north to Camberwell in the south.

This also serves another aim of the project: to draw pedestrians and cyclists to under-used routes which take them to the River Thames. Jeremy said: “People don’t sense how close the river is: they usually get a bus from the top of Walworth Road, but it’s really not that far.”

London College of Communication was an active partner in the development of Walk Elephant’s positive outcomes, enlisting the talents of its students to contribute to the project.

Students from LCC’s Graphic Design course came up with ideas for the Walk Elephant logo and the design for the project’s maps. Jeremy said: “LCC are great at engaging with projects like this one. It’s always great to work with the college’s staff and students because they’re so creative.”

Local residents also played their part in the project, getting involved in walks around Elephant and Castle to identify opportunities for improvement such as new crossings, better landscaping and clearer signage in order to help pedestrians. Jeremy added: “It was done with local people to engage with them, and it allowed people to have their input.” 

Southwark Council, with the creative support of LCC helped the community bring the best of these ideas to life through research done by LCC students. The student’s of LCC researched into marketing communications in order to understand how the project could best be communicated and engaging to the public. The research resulted into creating communal maps and a website which people could use to continue to comment on where they believed improvements and green linkages could be made throughout the routes.

The maps show walking routes going as far as Kennington, Bankside, London Bridge and Burgess Park, with improvements plotted on them under three headings: Green Links, Low Line and Better Streets.

The routes they highlight incorporate ‘hidden gems’ such as the Charlie Chaplin pub, named after the silent films star who was born in the area, Pasley Park in Kennington, site of the former Royal Surrey Gardens , and the plaque which commemorates Victorian chemist John Newlands, who devised the Periodic Table and was born in Lambeth.

As well as helping people to explore local history, the routes also create safer, more enjoyable walks to work and school, aiding their health and helping London to become more environmentally friendly.

The Walworth Society was created in 2011 to help give local residents a bigger voice in the future of their area of South London, supporting them – in the words of Jeremy Leach – to “focus on change and shaping those changes.” 

Walk Elephant is an ongoing project, with regular get-togethers for community groups, developers, council officers and other interested parties to assess whether its aims are being successfully delivered. Jeremy said: “The idea is to make sure we are all still on same page. It’s a gradual process, and a challenging one.”