The iconic Camden Market occupies a 16-acre estate in Camden Town, north London. Over 28 million people a year visit Camden Market’s four developments of Hawley Wharf Camden, Camden Lock Market, Stables Market and Union Street Market.
Shortlisted in the 2022 NLA awards, and winner of the RIBA London Award 2022 and RIBA National Award 2022, Hawley Wharf is a canal-side development built on the former Camden Lock Village site. It includes residential units, offices, new public squares, an art-house, cinema, cafes, restaurants, a food market and a new local primary school. Before opening in 2021, Momentum worked with LabTech to analyse expected visitor footfall to the new market so that visitor and retailer experience could be enhanced.
Our client had two objectives. Firstly to check visitor footfall across the different access points to the market and avoid overcrowding, and secondly to ensure effective distribution of visitors across the area to avoid dead space, which could devalue pitches within the market.
Momentum analysed the existing transport assessment and carried out substantial analysis of CACI retail footfall data, mode share distribution and expected access point usage. Differentiating between casual visitors’ and local residents’ use of the site and analysing daily trips on weekdays and weekends, we completed demand forecasting and mode share scenarios, and calculated annual footfall and an assessment of peak internal footfall in this new part of the market.
We also completed a qualitative assessment of people movement behaviour towards Camden Market, looking at the main routes from nearby bus stops and train and Tube stations. With this in mind, we were able to make additional recommendations on wayfinding, wall art, use of entrance gates, improvements on crossings and junctions surrounding the market and the use of apps for travel planning.
We crunched the numbers to provide our client with actionable interventions, which we’re proud to see in place now that the Hawley Wharf market is fully open.
