Richmond’s council has approved plans to improve buildings and the surrounding land near Roehampton Gate, a main entrance to the 2,500 acres park in southwest London, since they are in poor condition.
The Royal Parks will demolish the Roehampton Café, two bathrooms and a bicycle rental installation on the site and will replace them with modern buildings.
Current facilities are temporary structures installed in 2004 after a fire destroyed the original buildings.
The documents submitted with the application said: “All these are of very poor quality and require replacement in the near future.
“Despite the poor quality of the existing facilities, the site remains very popular and long bars are formed for both catering and public bathrooms, which shows that it is a strong demand for facilities in this place.”
The Council Planning Committee unanimously approved the scheme on April 9.
Paul Richards, manager of Richmond Park, said the plans will “dramatically” improve the area for visitors, partly young families.
Mr. Richards said: “I They would think that everyone would agree that obsolete coffee needs replacement and the landscape that needs a significant improvement.
“The Royal Parks is very happy to be in a position in which an approach to this proposed scheme allows us to progress with a new replacement of purpose compensation and the significant associated landscape improvements that will come with it.”
The new coffee will have interior and exterior seats, with sufficient space to cope with an increase in the number of visitors.
Public baths will be built in a more accessible area closer to coffee, along with two accessible bathrooms and a baby change installation.
The surrounding landscape will improve with more trees and plants, while a new pedestrian door will be added to the park from Alton Estate, in Roehampton.
The entrance to the Roehampton Gate parking will move to its north end to make it safer for pedestrians and cyclists.
Two parking sections will become parking bays for disabled to increase the number of accessible bays from four to 14.
The total number of car parking spaces will be reduced from 245 to 225.
