London Society Journal Autumn/Winter 2016

Est. 1912

The Aim of the Society is to stimulate a wider concern for the beauty of the capital city, for the preservation of its charms and the careful consideration of its developments.

LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 1

13/11/2016 19:40:16

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016 - MASTHEAD

editor@londonsociety.org.uk

Editor

Deputy Editor

David Michon

Editorial sub-committee

Jessica Cargill Thompson

Kathryn Firth Jonathan Manns David Michon Mark Prizeman

Art Director

Lucy Smith, HTA Design LLP

The London Society Registered Charity 206270 Mortimer Wheeler House, 46 Eagle Wharf Road, London N1 7ED www.londonsociety.org.uk President: HRH The Duke of Gloucester KG GCVO Chair: Peter Murray Vice Chair: Neil Bennett Vice Chair: Clive Price Secretary: Mark Prizeman Treasurer: Nick McKeogh

Executive Committee 2016 Duncan Bowie Patricia Brown Michael Coupe Benjamin Derbyshire Kathryn Firth

Richard Harden Susan Holder Jonathan Manns David Michon Eric Sorensen

Staff: Director: Don Brown Administrator: Jane Jephcote Events Coordinator: Rowena Ellims

Honorary Life Member Gayne Wells www.londonsociety.org.uk

Cover illustration: Photography by Alexander Christie, Illustration by Lucy Smith Endpapers: Typography by Lucy Smith

2 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 2

13/11/2016 19:40:16

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0 - S U P P O R T E R S

Our thanks to our Corporate Supporters:

Corporate Supporters help the work of the Society by providing much-needed funds for our administration and marketing. In return Supporters receive: • up to five free tickets for all talks, lectures, debates and social events • an unlimited number of members’ rate tickets for all walks, tours and other events • five copies of each issue of the twice-yearly London Society Journal and of each new Society White Paper • company logos on the Society website and within the Journal • invitations to attend the All Party Parliamentary Group on London’s Planning and Built Environment (usually held at Westminster) • a digital copy of Planning in London, the quarterly magazine produced by the London Planning Forum • the opportunity to organise events (such as building tours) for Society members, or to sponsor drinks at the Society’s other events If your organisation supports the objects and activities of the Society and would like to become a Corporate Supporter, email director@londonsociety.org.uk for more information.

3 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 3

13/11/2016 19:40:17

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016 - CONTENTS

Buried - Credit: Alexander Christie

Chair’s letter

Timeless London

by Mr Whisper

— PAGE 7

— PAGE 26

Editor’s note

Oh Canada!

by Kathryn Firth

— PAGE 9

Ch, ch, ch, changes

by Cecil Sagoe, Peter Watts, Jessica Cargill Thompson, Jonathan Manns

— PAGE 36

The view from outside

by Tom Haworth

— PAGE 10

— PAGE 40

Missed opportunity

by Janice Morphet

The battle for our city's estates

by Ben Derbyshire

— PAGE 22

— PAGE 46

4 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 4

13/11/2016 19:40:17

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

Last days of summer - Credit: Mr Whisper

Towards superdensity

by Claire Bennie

Join the London Society — PAGE 62

— PAGE 52

Upcoming events

Build your own London library

by Peter Watts

— PAGE 64

Book reviews

— PAGE 56

— PAGE 66

A London notebook

by Geoff Tuffs — PAGE 60

Contents

Views expressed within the Journal are those of the individual writers and not necessarily those of the London Society as a whole.

5 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 5

13/11/2016 19:40:30

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

Shard Views - Credit: Mr Whisper 6 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 6

13/11/2016 19:40:52

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0 - C H A I R ' S L E T T E R

Chair’s Letter

This is a timely issue of the London Society's journal. As mayor Sadiq Khan and his deputy mayor for planning Jules Pipe start to formulate the new London Plan, which will determine the shape of the capital in the first half of this century, the editors look at big city issues: the development of West London, the Olympic legacy and Old Kent Road. The EU’s Urban Agenda, eight years in the making, is also covered; the fact that so few people knew about it is symptomatic of the lack of communication between Europe and the UK, surely one of the key reasons for the success of Vote Leave.

The fact that the London Society was responsible for the first London Plan in 1918 behoves us to take a keen interest in the debate surrounding the next one. Our original plan proposed a Green Belt, but it was only a sliver compared to the huge areas that are protected today. We produced a White Paper on the topic last year and proposed that a review be carried out as to the Green Belt’s fitness for purpose. A second White Paper on the intensification of suburbia looks at making more efficient use of low-density land in outer London and raises key issues that Jules Pipe cannot ignore. Our third White Paper, launched in October and introduced in this issue, studies the potential of West London, something that is recognised in the GLA’s own plans for City in the West to balance their older proposals for City in the East.

These represent continuing, substantial change in the fabric of the city in order to accommodate the population growth. One of the key questions the Mayor should ask is: 'What sort of place are we creating?' In a period when planning departments are being decimated by spending cuts, where are the skills to plan places of real quality? While single ownership sites like King’s Cross or Canada Water can benefit from the skills of masterplanners, multi-owned opportunity areas at best have a planning framework that lacks the rigour required to ensure that neighbouring owners cooperate to create coherent pieces of city.

London in the future will have to be more dense; sometimes this will mean building higher, sometimes it will mean designing medium-height buildings that can accommodate the sorts of numbers per hectare of places like Knightsbridge and Kensington. By requiring physical plans that give citizens some idea of the changing shape of the city, the Mayor can provide greater certainty for both developers and local communities, which will speed up delivery as well as creating a better city.

— Peter Murray, Chair

7 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 7

13/11/2016 19:41:05

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

Sunset - Credit: Mr Whisper 8 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 8

13/11/2016 19:41:12

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0 - E D I T O R ' S N O T E

Editor’s Note

This issue of the Journal of the London Society is decidedly quite diverse – the theme is loose, taking a moment to reflect on some of the major issues facing this city. From the potential impacts of Brexit to the ruminations of necessarily suburban relocation and the layers of urban changes in London, through one man’s commute into town.

London faces challenges that come at it from every level: the influence of global finance, national political changes and local planning decisions. They are challenges that effect both how we’ve come to perceive London – as open, welcoming to the world – and also in our daily experience of it – houses prices or rents, cycling infrastructure.

In this issue, we speak to Janice Morphet of the Bartlett School of Planning about the EU’s urban agenda, agreed to in May of 2016 – what is it we should be trying to keep? We ask three writers to explore areas in London experiencing radical redevelopment – the Olympic Park, Battersea Power Station and the Old Kent Road – and look at the society's own proposals for change in West London, recently published in its third White Paper.

For a taste of what is happening elsewhere, we meet Toronto’s dynamic chief planner, Jennifer Keesmaat, who has been pushing an agenda of quality of life, walkability and greening of the city since taking her post in 2012.

And finally, as an antidote to the pervading mood of change and uncertainty, a photoessay musing on the themes of consistency and timelessness from one of the city's documentarians, the evocatively named Mr Whisper.

— David Michon, Editor

9 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 9

13/11/2016 19:41:19

In Lieu - Credit: Alexander Christie

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

Ch, ch, ch, ch, changes

LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 10

13/11/2016 19:41:19

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

A medley of the capital's regeneration hotspots – will they be hits, or are they tarnished by a few bum notes?

Perhaps more than usual, the city is in flux, and flux itself seems the only constant amid these ever-shifting geographies. To launch this issue we focus on four areas whose turn it is to take on the responsibility of regeneration, each at different stages along very similar trajectories. First, there's the legacy of Stratford's Olympic area – a popular new park and vibrant new postcode, but has it kept its affordable housing promises?; then the decades-long saga and multiple false starts of Battersea Power Station as it finally prepares for its first residents. Looking to the future, there's the much maligned Old Kent Road, recently rebranded as a two-mile 'opportunity area'; and out-offavour West London, about to begin the task of dragging attention back from current hip kid, East London.

There's head-turning world-class architecture but also stories of existing local communities feeling manhandled, pushed out and ignored. Can those projects that still have everything to play for learn from the recent past and allow Londoners to steer these city-defining projects towards their own future rather than one imagined for, or without, them?

Photography by Alexander Christie. He is a London based visual artist and graduate from the Royal College of Art. As part of an ongoing body of work, Alexander has been investigating the shifting social structure of London through its architecture and urban environments. alexanderchristie.co.uk 11

LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 11

13/11/2016 19:41:19

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

Ch, ch, ch, ch, changes

Olympic Park housing

by Cecil Sagoe

‘Our vision for an Olympic legacy is that within 20 years the residents who will host the world’s biggest event will enjoy the same social and economic chances as their neighbours across London.’

This statement comes from the Olympic host boroughs’ 2009 Strategic Regeneration Framework Report, and indicates their ostensible intent to use the Olympics to bring about positive regeneration outcomes for existing local communities. The framework avows that the supply of new homes in London’s Olympic area must ‘demonstrably respond to social needs’. Indeed, these legacy promises were the central reason why London won the 2012 Olympic bid. But to what extent has this vision been realised?

Charged with delivering this housing objective, and with planning for the wider regeneration of London’s Olympic area, is the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC). The LLDC’s establishment in 2012 continues a long trend of using development corporations (the London Docklands Development Corporation and the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation) to deliver large-scale urban development in East London.

The LLDC is planning to deliver in excess of 24,000 homes within its planning boundary, homes it says it will ensure will be ‘accessible to and affordable for a broad spectrum’ of the local community. But, a close look at the LLDC’s affordable housing plans for its planning boundary does make one question the extent to which local housing need will be met.

A 2013 report produced by Opinion Research Services highlights that the LLDC have an ‘affordable housing requirement of amounting to more than 100 per cent of planned dwelling delivery in the study area’. Yet, the LLDC has only adopted a 35 per cent ‘affordable’ housing target. Congruent with hegemonic planning practice, this target was adopted by the LLDC in light of largely profit-making ‘viability’ considerations.

‘Viability’ considerations – encompassing a requirement for development on the Olympic Park to contribute to paying back the £425m that government borrowed from the Big Lottery Fund in 2007 to help cover the Olympics budget – have also meant that the first two neighbourhoods to be developed as part of the Olympic Legacy Communities Scheme will not meet the LLDC’s ‘affordable’ housing target.

12

LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 12

13/11/2016 19:41:19

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

Credit: Jessica Cargill Thompson

‘Our vision for an Olympic legacy is that within 20 years the residents who will host the world’s biggest event will enjoy the same social and economic chances as their neighbours across London.’

Within Chobham Manor, which will eventually provide 828 homes (and had its first residents move in late 2015), only 28 per cent of housing will be ‘affordable’. Within East Wick, where construction was due to begin in September 2016 to develop approximately 870 homes, only 30 per cent of housing will be ‘affordable’.

The LLDC’s housing plans for some of its existing neighbourhoods are also a source of controversy. For example, following Newham Council’s’ desires, the LLDC is planning to extensively redevelop the Greater Carpenters Neighbourhood in Stratford. If these provisional redevelopment plans are to go ahead, we

will witness another brutal break up of a council housing estate (the Carpenters Estate) within London.

The LLDC’s housing plans have not gone uncontested. Notably, within the Greater Carpenters Neighbourhood a multi-faceted campaign developed by local residents is seeking to ensure that the LLDC’s future plans for Greater Carpenters meet the needs of local working class communities. Indeed, it is likely to be the success of such campaigns that will enable social need, not financial greed, to take centre stage in shaping housing outcomes in London’s Olympic area.

Cecil Sagoe is a geography PhD candidate at University College London. His research focuses on politics and planning for housing within the London Legacy Development Corporation planning area 13 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 13

13/11/2016 19:41:21

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

Ch, ch, ch, ch, changes

Battersea Power Station

by Peter Watts

For so long London’s best known and most lamented ruin, Battersea Power Station is now one of the most high-profile examples of London’s demographic and architectural transformation as Scott’s masterwork becomes the centrepiece for a contemporary development of high-rise apartments designed by architects of the standing of Foster and Gehry, and aimed squarely at international investors.

The various schemes proposed by different owners since the power station stopped producing electricity in 1983 have always reflected contemporary fads rather than anticipated the city’s future needs, and the current scheme exemplifies the shortcomings of this approach. Moreover, the new buildings – paid for by the Malaysian state property fund – obstruct long-cherished views of the power station for Londoners, while their garish architecture could not be less sympathetic to the understated magnificence of Battersea.

The development is for a mixed-use £8-billion scheme of 3,500 apartments, offices and shops, with the power station becoming effectively a giant shopping and leisure centre with penthouses, completely surrounded by blocks of flats and hotels. While the first residents are due

to move in this year, overall completion will not be until at least 2025.

It didn’t have to be this way of course, but it was likely ever since the building passed from state ownership to private hands with unseemly haste during the privatisation boom of the 1980s, waved on by the fiercely Thatcherite controlling local council. Londoners have awaited Battersea’s rejuvenation for decades, but it now comes at a time when these sort of unimaginative, out-of-scale developments are popping up all over the city. As a result, the power station’s transformation is not being received with much enthusiasm; rather it feels as if a beloved building is being taken from our bosom and handed over to the super rich as a brand or emblem that survives only because it helps them sell flats to each other.

Peter Watts is the author of Up In Smoke: The Failed Dreams Of Battersea Power Station, published by Paradise Road

14 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 14

13/11/2016 19:41:22

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

A new vision - Credit: Alexander Christie

15 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 15

13/11/2016 19:41:22

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

Ch, ch, ch, ch, changes

Old Kent Road

by Jessica Cargill Thompson

For decades the Old Kent Road has been little more than a metaphor to most people: the cheapest property on the Monopoly board, an unappealing dull brown encapsulating the cheerless facades of this two-mile, traffic-infested, thoroughfare. Forgotten are its boxing gyms and 20th century music-hall heyday; the fanfares afforded kings as they returned to London triumphant from the continent; the generations of farmers who'd bring hops, fruit and other riches up from the garden of England; the pilgrims whose journeys Canterbury-wards inspired Chaucer.

Until now. The glamorisation of the Elephant & Castle, and the choice of Old Kent Road as TfL's preferred route of the Bakerloo Line extension, not to mention the capital's epic housing crisis, have made developers, councillors and the GLA sit up and take notice. An area of 281ha stretching the full length and both sides of the road has been rebranded as the 'Old Kent Road Opportunity Area' and an ambitious draft Area Action Plan (AAP) disseminated for public consultation. The 20-year vision sets out to provide at least 20,000 new homes and 5,000 new jobs, to transform the Old Kent road into 'a modern boulevard' and to make 'a new piece of the city'.

There will be tall, landmark buildings, fewer lowlying retail sheds and windswept car parks, and more green space. Southwark Council Leader Peter John has compared the scale to the size of a new town, and told a New London Architecture conference that it would be 'truly transformational for Southwark and truly transformational for London'.

Housebuilders, investors and developers are understandably very excited. But what of the people who currently live and work around the Old Kent Road? With some 800 businesses and lightindustrial units occupying large areas earmarked for residential and mixed use, business owners fearful for their future and have formed business association Vital OKR to make their collective voice heard. Council estate residents worry that they will suffer the same unceremonious fate of the Elephant & Castle's Heygate estate, cast out to the winds, and are slowly uniting as OKR People. Many complain that they simply haven't received any information, and that AAP documents are largely incomprehensible to the lay person (and even some architects).

At a community event during this year's London Festival of Architecture, the dismissal of the Old Kent Road as an area with not much going for it was countered with the forceful slogan: 'This is not nothing.'

The transformative potential of the coming developments is not in question, likewise the need for attention, if only to the road itself, and their ripples will be felt across Southwark.

What is in question is whether the planners can achieve their aim of turning a twomile stretch of the A2 into a 'place', whether such a varied area can be brought together under a broad Old Kent Road identity, and whether the local residents, businesses and stakeholders can muster the collective might to ensure that the Opportunity Area is a genuine opportunity for themselves as well as outside agents.

Jessica Cargill Thompson 16

LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 16

13/11/2016 19:41:22

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

OKR - Credit: Alexander Christie

Download the draft area action plan at http://www.southwark. gov.uk/info/856/planning_ policy/3112/old_kent_road or contact Southwark Council

17 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 17

13/11/2016 19:41:22

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

Ch, ch, ch, ch, changes

Go West Interview with Jonathan Manns

For its latest White Paper examining how London could be shaped and re-shaped in response to its current challenges, the London Society has turned its lens westwards.

Re/Shaping London: Unlocking Sustainable Growth in West London and Beyond, authored by preeminent British urbanists Jonathan Manns and Dr Nicholas Falk, examines how we might plan for the capital's growth, and suggest how this might translate 'on the ground', increasing the area's anticipated development potential.

We asked Manns to explain further.

18 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 18

13/11/2016 19:41:27

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

19 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 19

13/11/2016 19:41:31

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

How did this report come about?

Manns: The London Society provides the secretariat for the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on London’s Planning and Built Environment. The APPG commissioned Nicholas and I to explore options for London’s planning and development and agreed to this forming part of the Society’s White Paper series.

The paper suggests a 'green web' around London. Could you tell us a little more?

The green web is an entirely new concept, intended to respond to the present challenges of climate change, environmental degradation and urban growth. We suggest that, in some locations, green webs could replace green belt with a multi-functional green infrastructure landscape. The idea is about bringing built and natural environments together, but in a way which enhances the quality of each.

It's 54pages long — Could you summarise the basis for this report?

It’s quite simply really. The capital is confronted by a dramatic housing shortage, which is worsened by a lack of construction and a growing population. Re/Shaping London is therefore premised on the idea that we must not only plan, but also enable and deliver new development. It suggests various ways in which this might occur and strives to align interests to ensure this happens.

How would that work in practice?

We suggest that, within a green web, 50 per cent of the land may be developed and 50 per cent preserved in perpetuity under the control of a Green Web Trust. The trust would manage the green space and be funded through the change in land value arising from the new planning policy designation. It would work to establish places which teem with wildlife, offer opportunities for wild play to children, are resilient to climate change, reconnect people with food growing and encourage social development.

Why should somebody pick this up and read it?

I was arriving home yesterday when a tipsy pub regular stopped me in the street.

'Look at this f*****g w****r, he lives in a f*****g council flat,' he exclaimed. 'It's people like you that have destroyed f*****g London.'

He’d not only taken a dislike to my suit, but unintentionally highlighted precisely why this report is relevant. More than ever, London needs to position itself as a city of aspiration and tolerance, ambition and fairness. We propose mechanisms which might help to make this a reality.

The report also pays significant attention to West London. Why?

When drafting our report, we were eager to consider how some of the ideas might be applied in practice. Attention has rightly focussed on East London for some time now, but West London has huge scope for enhancement to the built environment in addition to a diverse, entrepreneurial and skilled workforce. It therefore provides the perfect foundation from which new and densified places could flourish.

20 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 20

13/11/2016 19:41:31

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

What do you suggest?

We focussed on a defined ‘western wedge’ – essentially a triangular area of land between Uxbridge, Staines and Hammersmith. Building upon the proposed intensification around Old Oak Common, we make the case for a new garden city at Northolt aerodrome, development along the ‘blue corridor’ of the Grand Union canal towards Heathrow, and a new Colne Valley Green Web. Sub-regional movement would be supported by a new oribital railway, based upon redundant and underutilised rail lines.

PAPER N O 3 PAPER N O. 1

Re/Sh Grap een insp g Lo raw ndl on OUn ur loc curre kinnt g Su affsta ecin tioab n lefor Gra ow prese th in rvati Won est Lo myt ndh?on and Beyond Jonath an Manns Studen ts of Royal College of Ar t ADS2: Amelia Hunter Andy Mat thews

Finally, what would this mean for London?

Our estimates are preliminary but indicate this could unlock capacity for at least 200,000 new homes and 200,000 new jobs. This is more than three times what’s currently envisaged over an even wider area.

Rowan Prady Jonathan Manns Benjamand in Turner Dr Nicholas Falk William Young

london society paper 3.indd

1 06/10/2016 11:19

Jonathan Manns is an urbanist.

He is Head of Regeneration and Director of Planning at Colliers International Dr Nicholas Falk is an economist and urbanist, and founded the research and consultancy group URBED

21 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 21

13/11/2016 19:41:35

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

The EU's Urban Agenda was agreed in May – weeks before the UK voted to leave the EU. Janice Morphet asks, will we miss out?

And how might other cities use it to steal a march on London?

As post-Brexit minsters and commentators continue their infighting on free trade and membership of the Single Market, and the impact on London's financial and professional services, one of my own major concerns is: what becomes of the new EU policy agenda on cities, agreed just a month before the UK voted to Leave? Will London miss out?

While the EU is at its heart an economic body, it understands that the economy is made up of many different strands, including health, quality of places, transport and people.

While we find what ‘Brexit means Brexit’ really means, EU members are continuing with their own agenda – including considering the future of cities post-2020. This is already happening without the UK.

Whether the UK is in or out of the EU, this future will matter and we cannot afford to be complacent. It is not only the larger national issues that will count. The major EU focus on places, particularly since the principle of subsidiarity was established in 1992 as part of the Maastricht Treaty, has been important to all localities – whether regions, cross-border areas, cities, towns or rural areas. Would devolution, a return of whole-London government, city deals or combined authorities have happened without the EU? And without these changes, would the UK still be a centralised state?

Much of the policy that the UK has agreed as a member of the EU is not transparent and frequently discussion of it has been discouraged. The result is now that London and other places in the UK may not entirely appreciate the support they have had from EU policy once it is dismantled.

The most obvious areas of concern for this city will be the removal of legal and financial support for some of our major transport projects including HS2 and Crossrail, and the potential loss of environmental standards, such as those for air quality. These losses appear in every Leave scenario mooted so far, but could be assured if the Government is willing to give parliamentary time and funding to replace them.

However, there will be other possible losses – ones where it will difficult to assess impact, because they are attached to policies and programmes that are only just starting.

Like all EU policies, the new EU Urban Agenda – agreed in Amsterdam in May this year – has been discussed and developed over a long period of time. The EU has increasingly involved cities in its informal decision making. As over 70 per cent of the EU’s population live in cities and urban areas, local politicians have wanted policies and programmes to address them specifically rather than continue to be organised in EU Directorate General silos. Transport and environment and energy policy are all

22 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 22

13/11/2016 19:41:35

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

MISSED OPPORTUNITY? Without changes, would the UK still be a centralised state?

23 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 23

13/11/2016 19:41:35

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

considered separately, yet it is city mayors and politicians who have to integrate these on the ground.

Politicians would also like a more formal role in decision making. The adoption of the new Urban Agenda may not have achieved this but from now on urban areas will have an explicit role in policy and programmes in the EU. This will be an integrated approach to investment, connections, the role of small business and the quality of places all set in single policies and programmes. The local politicians will also have an important role in setting these agendas and local priorities. This will start from 2016 and, as time progresses, these policies will become more and more developed. We can also expect to see a big step forward at the next major EU policy reset in 2020 supported within with the new budget cycle.

Although the Urban Agenda was developed before Brexit was on the horizon, the EU will now be very concerned that one of its only two global cities, London, will soon be outside its economic area. This is likely to accelerate the urban policy to the top of the agenda as the EU tries to find another city or agglomeration to take London’s place.

At the moment, the Urban Agenda reflects a shift in the EU’s priorities and expenditure to give it a city focus. These are high-level priorities, but they will have a set of policies and programmes that support them.

The first is concerned with new approaches to spatial planning and associated investment programmes.

As part of the Urban Agenda, the EU is developing a new pan-EU spatial plan that will be linked with future investment in transport and energy infrastructure. It will also be identifying those European cities that should be better linked into the EU comprehensive transport network and these links will be reinforced with further capital investment.

Funding for innovation, research and development and skills will also support these locations. Accompanying this is a study of all the planning systems in the EU member states and there may eventually be some linkages between the EU-wide plan and the member state planning systems. The last version of this plan – the European Spatial Development Perspective (1999) – was informal. However, this time the European Commission has powers to make this a legally binding plan that will promote specific locations and support integrated investment to them.

The development and application of these policies across the EU will be through local authorities. The UK has seen some of the early approaches to this through Growth Deals and, under the Urban Agenda, these are likely to develop into strategic plans and investment programmes across the whole of the EU after 2021.

The key approach is one of integration between all the components that make up a city that can promote economic, social and territorial cohesion including: - inclusion of migrants and refugees; - air quality;

24 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 24

13/11/2016 19:41:35

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

- urban poverty; - housing; - circular economy; - jobs and skills in the local economy; - climate adaptation (including green infrastructure solutions); - energy transition; - sustainable use of land and Nature-Based solutions; - urban mobility; - digital transition; - innovative and responsible public procurement.

Shortly before the referendum, the Scottish Government announced that it will be revising its own planning and urban agenda – it seems that the emerging opportunities are not being overlooked everywhere in the UK.

All this may seem a long way off and rather vague. Will it ever happen and isn’t London already approaching these issues in an integrated way?

At present, London may have an advantage in its governance system and is regarded as a model by the European Parliament. However, following the Brexit vote, this new Urban Agenda will provide the opportunity for many EU cities to argue that they need additional infrastructure and other investment to ensure that they capture London’s companies.

Cities like Dublin, Paris, Frankfurt and Warsaw will be particularly hoping to use this new Urban Agenda to attract many of London’s financial and hi-tech activities.

Meanwhile, there is competition nearer to home. Edinburgh will also be promoting its location for London’s financial services on the basis that it is strongly focused on staying within the EU whatever happens to the rest of the UK.

Janice Morphet is a visiting professor at the Bartlett School of Planning, UCL

25 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 25

13/11/2016 19:41:35

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

Timeless London Amid the uncertainties of Brexit, property markets, political fallouts and surging redevelopment, there's a reassuring consistency to everyday life in the Capital, captured here by commercial photographer and Instagrammer @MrWhisper, aka Bal Bhatla.

26 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 26

13/11/2016 19:41:46

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre - Credit: Mr Whisper

27 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 27

13/11/2016 19:41:59

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

Soho Vibes - Credit: Mr Whisper

28 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 28

13/11/2016 19:42:19

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

Cats and Dogs - Credit: Mr Whisper

29 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 29

13/11/2016 19:42:40

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

30 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 30

13/11/2016 19:42:53

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

Run for cover - Credit: Mr Whisper

31 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 31

13/11/2016 19:43:07

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

Home time - Credit: Mr Whisper

32 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 32

13/11/2016 19:43:34

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

Rain no shine - Credit: Mr Whisper

33 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 33

13/11/2016 19:43:59

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

Over the shoulder - Credit: Mr Whisper

34 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 34

13/11/2016 19:44:10

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

Web: mrwhisperstudios.com Follow: @mrwhisper on Instagram Contact: mr.whisper@gmail.com 35 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 35

13/11/2016 19:44:21

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

Oh Canada!

Cultivating Toronto's grassroots Kathryn Firth profiles one of the most notable urban planners in the world, Toronto Chief Planner Jennifer Keesmaat, to find out why grassroots politics is still important and how she’s tackling the challenge of the suburbs

36 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 36

13/11/2016 19:44:26

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

In the four years since Jennifer Keesmaat was appointed chief planner for the City of Toronto, she has won admiration from fellow Torontonians for her refusal to shy away from controversial issues, and gained a reputation as someone who gets things done. She is a proponent of densification, prioritising pedestrians and cyclists over private vehicles, reduction in carbon emissions and true mixed-use neighbourhoods, principals that fit happily into the framework of Toronto’s 2002 official plan, based on the principles of Jane Jacobs, who made Toronto her home for the last 38 years of her life.

From bureaucrat to advocate

When Keesmaat took up her position in September 2012, the Mayor was Rob Ford who was busy putting Toronto in the news for all the wrong reasons, his tenure being characterised by a series of scandals. The urban form of the city was barely on his agenda, allowing Keesmaat to seize the opportunity to engage in direct negotiations with developers and set in motion initiatives that regulated and informed building height and density. Under Ford's successor, John Tory, elected in 2014, freedom to implement her vision may have been curtailed, with his office imposing more scrutiny over the planning department, but Keesmaat is shrewd enough to know how to navigate the political system.

When asked specifically about the relationship between the planning department, chief planner and the Mayor, Keesmaat highlights the inherent tension between the role of the public servant, the person put in place to provide professional advice, and the elected official who calls on that person to realise a vision for the city that may, or may not, embody good urbanism.

The vision of the Mayor may come laden with an agenda that does not entirely align with what the planning department believes is best for the city. Keesmaat balances pragmatism with a more philosophical view, noting that, in the name of democracy, bureaucrats need to be given room to do due diligence, analysis and report their findings in the public domain, however, ultimately they are required by their job definition to serve their municipal leaders, perhaps implementing plans that represent a compromise. This sounds disheartening, but Keesmaat clearly enjoys the challenge. 'Planners occupy an interesting territory,' she says.

Keesmaat posits that the influence of a mayor is, not surprisingly, highly dependent on how she or he is regarded by councillors, or how much 'soft power' they wield. In Canada, unlike the US and perhaps more like the UK, the mayoral system is, on the face of it, weak – the Mayor only constitutes one vote of 44 on the city council, although they can, of course, lobby and cajole other members to vote with them. An unpopular Mayor will have less clout and that single vote won’t go far. In the end, influence is down to the style and popularity of the sitting Mayor – something Londoners can relate to perhaps more than they would like to admit.

37 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 37

13/11/2016 19:44:28

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

Grassroots politics

In the spirit of the democratic process, Keesmaat is a firm believer in grassroots politics.

She recognises that public opinion can hold great sway with politicians so it's essential to ensure communities have a clear understanding of planning principles and the rationale behind specific initiatives. This, she says, is the key to both good democracy and good planning practice; without it a city will lack the political constituencies to advance progressive ideas.

She sees planning as presenting opportunities to bridge the gap between complex city-wide issues and neighbourhood concerns, stating: 'Progress fails when there is a disconnect between constituencies at the grassroots level and political decision making.'

Recognising the extent to which she must, and can, build constituencies at the grassroots level underlies a number of Keesmaat's initiatives. As clichéd as it sounds, she firmly believes that unless people take ownership of ideas they will not advance – or certainly not without resistance.

Her proactive outreach is evident in a programme launched four years ago called PIPS – Planners in Public Spaces. Believing that the best way to engage people is to go to where they are already gathering, she sends her planners out to public spaces and places. This may be where a community event is happening, or it could even be an underground platform. In these public spaces, conversations happen about people’s future vision for the city, disaggregated from specific initiatives.

She describes this process as 'tilling the soil' – a form of engagement that is most productive when done before an issue that will be over-shadowed by self-interest is even on the table. She has great faith in transparency

and building trust, believing that if people understand the principles behind decisions and how planning can work effectively, they will take a more rational and considered view when a project appears on their doorstep.

Communication is clearly central to Keesmaat’s approach to achieving momentum and consensus around city building. Common to all cities is the simple fact that public engagement seldom reaches all sectors of society.

As the most vocal citizens tend to be white homeowners aged over 55, Keesmaat's Growing Communities youth engagement strategy, completed a year ago, takes into account that the fastest-growing demographic is mixed ethnicity under 35, of which 50 per cent live in rented accommodation. She believes in enabling people to engage in ways in which they are familiar – namely, social media – and launched a podcast called Invisible Cities. She also blogs and has published a series of highly accessible brochures about the city and how planning is working to improve Toronto.

However, she warns that in order to facilitate effective engagement, the planners need to do the research and set the scene. She cites as an example an initiative to restrict private vehicles on the busiest surface transport route in downtown Toronto, King Street, allowing access only to streetcars, pedestrians and cyclists. This was originally seen as a war on cars – Toronto has a very walkable city centre but its roots are still as a North American, predominantly car-based agglomeration.

Again adopting a grassroots approach, data was collected as to who uses the street, when and why, and who avoids the street and why. Sharing this information, a collaboration was formed with seven business improvement districts. By bringing key stakeholders in early, 38

LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 38

13/11/2016 19:44:30

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

they have taken up the mantle as advocates of the project, helping to build support across all constituents in an area slated for incredible growth.

around. That dynamism and 'soft power' she speaks of with respect to the Mayor needs to be present at all levels of the political pyramid.

She does not claim that there have been only easy wins but says once projects get realised and people see the benefits, subsequent projects are easier to explain and implement.

For Keesmaat, the best communities to work with are, not surprisingly, the ones who understand the official plan and how to read proposals, but to achieve that level of discourse requires a concerted effort on the part of the planning department. More than that, ideally the Mayor and his councillors will help champion initiatives the chief planner is promoting on the front line.

The challenge of the suburbs When it comes to implementing higher densities and public transport, urban dwellers everywhere are seen as easier to win over than suburbanites.

When asked about her approach to tackling these issues in Toronto's vast hinterland, Keesmaat again emphasises the importance of separating out the city-wide vision from the local, where vested interest tends to prevail.

She is fully aware that, left to their own devices, communities never want change.

This brings Keesmaat back to the topic of leadership. If you have a strong politician on side who can convey the holistic vision and explain to his/her constituents the advantages and direct gains of intensification or a new transport line, communities can be brought

Kathryn Firth is an urban designer and member of the London Society executive committee 39

LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 39

13/11/2016 19:44:33

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

The view from outside London's commuters are an essential part of its daytime population, yet are often prevented by rising rents and house prices from calling it home.

As Tom Haworth undertakes his daily journey from Newbury to north London, through streets he can only dream of living in, he muses on how the city might better accommodate it citizens.

I am consistently late arriving at Newbury station in the morning. With a hurry of bike locking, ticket fumbling and trouserfrom-sock untucking, I ditch my knackered old bike and surge through the barriers onto the station platform. Standing in the same spot every day awaiting the London train, an occasional nod of good morning comes my way.

I had every chance of becoming a Londoner. Lancastrian by birth, I have grown to love the city and it’s addictive energy. But ever since rising rents made it cheaper for me to commute from Newbury, I have developed a fondness for rail travel and the country lifestyle.

A newly painted Inter-City train rolls into the station and we all shuffle on.

The London Society was established in 1912 to re-humanise a city ravaged by industrial ambition; a century later the society has reinvigorated itself at a time when London is yet again in need of saving from the ambitions of capitalism. The private sector holds an unhealthy influence over the shaping of our city, made possible by a lack of central vision or sufficient regulation from the government. The Mayor of London must show the leadership and political will to legislate against the wave of development engulfing the city while simultaneously improving conditions for those in the private rental sector. Only then will communities be nurtured and encouraged to flourish.

40 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 40

13/11/2016 19:44:33

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

Currently working for a small architecture practice in north London, I soon hope to qualify as a chartered architect after several years spent in education. The rush of foreign investment in London and the city’s subsequent prosperity have afforded me job security throughout my studies, for which I am thankful. But this success has created an environment where young people such as myself have little opportunity to own or rent property close to where we work. London is a city of commuters; whose journeys are becoming increasingly nebulous as property values and rental rates remain out of reach.

My train sidles into the bustling satellite town of Reading, with its impressively over-built station lying in wait of the 2019 Crossrail extension.

The electrification works are reaching further by the day, just metres above the first Victorian infrastructure.

It continues through the green fields of Berkshire, punctuated by the urban sprawl of Twyford, Maidenhead and Slough. The post-war period saw a surge in housing supply in response to a dramatic spike in demand, irreversibly changing London’s surrounding towns. Today's problems differ, as we have an acute housing shortage with limited means to satisfy demand, all as a result of the planning laws put in place to stem the urban sprawl of the post-war period.

41 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 41

13/11/2016 19:44:36

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

62km On average, London workers who live outside the capital commute 62 km to their job.

Source: ONS, 2011 Census

Pushing out of Paddington station astride my shinier city bike, I head off down the canal towpath where I pass the longboats and luxury apartments of the Paddington Basin.

While a connection to water is alluring, the basin is squeezed between big infrastructure and big business. But the basin makes a valiant effort in connecting people with place, with bars and restaurants always bustling in the evenings.

From there I ride through Little Venice to cut across Maida Vale, avoiding the busy roads to the east. Houses are terraced and over threestoreys high, streets are tree lined, pavements are wide, and the small squares have benches and newspaper stands. The place feels as though it were made for people, but not for people like me.

Affluence is a common trait among the more liveable areas of London, the stucco faรงades and wide streets being originally built for wealthy families with servants, only to be quickly subdivided to house altogether different households as demand shifted. These houses are the legacy of extensive development undertaken in the late Victorian era responding to shortterm demand for generous single-family homes.

This can be seen today in the developments taking place at Nine Elms, Mount Pleasant and Battersea Power Station, where London property becomes a safe haven for foreign capital.

I am stopped on Circus Road by a lorry delivering steel for some new houses going up behind an existing block of flats. 20th century blocks of higher density, different from Maida

42 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 42

13/11/2016 19:44:41

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

The City of London has the highest number of people commuting to work in England and Wales. Its resident population of 6,307 grows to 358,266 on an average work day.

Source: ONS, 2011 Census. Figures include tourists and other visitors

Vale; are pushed back from streets thick with fumes, parked cars and distraught drivers.

Continuing to dodge the vans, buses and bikes, I wonder how much longer London can prosper if it refuses to improve living conditions for its citizens. For how long will the city be able to artificially inflate the property bubble before people can no longer live here? Perhaps more will be forced to jump the Green Belt in search of an affordable way of life?

The need to spend thousands of pounds on speculative planning consultations is reducing competition in the housing market, meaning that high-risk projects – like the one on Circus Road – are only possible for those with the resources to do so. This

frustrates independent developers like Gus Zogolovitch of Inhabit Homes, who has spoken against the cartel-like behaviour of the major housebuilders in a recent letter to Housing Minister Gavin Barwell. Therein he calls for more initiative and leadership to be taken by government at the planning stage. In the case of the Chelsea Barracks, the architect employed by the developer was responsible for preparing the zoning and density masterplan.

Why not the local authority? Could they not adopt Zogolovitch’s model of subdividing large sites to encourage diverse and high quality development, rather than the homogenous blocks produced by the big development firms?

43 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 43

13/11/2016 19:44:47

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

Westminster's population grows from 175,505 to 644,065 during the daytime.

Source: ONS, 2011 Census. Figures include tourists and other visitors

Heading north on Finchley Road, I pass more mid-20th century housing with a mix of Arts and Crafts inspired townhouses and Brutalist apartment blocks. With a final nervous dash across the Swiss Cottage intersection I arrive in Belsize Park, another generously planned Victorian neighbourhood. The work I do here is rewarding but serves only a small proportion of London’s population. Our clients generally own their properties and have the financial means to modify and improve them. Ownership fosters a deeper feeling of community but this is tested when objections to planning applications are made by residents and planning officers.

Too often I find myself caught up in week-long exchanges with planners about whether or not windows can be upgraded from single to double-glazed, or what green roof species can or can’t be used on a rear extension.

The ambiguity and nuance inherent in the UK planning system is contrary to our political and societal aspirations. Furthermore, it wastes public sector resources as we rely on precedent and guidelines as opposed to clear regulations.

The Mayor’s office must work with the London boroughs to create better design parameters for London’s existing building stock. These would draw on the success of the Permitted Development Rights framework, creating a user-friendly online interface that facilitates access to vital information. Planners

44 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 44

13/11/2016 19:44:52

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

Workers in London endure the longest average commute (74.2 minutes) compared to an average UK commute 54 minutes Source: ONS

could therefore spend less time disputing detail and more time working at a broader urban scale.

While gentrification is to be expected as part of a city’s urban metabolism, if this is allowed to continue unabated, the government will lose all control of development.

Consequently, housebuilders will continue to impose a private sector agenda on the public realm. The investment and planning strategies of recent years have galvanised London’s fiscal wealth, but at a price- the local economy has been distorted beyond the reach of its citizens.

Cities are not historically known for their fairness or equality, so instead I propose a compromise: restructure current planning systems so that we can enable more resources to be devoted to answering the important strategic

questions for London. By decreasing waste in the day-to-day operations of our planning system we will reduce the public sector's reliance on the private sector for guidance on urban planning issues. We need to think cohesively about what we want for London, and what we want for its next generation.

At just gone 9am, I arrive at my desk, despite my day starting several hours ago. The commute is done and the working day can finally begin. I have no doubt that my daily trials share a common ground with many city workers, but if we are to improve our circumstances, those of us concerned for the future of London and our place within it must speak up. Steady cash flow may be the lifeblood of London, but people must be at its heart.

Tom Haworth works for an architects practice and hopes to qualify this year. He blogs at tomhaworth.com 45

LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 45

13/11/2016 19:44:58

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

The battle for our city's estates

Cathall Road Estate, Waltham Forest, before regeneration (Museum of London)

Housing estates – morally owned by those who live in them, or public assets for the good of the wider community?

A new report sets out to referee. Ben Derbyshire, one of the report's authors, explains

46 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 46

13/11/2016 19:44:58

Cathall Road Estate, Waltham Forest, before regeneration (Museum of London)

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

The proportion of affordable to market homes is dwindling, the definition of affordability is shifting, the cost of market homes is soaring, and the buyers of those homes seem like remote aliens

Estate regeneration has become a controversial subject. The underlying problems that give rise to this tension also motivated four architectural practices, including my own, to join forces earlier this year and make a series of recommendations on how best to meet the challenges of today, published in a report: ‘Altered Estates: how to reconcile competing interests in estate regeneration’.

HTA Design LLP – and likewise PRP, LBA and Pollard Thomas Edwards – has been involved with the regeneration of housing estates for four decades; we started to advise communities and councils on estate improvements soon after the last concrete panel was craned into place in the mid-70s. Since then we have worked under successive political initiatives and funding models to improve, remodel or replace dozens of estates in London and around the UK – most involving some kind of mixed public and private funding.

We have seen what works and what does not.

There has always been tension between the priority to be given to existing residents and the potential of estates to increase housing opportunity for the wider population, but now this has become polarised into two fiercely opposed positions. In one corner are those who believe that housing estates belong to those who live on them and only their views should count in determining the future – and increasingly their preference is to be left alone. In the other corner are those who regard housing estates as public assets, which local authorities have a right and duty to use to meet wider needs – including more homes, at affordable prices, for middleincome households. The views of both camps deserve respect.

Many residents – and their champions in the media – think that estate regeneration is no longer delivering balance: the proportion of

LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 47

affordable to market homes is dwindling, the definition of affordability is shifting, the cost of market homes is soaring, and the buyers of those homes seem like remote aliens far removed from being ‘people like us who have a bit more money’. They condemn estate regeneration as ‘social cleansing’ and a ‘war on social housing’.

So, we need to be clear about the objective of estate regeneration: is it to improve the lives of those who live on and around existing estates? Or is it to make more effective use of public land to help solve the ‘housing crisis’ and widen access to home ownership?

Our report, based on experience, argues that with care, patience and respect we can and should be able to do both.

Estate regeneration in the spotlight In the 60s and 70s, nearly 3m homes were built by local authorities in Britain. Most of them incorporated new ideas about town planning, the design of the home and methods of construction. It is these estates that have been, and continue to be, the main focus of subsequent major regeneration initiatives, including David Cameron’s recent declaration of action on ‘sink estates’.

Cameron accused the worst estates of ‘entrenching poverty in Britain – isolating and trapping many of our families and communities’.

Like many observers, he appears to believe their sometimes Brutalist design is part of the

47 13/11/2016 19:44:58

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

No banlieues please, we’re British

We hold to the principle that our cities prosper best as places if we encourage the integration of mixed communities within them. Indeed, it is the essentially democratic and fair distribution of people from all walks of life, and the idea that citizens have free access to all areas on streets that are policed by consent, that has endowed Britain with enduringly popular and peaceful cities. Putting low-cost housing at the heart of revitalised estates is a key demonstration of this principle.

'Gentrification' is neither sensitive nor fair, but it is an established and inevitable form of urban renewal and its effects can be dramatic.

In the span of two generations the areas in the so-called ‘inner ring of multiple deprivation’ in London have evolved into some of the most desirable neighbourhoods. This has happened almost entirely as a consequence of private investment in property, albeit with a following wind of fiscal subsidies to support the process.

In our work, we seek to avoid the creation of neighbourhoods that are exclusive to either the rich or the poor. We believe instead that people from all sectors of society thrive and prosper best with equal access to the benefits of urban life and the opportunity to interact with each other both socially and economically. The dilution of concentrated social deprivation, and raising the overall economic activity in an area, are good things, even though there is a lack of evidence to prove that estate regeneration improves the social mobility of the poorest people.

In his study of mixed communities in England, Alan Berube of the Brookings Institution in Washington summarised the key disadvantages of neighbourhoods of concentrated deprivation:

problem. Regeneration specialists know that the issues are far more complex, but most would at least agree that design can contribute to the social and economic success or failure of places.

'Gentrification' is neither sensitive nor fair, but it is an established and inevitable form of urban renewal and its effects can be dramatic Whose estate is it anyway?

Part of the reason for this polarisation is obvious to those who have been facilitating successful estate regeneration for decades: it revolves around the concept of ‘balanced neighbourhhoods’. To obtain a genuine balance would require a wide range of housing types and tenures for a diversity of households across the spectrum of age, ethnicity, income, occupation and household size. It will also balance the needs and aspirations of all the stakeholders, including existing tenants and leaseholders, and also ‘outsiders’ who would like to settle in the area and invest in it if only the opportunity was there.

In our view it is essential that we are clear about the objective of estate regeneration: is it to improve the lives of those who live on and around existing estates, or is it to make more effective use of public land to help solve the ‘housing crisis’ by creating additional homes and widening access to home ownership?

Managing and resolving this tension has been a key objective of community engagement for the past 40 years.

48 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 48

13/11/2016 19:44:58

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

- high levels of worklessness limit job networks and employment ambitions; - schools struggle to educate overwhelmingly poor populations; - poor neighbourhoods experience higher levels of crime and disorder; - area-based deprivation exacerbates health inequalities; - concentrations of deprivation reduce private sector activity and raise prices for the poor.

The mixed-funding model (including public investment and cross-subsidy from market housing) has worked well in creating successful, diverse and financially viable estate regeneration, but that model does not work when public investment is reduced to a token contribution and too much reliance placed on the market. Estate regeneration is now under threat from unbalanced market-led solutions provoking resistance from existing communities.

We have consistently urged Democracy, transparency, accountability government to increase the role of public

Finally, we recognise the importance investment in estates. We have also pointed of the democratic process employed to plan and out that policies such as the Right to Buy and deliver any major project of urban regeneration. the Starter Homes Initiative should be applied Planning, masterplanning and urban design flexibly to estate regeneration, with due attention must deliver better and more sustainable living to local priorities because their impact can often environments, but there be counterproductive will be cost, disruption Planning is the democratic in areas where local and disappointment communities opt for process that legitimises the regeneration. for some. Planning is the democratic process disadvantage suffered by a that legitimises the Appraising the options minority in favour of benefits disadvantage suffered by

Those embarking a minority in favour of on the journey of estate for the majority benefits for the majority. regeneration should It is thus imperative that start by reviewing a processes of regeneration are transparent and wide range of options. They should ensure that organisations are properly accountable for the residents are involved in the process as soon as decisions made in their name, as indeed, they a realistic prospect of regeneration is established generally are. and always ensure anything discussed in consultation is actually deliverable.

Prerequisites for successful regeneration

Regeneration needs to have real Estate regeneration must maintain and enhance benefits for existing residents included in the social diversity: it will not succeed without offer from the beginning – why otherwise would the broad support of existing residents, but residents engage on other issues, such as design, it can and should also play a significant part until an affordable and secure housing future in creating additional homes for buyers and appropriately addressed. And the decision renters. on whether and, if so, how to proceed should

49 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 49

13/11/2016 19:44:58

Cathall Road Estate, Waltham Forest, (Museum of London)

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

The challenge for government is to develop policies that support, not conflict with, sustainable outcomes for estate regeneration

development should provide a variety of homes in a range of typologies to suit different households – potentially combining family houses with mid-rise apartment blocks and taller buildings for singles and couples.

Achieving sustainable outcomes

Regeneration should address the local housing requirements of the wider area and rebalance tenures to reflect the needs of all sections of society including those of existing residents, vulnerable housing groups, the old, the young and families.

We commend new delivery models where local authorities retain a financial stake in the development and develop housing to suit their local circumstances, leading to solutions that deliver equitable outcomes for the benefit of existing and local residents and provide revenues for the council.

New models of housing are emerging, including cluster flats and micro-flats in the

be decisive and transparent – in previous programmes such as stock transfer a residents’ ballot provided the incontrovertible proof of consent that is often missing in today’s policy framework.

Getting the design right

It’s important to understand the existing and historic patterns of development on and surrounding the estate, seeking to reintegrate the estate with its surroundings, making connections and reducing visible differentiation with the context. New

50 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 50

13/11/2016 19:44:58

Cathall Road Estate, Waltham Forest, (Museum of London)

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

Barriers and challenges

A combination of factors poses a threat to sustainable estate regeneration: financial austerity, an unbalanced housing market, public sector budget cuts, rising housing need, and public and political concern about the social impacts of regeneration. The challenge for government is to develop policies that support, not conflict with, sustainable outcomes for estate regeneration.

We look forward to the impending publication of Lord Heseltine’s Estate Regeneration Advisory Panel enquiry into the right approach to estate regeneration, and to the GLA's new policy framework, both of which will set out the conditions for successful outcomes.

We welcome rational debate on the issue. We need a planning system that tips the balance back in favour of the many, from all walks of life, who struggle to afford decent housing. We must move away from a sense that those who are already well housed seem able to deprive the same opportunity for those who are not.

rented housing sector, multi-generational housing typologies for extended families and specialist housing for older people. Some of these new investor-led products lend themselves well to estate regeneration: as well as diversifying the overall offer, they can provide a more stable delivery programme than sales products that rely on a buoyant housing market.

A placemaking approach to management is required to deliver lasting quality and liveability. This requires a robust, fair and long-term management regime both for market and sub-market tenures. Service charges must be equitable and affordable for existing and new residents, with a menu of options for market sale and rent.

Ben Derbyshire is Chair at HTA Design LLP and RIBA President-Elect but writing in a personal capacity .

With acknowledgement to the co-authors of Altered Estates, Andy von Bradsky (PRP), Andrew Beharrell (Pollard Thomas Edwards), and Matthew Goulcher (Levitt Bernstein).

The full version of Altered Estates: how to reconcile competing interests in estate regeneration can be viewed and downloaded at: www.alteredestates.co.uk

51 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 51

13/11/2016 19:45:05

Towards Superdensity

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 52

A recent London Society discussion probed the value of high rise as the answer to our high-density housing needs. Is it really the inevitable panacea it's made out to be?

The event's chairwoman Claire Bennie reports.

A range of scales at te Aylesbury Estate - HTA Design LLP

52 13/11/2016 19:45:07

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

‘The higher the buildings, the lower the morals.' This pithy quote from Noel Coward highlights the emotive and somewhat cynical tenor of the renewed debate around high rise and high density in London.

Two knowledgeable speakers brought more light and nuance to this topic at a London Society lecture and discussion, entitled Superdenisty, at the Cowcross Street gallery back in April this year. A quick show of hands early in the evening proved that very few of the audience had ever lived above the fifth storey of a building, yet many of us are deeply involved in designing or developing at these higher densities. We also heard a reminder that some of the best mid-rise housing is actually very

high density (super-dense 1930s gems Dolphin Square and Ducane Court top out at only 10 storeys) – so it’s not all about height.

Andrew Beharrell, senior partner at architect Pollard Thomas Edwards (PTE), focused on the most pressing issue thrown up by high density: management. As a higher-density dweller myself, I know how important noise transmission, bin stores and good caretakers are: and all this comes with an unavoidable service charge price tag. It is therefore important to ask: just who is managing London’s residential towers? The UK system of managing agents for apartment blocks is scandalously bad at worst and just about functional at best, so if Superdensity is going to be workable, these managing entities need to professionalise immediately. And who is high density living for?

London’s two eruptions of high rise residential house very different groups: lower income families in the 60s and 70s (a clear mistake), but now the urban rich. Today’s higher-rise customers could perhaps be people for whom the security of height and being central is perhaps a bonus, including the 70 per cent of London households with no dependent children.

SOM’s design director Kent Jackson took the audience on a rapid ride through innovative thinking on mixed-lifestage living at height, including the knotty issue of providing usable private or shared amenity space. No-one will forget Kent’s story of a covered rooftop garden on a tower, where a client had been persuaded to allow the introduction of birds and insects in order to retain the sense of a natural outdoor space, as well as providing crucial pollination to the plants. The technical implications arising from this madcap idea were both myriad and fascinating.

53 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 53

13/11/2016 19:45:08

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

Our pre-Brexit audience was in political mood. London’s latest high-rise boom was cited as a direct result of the persistently narrow geographical focus for economic investment, raising the perennial awkward question: why don’t we move jobs and people elsewhere in the country? Many nodding heads were observed from the floor, although it was pointed out that economic decentralisation had been tried – and failed – many times over the last century. But others pointed out that 30-somethings appear to be leaving London in search of space and life quality in increasing numbers anyway, hollowing out London’s employee base. Will this leave a Ballardian glut of dysfunctional high rises?

The highly contested issue of the future of 60s slab-and-point blocks was raised: many of these are under threat due perhaps to a lack of imagination on the part of officials who only see money pits. It is a topic that warrants its own evening debate, but recent re-imaginings of Park Hill and Trellick prove that concrete high rise can be rehabilitated to be very attractive to certain customers.

High density is neither a panacea, nor an evil, but it must be executed exceptionally well and tailored for the significant group of people who value and cherish the security, views and town centre locations, whatever their means.

South Acton, Ealing - HTA Design LLP

54 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 54

13/11/2016 19:45:13

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

P

Claire Bennie is an architect, development consultant and high-density 30s mansion-block dweller For upcoming London Society events, see londonsociety.org.uk/events. Free and reduced-price tickets available for members 55 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 55

13/11/2016 19:45:14

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

BUILD YOUR OWN LONDON LIBRARY Inaugurating an ongoing series of the best writing on London, past and present, London author and blogger Peter Watts selects some personal favourites from his bookshelves

56 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 56

13/11/2016 19:45:16

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

The London Encyclopaedia, by Ben Weinreb & Christopher Hibbert (Macmillan, 1983) The definitive A-Z of London history, fascinating, authoritative and absorbing. I much prefer this to narrative histories like Roy Porter and Peter Ackroyd. The encyclopaedia is now in its third edition – I have a soft spot for the second edition, but that is needless nerdery.

London writing. Morton’s other London books are good, but this is the stand out.

Shaping London: the patterns and forms that make the metropolis, by Terry Farrell (John Wiley, 2009) A fascinating and very approachable look at the tangible forces – wealth, topography, infrastructure – that have shaped the infrastructure of London. A welcome antidote to the formless tediousness of so much contemporary psychogeography.

In Search of London, by HV Morton (Methuen, 1951, reprinted by Da Capo Press) My single favourite piece of narrative London writing, featuring Morton wandering around the bomb-battered city in 1951, describing what he finds and remembering what it once looked like. Brilliant, time-travelling,

57 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 57

13/11/2016 19:45:18

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

The History of London in Maps, by Felix Barker & Peter Jackson (Barrie & Jenkins, 1990) Excellent and accessible cartographical guide from 1993, divided into sensible sections and well illustrated. There are half-a-dozen excellent map books on my shelves, but this is probably the one I’d take to a desert island (although the recently reprinted London Bomb Maps is a stunner).

Night Haunts, by Sukhdev Sandhu (Verso, 2007) Sandhu explores the nocturnal economy of 21st century London. Arguably supplanted by Ben Judah’s eye-opening This Is London, although I think this is more elegantly styled and has a better focus. From a historic perspective, Jack London’s People Of The Abyss remains essential.

Lost London: 1870–1945, by Philip Davies (Transatlantic Press, 2009) A magnificent photographic survey of London’s lost buildings from the mid-Victorian era to the Second World War. Available in two versions, with images taken from English Heritage’s archives.

London’s Lost Rivers, by Tom Bolton (Strange Attractor Press, 2011) For decades, Nicholas Barton’s The Lost Rivers Of London was the undisputed canon leader in this rich niche of subterranea, but it was transplanted by Bolton’s brisk book, which doubles as a walking guide and has ghostly images by SF Said. For a more general read on subterranean London, “London Under London” by the perfectly named Richard Trench remains the stand-by despite much competition.

Pleasures of London, by Felix Barker & Peter Jackson (London Topographical Society, 2008) Wonderfully quirky account of how Londoners have entertained themselves over the years, dabbling in everything from bear baiting to musical mice. Contains some absolute gems

58 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 58

13/11/2016 19:45:27

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

from the Georgian and Victorian era that more than make up for the lack of steam as it enters the 20th century. For a more exhaustive account of London’s sporting venues through the centuries, get the extraordinary Played In London by Simon Inglis.

It contains a series of essays about the city, including contributions by Helen Simpson, Will Self, John Lanchester, Hanif Kureishi, Ian Hamilton, Ian Buruma, Philip Hensher, Doris Lessing and Penelope Lively, plus photographs and a magnificent series of maps of ‘Literary London’ by Martin Rowson. I still await a repeat prescription.

London Peculiars, by Peter Ashley (English Heritage, 2004) Bookshops groan with ‘secret London’-style books, but these two fairly straightforward volumes of hard-to-find urban oddities remain my favourite. See also the thorough Secret London: An Unusual Guide, the lovely recent Curiocity by Henry Eliot and Matt Lloyd-Rose, and the idiosyncratic The Absolutely Essential Guide To London by David Benedictus.

Peter Watts is a London journalist, author and blogger. He is the author of Up In Smoke, the foiled dreams of Battersea Power Station. Read his writings on London at greatwen.com or follow him on Twitter @peter_watts

London: the lives of the city, by various authors (Granta, 1999) Granta’s London-themed issue from spring 1999 was probably the single volume that first turned me on to the concept of London writing.

59 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 59

13/11/2016 19:45:31

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

A London notebook

By Geoff Tuffs

15 February 1996: A Chelsea perambulation After a light lunch at the General Trading Company: potted shrimps and toast followed by caramel shortbread and good coffee, I take a 22 bus to Fulham and get off at Cristowe Road where we were going to buy a small house about eight years ago. I’m rather glad the transaction fell through now as these pedestrian Victorian properties – Fulham has a lot of them – have little appeal and it must be said that I would be unable to afford most of them.

I call into Christopher Wray’s lighting emporium – for once that word seems appropriate – and find they sell little of modern design. A little further on, I cut off down a narrow entry which leads to a new development of modest housing in the middle of which is Sandford Manor, a legendary old house somewhere off the beaten track in Fulham, or so it seemed to me. Well, here it is; apparently done up and even, possibly, lived in. It is a broad, five-bay house, two storeys and three well-spaced dormers. The front is roughly rendered and the windows, to the ground and first floors, are casements, the small dormers being sash. The rear and side elevations contain sash windows and are smoothly rendered, the rear thinly lined to simulate stone. The side elevation, the one I can see well, has three gable ends. By the garden gate is an intercom, which I press and it is answered. I would say the house dates from the mid17th century but the voice, after asking me what I want, tells me it is 16th century. Really?

I come out to Rowell Street and then walk to Lots Road for Chelsea Harbour. Lots Road – how redolent that name is to me of a dreary, poor and deeply unfashionable stretch of SW10. That was in my mother’s day. She was born in 1904 and as a child and young woman she lived with her parents and three sisters in Tetcott Road, close by. Her father was a groom.

The architecture in Chelsea Harbour is pretty awful throughout but, by the river on the 'Towpath', the pale sunlight is beautiful. The river is at low tide and the harsh cry of the urban seagulls as they paddle at the water’s edge is, for once, agreeable. The view across the wide reach to Chelsea proper is only slightly marred by the distant imposition of the Knightsbridge Barracks tower and the Hilton Hotel. Pigeons seem to favour the water’s edge as

60 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 60

13/11/2016 19:45:34

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

well but they are diffident about getting their feet wet. For me, the river is calming. Lots Road comes out into the busy Cremorne Road and the Embankment with its attendant houseboats.

The traffic is intolerable so I escape up Milmans Street.

I come across one of those delightful London surprises, namely, Chelsea Park Gardens which is really one road but somehow, by turning several corners, gives me the impression of being more. The houses are built of mellow brick; many have leaded lights and they possess a comfortable period aspect, although the period was probably the early years of this century or, possibly, the 1920s. The houses are bordered by the busy cut-thorough of Beaufort Street but within the Gardens the feel is palpably of a garden suburb several miles to the north, well within the 0181s. Another section of the Gardens is found just behind Beaufort Street, immediately to the east, and on their west side Park Walk is the boundary.

I take Elm Park Road, cross Beaufort Street, and then Elm Park Lane, a very nice mews, although it is surprising how the metalled roadway, rather than setts, changes its character. A minor observation; this would be a very desirable place to live. Elm Park Road ends at Old Church Street and this particular part is especially pleasant to be in. No. 25 Elm Park Road is a low-built, white painted house of indeterminate age. It has a Spanish tinge perhaps; a hint of the south, or Andalusia but no more than that. What one can say with certainty is that it looks absolutely right here in this street. Across the road in Old Church Street is a long, low, modern house – modern in the historic sense as I believe it is pre-war but I can’t remember the architect’s name. Again, it looks entirely at home in this street of mostly older houses. The Western Cemetery, a small Jewish burial ground, lies adjacent to the shops of Queens Elm Parade.

Geoff has been writing his London notebooks for 45 years; excerpts first appeared in the Journal of the London Society in 1998

61 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 61

13/11/2016 19:45:38

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

Join the London Society

If you want to join the debate on London’s future, while discovering more about the capital’s past and present, become a member of the London Society.

Members get priority booking and discounted rates for our walks, talks, debates and lectures. You will see inside important buildings (some not generally open to the public) on our tours, there are social events held in some of London’s most interesting locations, and twice a year you will be sent the London Society Journal.

Most importantly you will join nearly 1,000 other individuals who care deeply about helping us make London a better place to live and work.

Our motto antiqua tegenda, pulchra petenda, futura rolenda translates as 'protect the best of the past; strive for quality today; plan properly for the future' – a mission that the Society has promoted through its publications, events and lobbying since 1912.

Individual membership costs just £25 for a full 12 months, with special discounted rates for students and families.

You’ll find full details at www.londonsociety.org.uk/join

62 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 62

13/11/2016 19:45:38

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

63 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 63

13/11/2016 19:45:39

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

Upcoming Events CONCERT E SE U Q R ISH HERITA GE

B LU

16

RONNIE Green sprawl SCOTT Our current affection for

20

GL N E

S

E

A

IE

PL

PAPER N O. 1

1927-1996 a preservation myth?

Jazz Pioneer

Jonathan Manns Students of Royal College of Ar t ADS2: Amelia Hunter Andy Mat thews Rowan Prady Benjamin Turner William Young

C E L E B R AT I N G 1 5 0 Y E A R S O F T H E B LU E P L A Q U E S A joint initiative by:

Sponsorship Prospectus

For eventsthefurther into the future, as well The blue plaques scheme was buildings of the present.

Two classical concerts will full booking andthese venue details, visit founded by the Societyas of Arts Across the capital feature the acclaimed pianist in 1866, three years after it was plaques, on buildings humble David Owen Norris and cellist first proposed in the House of londonsociety.org.uk/events and grand, honour the notable Joseph Spooner with special Commons.

Now, after 150 years, the scheme has over 900 plaques to important figures in London's history. Some figures are very well known, others are more LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 64 of a discovery - but all have

men and women who have lived or worked in them.

And to celebrate this key 64 anniversary, The London Society is organising four special music concerts in London to focus on and

guests – these concerts will take place in Kenwood House and Eltham Palace, both English Heritage properties.

Two further concerts celebrating the lives of Cecil Sharp (folk) and Ronnie

13/11/2016 19:45:42

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

3 November Folk at Cecil Sharp House CONCERT

The second Blue Plaque Concert is dedicated to folk music, with performances from Stick in the Wheel, Sam Carter, and Lisa Knapp and Jack Harris.

7pm, Cecil Sharp House, 2 Regent's Park Rd, NW1, £10/£15

8 November The 2016 Banister Fletcher Lecture: Sir Terry Farrell – Shaping London LECTURE

Sir Terry Farrell connects London's past, present and future, exploring how the capital has evolved and reflecting on current pressures on the city and built environment.

6.30–8.30pm, St Marylebone Parish Church, 17 Marylebone Road, NW1.

Members & student members free/£7/£14

22 November Modern Craft TALK

Craft and materiality maintain their allure in architecture, despite the global age and rise of digital design. Practitioners Henry Squire, Roz Barr and Andrew Waugh will describe three recent projects in London in which handcrafted elements or overt materiality play a large role, followed by a discussion chaired by Susan Holder (ex Crafts Council), on the enduring appeal of craft in architecture and how it contributes to London’s architectural character.

6:30–8:30pm85 Southwark Street, SE1, £7/£14

26 November Behind the Scenes: The Restoration of Peckham Rye Station TOUR

‘Lost’ spaces in Peckham Rye Station, bricked up in the early 60s at the time of the Beeching cuts, have been opened up over the past eight years by the Peckham-based Benedict O’Looney architects.

The spaces include the large ‘Old Waiting Room’ and the 1935 ‘sanitary courts’ and north wing.

To mark the 150th anniversary of the Grade ll-listed station’s opening, the latest project is the conservation and extension of a fine cast-iron and stone stair in the building’s south wing designed by the railway architect Charles Henry Driver for the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway.

11am–12noon, Peckham Rye station, Rye Lane, SE15, £10 (members only)

2 December In pursuit of London: and evening with Curiocity author Henry Eliot TALK

Curiocity is unlike any London guide book you have seen before, over 450 pages of stories, artwork and curious hand drawn maps, celebrating the city and sharing its secrets from the Leyton Stone to the ‘Arcadian Meridian’ (a rival to Greenwich), via ‘London’s most apologetic building’. Enjoy weird and wonderful tales of the city with the book’s co-author Henry Eliot. The evening will finish with drinks, mince pies and other Christmas treats.

The Gallery, 75 Cowcross Street, EC1M 6EL, 6.30–8.30pm, £7/£14

65 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 65

13/11/2016 19:45:45

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

Book Reviews Zac versus Sadiq: the fight to become London Mayor

By Dave Hill Radical and Socialist Tradition in British Planning

By Duncan Bowie London Cycling Guide

By Tom Bogdanowicz/London Cycling Campaign Estuary: Out from London to the Sea

By Rachel Lichtenstein This is London: life and death in the world city

By Ben Judah London Plotted: plans of London Buildings c1450-1720

By Dorian Gerhold/London Topographical Society

66 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 66

13/11/2016 19:45:45

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

Zac versus Sadiq: the fight to become London Mayor

By Dave Hill, (Double Q Books, £6) take the safe route of opposing expansion of Heathrow and they both say they won’t permit development on the Green Belt; that, and a feeble debate about the congestion charge, illustrates the inevitable superficiality in so much campaigning, generally.

In my view, Goldsmith’s heart was never really in it. I remember seeing him at the start of campaigning at the Centre for London conference. His lacklustre performance was reminiscent of Ken Livingstone’s prior to his defeat by Boris Johnson. There was none of the vim and vigour exhibited that day by Khan. Hill perfectly describes Goldsmith’s manner in an LBC interview: 'His eyes frequently dropped and slid away as he spoke, even though his speech was confident and fluent.'

The most depressing part of the story is the role of fear-factor campaigning, a strategy that led us to Brexit and led to Zac Goldsmith employing dog-whistle racism in his attempts to appeal to Islamophobic elements of London’s electorate. Hill’s text suggests that Goldsmith was uncomfortable with Crosby’s strategies, but he still went along with them. The fact that the electorate ignored such siren calls says much for the city.

As a Guardian writer, Hill admits that Goldsmith was not his preferred candidate, yet he provides us with a balanced tale. He is currently writing a book on Boris Johnson’s term as Mayor. In Zac vs Sadiq he describes the current foreign secretary as 'an unprecedented blend of comedian, conman, faux subversive showman and populist media confection. His was a dazzling act.'

Dave Hill is one of the most perceptive and passionate chroniclers of London and this book, completed 10 days after the mayoral election, is not just a tale of two politicians fighting over one of the best (or, at least, most high-profile) jobs in the business, but a succinct summary of the London issues that politicians find important, or think that we find important.

Hill writes in his introduction: 'The book is about what the contest revealed about the city, about its people and the sort of place it is and could yet be.' Hill’s love of city, his acceptance of it foibles and contradictions, comes through in the rapidly written text: '[London] is not simply my home but a source of infinite fascination: an urban kaleidoscope of deep complexity, unending variety and enthralling change.'

In terms of environmental issues, clearly housing is number one, with Zac struggling to find ways of supporting Government policies and Sadiq pushing his 50 per cent affordable pledge. They both

Review by Peter Murray

67 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 67

13/11/2016 19:45:47

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

Radical and Socialist Tradition in British Planning

By Duncan Bowie, (Routledge, £95) Duncan Bowie is well known within London’s urban-planning circles and his new book, The Radical and Socialist Tradition in British Planning, is a timely and useful contribution to the profession’s history. Set out as a chronological narrative of radical and socialist planning from the late-18th to early-20th century, it’s intended to redress a historiographical imbalance which has traditionally focussed heavily on the influence of middle-class philanthropists.

From its beginning with early colonial settlements of the puritan and enlightenment eras, through the long 19th century to the Garden City pioneers and institutionalisation of the planning profession, Bowie’s history manages to synthesise key information in a manner that remains comprehensive in its detail despite inevitably needing to be selective in nature.

Bowie is well placed to have written this Tradition. A lecturer at the University of Westminster, he was previously an advisor to Ken Livingstone during his tenure as Mayor of London.

He also sits on the executive committee of the Socialist History Society, which, as successor to the Communist Party History Group, puts him in the footsteps of influential writers such as Christopher Hill, Eric Hobsbawm, Raphael Samuel and EP Thompson.

Where Bowie makes a clear break from this lineage is his tone, which is more reflective of modern academic analysis than the indignation of early activist-historians. Yet his work retains a discernible sense of rebellion against the ‘condescension of posterity’ as he indicates how the principles and actions of radical thinkers have been an important component of housing and planning reform, and consequently the physical evolution of urban places.

The book has a strong emphasis on London which, as the heart of the British empire, partially reflects where many plans were prepared. Likewise, there are points where the tone and analysis assumes an existing familiarity with the period. However, neither is enough to prevent a reader engaging with the topic.

The real value of this book may actually be in the lessons this history affords us today. It reminds us that planning is about choices relating to the type of society and environment we wish to live in. Also, that these necessitate decisions about how we balance public good with private gain. It reveals how the act of planning impacts on the market and vice versa; that land value and the control of land are fundamental to the implementation of proposals, and that decisiontaking needs to occur at different levels.

It’s nonetheless hard not to feel that this history has been let down somewhat by the publisher. The price tag puts it beyond the realistic reach of most curious readers at an astonishingly hefty £95, marketing it primarily at academic libraries. Even then, there’s a risk that it will struggle to attract those wandering the library stacks; there are no pictures or plans to illustrate the content and it is bound in an exceptionally dull, standardised cover. Bowie has published a comprehensive collection of primary source material on a separate website (radicalsocialistbritishplanning.wordpress. com), which goes some way to addressing this and which is a fantastic resource, even for those without access to a copy of the book.

Books surely long to have their spines bent, pages thumbed and corners turned. Bowie’s Tradition deserves this future not only as a matter of principle but for its contribution to the history of plan-making; a chapter in the story of how we have collectively shaped the places in which we live, work and play.

Review by Jonathan Manns

68 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 68

13/11/2016 19:45:48

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

London Cycling Guide

By Tom Bogdanowicz, (Lifestyle Books, £10)

The London Cycling Campaign (LCC) is best known for doing what its name says – campaigning for better facilities for cycling in London – but this books celebrates both the joys of riding a bike and the richness and delights of London’s built environment, parks, rivers and forests.

The guide has been put together by the LCC's senior policy officer, Tom Bogdanowicz, with contributions from members. Tom spends much of his time campaigning for 'miniHollands', marked by segregated bike routes and safer lorries, but he also leads cycling tours of the capital. Cycling is by far the best way of looking at London – you can cover more ground than walking but you still have a real connection to the places themselves.

The London Cycling Guide was first published in 2010 – the year London’s cyclehire scheme was launched – but this updated edition boasts how far London has changed over the last half a decade with a photograph of the

East-West Cycle Superhighway with Big Ben in the background and two Santander bike riders cycling safely along the Victoria Embankment.

This updated edition includes the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and how to navigate it – something even Google hasn’t properly learnt to do yet. There are some 40 rides, from west London waterways to north London heights, as well as useful tips for novice cyclists.

Pedestrians will be pleased to read the LCC official instruction: 'Jumping red lights and riding on pavements is illegal and can be frightening and dangerous to others.

Don’t do it!'

Review by Peter Murray 69 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 69

13/11/2016 19:45:49

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

Estuary: Out from London to the Sea

By Rachel Lichtenstein (Hamish Hamilton, £18.99) evocatively photographed by Simon Fowler, we meet a motley crew of characters: traditional Thames-barge skippers; the Fishwives Choir; mould-breaking nonagenarians; cruiseterminal officials; eccentric artists; cocklers; psychogeographers; and what's left of Canvey Island rock legends Dr Feelgood. Through their personal stories, each infuses the book, and this oft overlooked extremity with a powerful sense of place.

But all this peels back to reveal a darker undercurrent of fear and isolation; treacherous sandbanks; looming container ships; family lost at sea. We visit the notorious 'Broomway' – the UK's most dangerous path; abandoned sea forts resonating with the ghosts of Word War Two; and countless shipwrecks, one so packed with explosives it could send a tidal wave to engulf the Isle of Sheppey. The estuary is a special place, but not one to be messed with.

Estuary is also Lichtenstein's personal journey – a landlubbing Southender finally venturing out onto the water she grew up by; an East-London chronicler branching out in her writing by returning to her roots. And it's a privilege to tag along. Under her captaincy, the water shifts from a non-place – an empty expanse separating Kent and Essex, London and the sea – into its own county rich in life, history and shifting geographies. This is a joyous, though at times perilous, exploration that will have the restless urban reader itching to jump on the next train – or boat – eastwards for a taste of its salty air.

Where does London end? The edge of the municipal boroughs? The M25? The tentacles of the Tube map? The continuous built-up area currently constrained by the Green Belt? The economic diaspora of the commuters and trading goods? Or perhaps it simply doesn't. Rachel Lichtenstein's five-year labour of love Estuary is simultaneously an escape from London and inextricably part of it.

For what is London – economically, historically, psychologically – without the Thames?

The Greater Thames Estuary, explains Lichtenstein, is officially an 800 nautical sq mile area starting around Tower Bridge and stretching to Clacton in Essex and Whitstable in Kent. However she chooses to begin her tale proper at Gravesend, channeling the spirit of Joseph Conrad, then take us downriver past the Essex Crowstone and Kent London Stone (the ceremonial obelisks marking the limits of the Port of London's jurisdiction), and out to the Principality of Sealand, the North Sea platform ruled over by (Prince) Michael Bates.

Amid this landscape/seascape of vast skies, wild marshland and cruel tides,

Review by Jessica Cargill Thompson 70

LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 70

13/11/2016 19:45:49

I S S U E N O. 4 7 0

This is London: life and death in the world city

By Ben Judah, (Picador, £18.99)

Ben Judah’s eye-opening account of London’s hidden population of Roma beggars and street musicians, of West Indian cocaine dealers, Filipina maids, of pimps and prostitutes and African carers is a timely reminder of the changing make-up of the capital, its increasing levels of inequality as well as the wider pressures of economic migration which, Brexit or no, will continue to have a major impact on our economy and society.

It is a remarkable book. Judah has a real skill in getting his often frightened and threatened subjects to spill out their grim experiences of living third class in fast-growing London. This is London provides an important reality check for a city that is frequently touted as the world’s greatest.

The statistics are stark: every week 2,000 migrants unload at Victoria Coach Station; there are 550,000 Africans in London – equivalent to the population of Sheffield – up 45 per cent since 2001; there are 15,000 servants in Mayfair; there are 7,000 prostitutes in

London, 96 per cent of whom are migrants, mostly from Romania, Slovakia and Lithuania; 60 per cent of carers and nurses in London are migrants.

This might suggest that Judah’s book is a polemic against the scale of immigration to London, but it doesn’t feel like that. His portraits of those struggling to eke out a living, to survive in the underworld of London are sympathetically drawn. I was born in London,' he writes, 'but I no longer recognise this city.

I don’t know if I love the new London or it frightens me.'

He describes lives that are certainly frightening and he celebrates the resilience of those at the bottom of the pile. But was it not ever thus for economic migrants throughout the ages settling in London and working their way into its society? Or is the scale of the change we are facing in London so great that we are looking at a permanent class of excluded citizens?

Review by Louis Wilkins

71 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 71

13/11/2016 19:45:50

AUTUMN / WINTER 2016

Goldsmiths’ Hall, from London Plotted – plans of London Buildings c1450-1720

London Plotted: plans of London Buildings c1450-1720

by Dorian Gerhold, edited by Sheila O’Connell.

(Available from www.londontopsoc.org, £35.)

This wonderful compendium is published by the London Topographical Society and includes plans of individual buildings, alleys and city blocks. It draws together 200 of the best plans from 30 different archives while the text describes how and why London’s tradition of ground plans arose. It’s worth joining the society just for this.

72 LS Layout issue 470 AW 2016 PRINT.indd 72

13/11/2016 19:45:56