Reasons to be cheerful?

This article appeared in the December issue of Town and Country Planning

Emma Vandore reports on the TCPA’s Annual Conference, ‘Plan and
Deliver?’, held on 30 November at One Whitehall Place, London

He told the sceptics to stop looking so ‘glum’.
Addressing the TCPA’s Annual Conference,
Decentralisation Minister Greg Clark told the
audience that the Government’s proposed planning
reforms aren’t about enabling the Home Counties to
block development in their backyard. Community
planning, he said, is about transforming the planning
profession from one of ‘development control
officers’ into enablers of community dreams.
It was a sort of British version of ‘Yes, we can!’

To read the article, check it out in the Dec issue here.

Lagos: Confronting Change in a Global Megacity

At an LSE talk tonight, the popular Governor of Lagos Babatunde Fashola talked about his plans to transform the Nigerian city. There was much talk about the glitzy Eko Atlantic City but not much about his plans to reduce the terrible traffic jams, which will be my enduring memory of the city. That, the constant traffic of riches aboard shippping containers (a reminder of what London, Paris and Glasgow must have been like in the day), being asked for 'protection' money on the beach, the rubbish, and shopping at the market with Buki.

Avoiding the traffic jams.....

Does each city have its own DNA?

Does each city have its own development DNA?

That, said Dr Kiril Stailov, is what his research suggests. He spent six months inputting data from Ordinance survey maps of West London which regularly (every 20 years or so) tracked changes in the built environment.

He used forecasting theory to predict not the future, but what was trended to happen. Ignoring the last two maps, he used a forecasting program to predict what should happen based on what had gone before, and the results closely mapped what actually did happen.

Of course, he had a role in guiding expecting development, telling the program not to build on existing parks for example. But he claims the program did forecast a number of development areas in the right places.

Which led him to believe there might be a development DNA, specific to each city, a mixture of nature and nurture (the way we have always done things).

Or could it just be that development happens around modes of transport? Only more research can tell....

His talk was entitled "Tracking the Evolution of a Metropolis: the growth of West London, 1875-2005." It was the first London Planning Seminar of the season and was held at The Bartlett.

season 

Merged local government planning services?

The prospect of merged or shared planning sevices across several local authorities was raised after three London councils said they will pool their main services in a bid to save money.

The Pinnacle, the Cheesgrater and the Walkie Talkie

Britain may be broke, but it's still able to attract money from elsewhere. The FT reported that mothballed building projects are being revived.

"In a move regarded as a renewed vote of confidence in the City as a global financial centre, British Land, one of the country’s largest property companies, has committed to build its 740ft Cheesegrater with backing from one of Canada’s largest pension funds. The decision to press ahead with the tower in the heart of London’s financial district caps an important week for the capital’s development. Land Securities, the biggest British developer, has also approved the building of a rival skyscraper, known as the Walkie Talkie because of its arresting top-heavy design. Both towers, which will open by 2014, had been mothballed during the credit crisis when banks and financial service institutions reduced their City teams and froze office moves."

Meanwhile, the Arab investors behind the Pinnacle tower due to open in 2012 start signing future tenants. The 63-storey skyscraper will be the tallest building in the City of London when it is completed.

Planning Panic as cuts bite and uncertainty reigns

For those of us hoping for a well-paid planning job next year, Chancellor George Osbourne's 'comprehensive spending review' doesn't bode well.

The department for Communities and Local Government (CLG, (the body that funds my studies) is set to see its budget cut by a third over the next four years, including a 27 percent cut in funding to local governments. Housing and regeneration programmes have taken an even bigger hit, with cuts of over 50 percent. Capital spending will reduce by 74 per cent (sic)

With so many people set to loose their jobs (500,000 in the public sector, and knock on private sector jobs), and remain on housing waiting lists, we students and future job seekers have little to complain about - at least not yet.

Perhaps we will end up being the lucky ones. People working for local authorities or quangos like CABE (the government advisor on urban space whose funding has just been cut) will be feeling the carnage first hand, and I know from experience (having watched it happen at my previous employer The Associated Press) that it can be soul sapping even for those who suvive the cull.

We will also be spared the massive uncertainty about how the radical reforms to the planning structure will work (hopefully the government will have worked it out by then). Many of those coping with the changes at the moment say their suddeness (with little or no transition) and the lack of long term perspective is making it impossible to work. As humans we hate uncertainty, but the business plans of all sorts of companies are being binned as the assumptions on which they were based evaporate (how do you plan for future water demand if you don't know where houses will be built?).

There were a few clues today that at least the government is thinking about this. Charities will be one of the groups around which local groups may gather as power trickles down to community level. To make sure they are still around when the Big Society initiatives are announced next year, £470 million was set aside for voluntary groups including a £100 million "transition" fund to help them adjust to the tough times ahead.

But many questions remain. Who will take responsibility for tough decisions? What happens when a vital new facility is needed but NIMBYs say no? How to link national needs with what is going on at the local and community level, and how do communities make sense of this?

In a letter to local authority leaders, CLG minister Eric Pickles confirmed that Regional Development Agencies (who prepared strategic economic plans for their region and also distribute European funding) are being replaced by local enterprise partnerships (staffed 50.50 by business and local authorities). The RDA, which some government ministers apparently fought to keep, are among the loosers in a bonfire of the quangos that saw 192 bodies culled. The LEPs may get some of their funding through Whitehall contracts, but it is still unclear how they will work. Whatever their makeup, the question is whether they will have the right skills and resources to do the job.

As for housing, the New Homes Bonus is supposed to gives incentives rather than grants to communities that build houses which the government hopes will encourage building. The planned Localism Bill (first reading due next month) according to Pickles, "will go even further in giving councils control over the issues which matter to local people, including providing councils with the general power of competence they have long called for." But liberating councils from the requirement to build houses is said to be killing off 1,300 planned new homes a day

It seems that despite the crashing headline cuts, there is some wiggle room. Councils, Pickles said, "raise revenue from other sources" and "there is a clear expectation that councils will use this new autonomy to protect key frontline services." But they shouldn't raise council tax. Those that freeze council tax will get government funding equivalent to a 2.5 percent increase in council tax. And £1 billion will be snaffled from the NHS budget to "break down the barriers between health and social care."

Pickles is, according to those who know him, relishing his role as public services slasher. And he's not alone. According to the Financial Times, "Britain’s biggest fiscal squeeze since the second world war was greeted with cries of “more” from ecstatic government MPs as George Osborne, chancellor, set out plans for £81bn of spending cuts."

While it's true that Britain's deficit at around 13 percent is the largest in Europe, it surprises me how many people (including some teaching economics at masters level) mix debt and deficit. Britain's debt level at 56 percent is much lower than Italy's (at around 100 percent), smaller than France's (at 60 percent) and only marginally bigger than Germany's (54 percent). Budget gaps in the U.S (65 percent) and Japan are larger than ours. Debt is more important than deficit, which covers only one year, as it is this which we pay interest on. But it wouldn't help the government win support for rolling back the state if people thought we were in better shape than our competitors.

The mayor of London appears to have been a big winner from the changes, picking up the responsibilities such as those of the Olympic Park Legacy Company but keeping his planning authority as the regions loose theirs. Crossrail, London's new east-west rail line, will proceed as planned.

Still, many details affecting planning have still to be thrashed out and fought over. The Localism Bill will de debated in the Commons in December, and could go to committee in January and the Lords in March, with earliest adoption in July (although many see this as highly optimistic given the number of measures).

The government is also working on a national planning framework.

Some of it could be good news. Planners, I have discovered are disliked possibily as much as journalists, and if this is managed well it could help rebuild trust in the planning process. Consultation will have to become real, not just a box to be ticked as communities insist on a planning system that is responsive to their needs (whether they actually want to run it is another story). Before they have even started planning, planners will have to go and speak to the local community to guage what they want and need, which means my skills may come in handy.

Olympics: why do Britons want to bash their Grand Projet?

Once British glee about beating the French to host the 2012 Olympics had subsided, the popular sentiment was 'oh b*gger!' For some reason that I can't fathom, British people nowadays shy away from big public projects (unlike their French cousins who see in the vanity projects of their presidents a reflection of their national glory). I'm convinced it was this natural antipathy that did for the Millenium Dome, and not - as many in the media would have you believe - because of a mess up on seating arrangements on opening night which left many influential journalists out in the cold - and much worse sober - on New Year's Eve.

So what does this mean for the Olympics? Clearly noone wants a humiliating spectacle like the Commonwealth Games being hosted in Delhi. The public and the media will probably rally behind the Games in the run up to the big event (with a few side grumbles). But once the glory of the games has ebbed I predict a massive Millenium style backlash against the regeneration project.

Last night I attended a talk at the British Library on 'London And The Olympics: Predicting the legacy of the twenty-first century' , part of the excellent Story of London festival. Despite a barrage of stage support for the biggest regeneration project in London (costing £9.3 billion) from the people making it happen, the flamboyant Stephen Bayley, architecture and design correspondent for the Observer, gained the biggest cheers from the audience when he said it was all wrong. Rather than put all the resources into regenerating one of the most deprived areas of London (and the UK), a project he argued was doomed to fail, the government should have sprinkled the event around the city, making use of its existing venues. Bob Allies, designer of the Olympic media centre, appeared to sort-of agree. While that might have been a good idea, he said, the sprinkle effect would never have worked because it was the concentrated regeneration project the Olympic judges were looking for.

Arguments in favour:
Allies: connecting East London with the rest of the city. Setting up potential for the next thirty years.
Paul Brickell, Newham Council's executive member for Olympics, talked of all the private sector investment being attracted to the area. The Westfield shopping centre, destined to be the biggest retail centre in Europe creating 8,000 jobs, a project which pre-dated the Games, but would surely have been mothballed if they hadn't happened. The location of part of Birkbeck, the university for working people, to Stratford brings career progession opportunities to locals, as does Siemens £30 million investment in the area. More will follow, he predicted....

But still, despite the promise of hope for the impoverished East End of London, Britons are bashing it before it's even begun (the regeneration effort will mostly happen after the Games in 2012). The only people to benefit will be the developers who have cosied up the local politicians, is the common wisdom. On the one hand it is a massive waste of money, on the other hand £9.3 billion divided by 30 years only makes around £300 million per year, or about five houses on Mayfair. Which means it won't make much of a difference.....

Why this need to bash our Grand Ambitions? We didn't used to be like this. In the Victorian era we build great monuments, bridges and infrastructure, much of which (because we have lacked the will for big projects since), we still rely on today. Bayley argued that even the French have given up on their Grand projets, arguing that it's time for petit projects (he clearly hasn't heard of the Grand Paris project to transform the French capital by linking it with its hinterland in the Ile de France). But he's not alone. I've met up with a few friends and acquaintances in the British media and their verdict on the Olympics is either 'boring' or a target waiting to be picked on. Even some of my planning colleagues say the arguments are becoming a bit stale. Could this lack of enthusiasm be a sort of post colonial masochism I wonder?