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.

Embankment Esplanade

1.1 Executive Summary

This is a regeneration framework for The Victoria Embankment created on behalf of Professor Mathew Carmona and tutors at the Bartlett School of Planning. In their work, CONNECT4 used the combined expertise of two architects, a geographer and a journalist. The masterplan and the principles behind it are inspired by the people of the area and the best principles of Urban Design, and in particular Kevin Lynch and Gordon Cullen. The ideas have been consulted within the community.

The Victoria Embankment is a key riverside location in central London served by good transport links (four tube stops, two rail links) and within walking distance of major attractions such as Westminister, Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, Convent Garden, The Strand and the Southbank. Despite such strengths, it is an unloved and little used part of London.

5.1 Vision Statement

Our vision is to release life back into the area by re-establishing old links and creating new ones. But encouraging people to come to the area is not enough. To make the Victoria Embankment function as a place for people, we must provide them with activities once they are there. Although Somerset House and the close links to the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square complement the cultural offerings of the Southbank, we have greater ambitions for the area than to make it merely an extension of this zone. The area needs to establish its own unique identity by building on its existing qualities.

CONNECT4 envisage dropping the old-fashioned Victoria from the commonly referenced title (although it could remain the name of the road) and rebrand the area The Embankment. This symbolizes rebirth and also underlines the modern attractions we are proposing, as well as providing a shortened reference that is as easy to name as the Southbank.

6.1 Conclusion

The Embankment is like an umbilical cord linking east to west and north to south. By improving connections and creating a new identity around the Embankment Esplanade, CONNECT4’s proposals will bring new life to both the area and the whole of London. Traffic calming measure will let the city breathe. The new 24/7 identity of The Embankment will harness the energy of the theatre district and Soho, with the Sphere nightclub a showcase for a young and dynamic city.

To see our project, click here.
To see our presentation, click here.
We were rating A (80-89%)

If Planning is anything, it is not Housing Market Renewal Pathfinders: the case of East Central Rochdale.

The spectre of rows of abandoned and decayed terraced houses in Northern England so haunted former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott that he decided a “new approach” (ODPM 2003 p 26) was needed. Heavily inspired by a 2001 report Changing Housing Markets and Urban Regeneration in the M62 Corridor, the government was soon throwing millions (and later billions) at nine areas it had designated as “the most deprived in the country” (ODPM 2003 p 24) in what it called a Housing Market Renewal (HMR) Pathfinders scheme. At the outset, there was no specific budget and “no blueprint” (ODPM 2003 p 24). The idea was to somehow change the housing market in deprived areas by tearing down old houses and replacing them with “modern sustainable accommodation” (ODPM 2003 p 24).

The essay will look at the East Central Rochdale (ECR) scheme (referred to in some documents as Wardleworth/Hamer), one of the four initial projects proposed by the Partners in Action (PIA) Oldham Rochdale HMR Pathfinder. After Prescott picked PIA as an area that should be funded,. the incentive was clearly to apply for as much as possible, and as quickly as possible.

“The council is promoting this because there’s money to be had from central government,” said Robert McCraken QC, respresnting residents of Derker, another PIA scheme (Minton 2009 p 86).

To read the full essay click here

The Economic Case for Encouraging Bicycling as a Mode of Transport

To read the essay click here

New life starts here

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. It is the first day of term. After much reflection, I'm embarking on the MSc in Spatial Planning at the Bartlett School of UCL, rated the fourth best university in the world.
I was lucky enough to be awarded a funded place by the CLG (Communities and Local Government).

Planning @ Glasgow City Council

Monday am City Centre and Clyde
Monday pm Environment and Design

Tuesday am Planning Neighbourhoods
Tuesday pm City Plan Team

Wednesday pm City Centre

Thursday Tour of the River Clyde regeneration area

Contact: Alan Russell, Colin Tyler or Stephen Turnbull (City Plan)

Olympic, Thames Valley experience with Design + Planning at AECOM (ex EDAW)

Monday/Tuesday – North West Cambridge – a major new development which involves both planning and urban design.
Tuesday – attend Olympic Legacy Masterplan meeting.
Wednesday – Moston Lane, Manchester
Thursday – North London Strategic Alliance site visits
Friday –

Contacts: Jason Prior and Cathryn Buckle

Journalism and urban planning

I have been interested in urban planning for as long as I can remember. As a journalist, sometimes I got to write about it, from Glasgow as the UK City of Architecture in 1999 (here) to the old Paris charm of Belleville, where I used to live (here)