British government faces day of judgment on 5 May

27 March 2011: Campaigning is underway in England’s local elections, which take place 5 May, giving voters a chance to judge the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government of David Cameron and their wide-ranging spending cuts. The opposition Labour party will be looking to better its strong showing in last year’s council elections, which saw higher-than-usual turnout as they coincided with the general election. This year, the vote will be held on the same day as elections to legislatures in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as a UK-wide referendum on changing the electoral system for general elections.
To read the full story, click here.

London GRO area

For our Space and Place B project, we rebranded the London Thames Gateway the London GRO area with GRO standing for Golden River of Opportunity. The requirement was to present a project for the Gateway as a whole, and on a local level for the Lower Lea valley, on two A0 posters.
You can see the results here and here.

East London will use Olympics to change negative perceptions

18 March 2011: When it comes to selling the East London borough of Newham, the toughest audience is Londoners themselves. Decades of industrial decline, joblessness, social deprivation and crime place it far from the British capital’s glittering West End. Jeremy Clarkson, a popular British television presenter, once described Newham as so far East “that it might as well be in Poland.” But decades of investment are starting to pay off: this year, Clarkson has chosen to bring the live arena show of his popular TV series Top Gear to the ExCel centre, Newham’s 100,000 square metre international exhibition centre.

To see the full story, click here.

Paying for growth with growth: MIPIM preview magazine

Scotland is staking its reputation for being a nation canny with its cash by taking the lead with a new financial instrument designed to help local authorities weather the crisis-induced funding drought. Edinburgh will be the first city in Britain to trial Tax Increment Financing (TIF), the funding mechanism imported from America to save mothballed regeneration schemes.

With the private sector wary of large, long-term investments and pressures on the public purse, cities are hunting for new sources of funding for long term projects vital to their future economic viability. London, Paris and New York know if they don’t find the cash to pay for better roads, railways and smarter city centres, they will fall behind cities like Shanghai, already a beacon for foreign investment and creative minds.

All sorts of different mechanisms exist, from the Urban Transformation companies in Italy (see box) to selling construction rights above previously allowed building heights in Sao Paolo. In the UK, great hopes are pinned on TIF, which allows local authorities to fund projects by borrowing against future tax revenues expected to be generated by the proposed scheme. English cities will have to wait to until changes to legislation which aren’t required in Scotland.

To see the full article, and another I wrote on the Barcelona Economic Triangle, click here:

If you want to read the full magazine, it is available here: MIPIM Preview magazine. (I'm on p. 32 and pp 60-66)

A critical appraisal of urban megaevents and prestige projects, focussed on London’s Millennium Dome

This essay calls for discussion along three lines: whether the Dome was an inefficient subsidy to the private sector; whether it detracted from the social infrastructure needs of London; and whether the benefits it created were distributed unevenly, increasing social inequality.
The essay will analyse each of these elements as regards the Dome, as well as more broadly by looking at the literature of other mega-events and mega-projects. In doing so, it will seek to answer two questions. First, is Loftman correct that large-scale schemes are generally delusional fripperies of political ego that favour powerful private sector interests over needy communities and waste public money? Or is it just that by their ‘mega’ nature they are merely a reflection – writ big - of the delays and problems faced by the common householder when embarking on home improvements? And is it inevitable that large-scale undertakings suffer under massive public scrutiny with inflexible deadlines (in the case of events)? Secondly, is there a problem with such schemes given so many suffer from cost-over-runs and delays (for projects), which means authorities should tame their enthusiasm for the mega? Or is there a problem with the way they are being judged?
To read the full essay click here