Posts Tagged Planning policy
Prince Charles’s views on planning count, but so do ours
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on November 26, 2010
An over-centralised and opaque planning system is bad for Britain
What has turned so many people up and down the country against the planning system is a feeling that it has been over-centralised and opaque. Over the past decade, planning has been subject to national policies often in danger of riding roughshod over local interests. A witless new housing estate sprawling across fields here, a graceless new supermarket undermining the independence of what survives of our local high streets there.
Where local councillors have had the courage to vote against bullying developments, those in favour of them – notably large business corporations – are able to appeal on legal grounds, claiming that they are simply obeying orders set down in national planning policies.
A one plan fits all, however, signposts the road to a Britain in which not only is local democracy overruled, but each town begins to function and to look like every other.
The problem here is one of a government trying to hurry through legislation that may have huge impact on the way we live. Not all development is bad. Not all local criticism is nimbyism. What we do need is a thorough overhaul of our planning system and, yes, this needs to be far more democratic and transparent than it has been. We need local authorities to come up with their own alternative plans to insensitive and greedy development, and we need to teach architecture and planning in schools so that future decisions are informed.
The Prince of Wales should not be given power in these matters, yet his views deserve to be taken on board just as much as yours, mine and those who wish to see Britain, its towns and landscapes, progress intelligently and humanely. What we must abandon is centralised control.
Prince Charles offers to take on key architectural planning role
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on November 3, 2010
Prince Charles's offer to take on architectural planning role means he could extend influence over UK's skyline
Prince Charles is poised to extend his influence over the skyline with an offer to arbitrate Britain's most significant planning applications, a role previously executed by a quango that had its funding axed in the comprehensive spending review.
The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment, a charity of which he is president, is considering stepping into the breach left by the decision to withdraw funding from the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, which leaves its design review role for new developments in serious doubt.
The move to offer the foundation's own design advice means the prince's favourite architects could soon be providing verdicts on plans for landmark developments, potentially altering how they are built. Cabe had steered the design of 3,000 plans including London's Olympic stadium and Shard skyscraper, as well as dozens of schools and the £1bn redevelopment of Liverpool's central shopping area. Cabe's influence has been such that local authority planners have heeded its advice seven times out of 10.
The possible move, announced by the foundation's chief executive, Hank Dittmar, has been met with dismay by leading modernist architects who fear Prince Charles may use the charity to further his preference for traditional styles of architecture and that the charity could not be held accountable for its advice. Others accepted the foundation could bring its expertise to town planning and supporters of traditional architecture said it could correct what some see as a modernist bias in the architectural establishment.
The foundation is not seeking public funding but is considering offering design reviews for a fee, using a panel of architects and other design professionals.
Paul Finch, chairman of Cabe, said the foundation's interest appeared "predatory" coming only a week after the axe fell on his funding, and as the quango's leadership prepares a bid to salvage its design review role in a slimmed down form.
Finch warned the foundation would not able to serve the wider public interest owing to its bias towards traditional forms of architecture and urban planning.
"Stylistic preferences will make it more difficult for certain building types to win planning approval," he said. "The public interest is better served by concentrating on the quality of a piece of architecture rather than style which can come down to superficial visual appearance. It comes down to whether their advice would be independent and disinterested and they obviously have a stylistic preference."
The prince's charity has increasingly pressed for greater influence over Britain's towns and cities. Under Labour it tried to persuade cabinet ministers to use Poundbury, the prince's mock Georgian village in Dorset, as a model for ecotowns; advised the Department of Health on the design of hospitals; and lobbied the Treasury, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Department of Culture on design matters.
Dittmar says the foundation's design review panels would reflect a range of views on architectural style to fend off accusations that only traditional architecture would get the thumbs-up.
"To be credible, it would have to have democratic, independent judgment," he told Building Design magazine. "We would have to have a panel that was balanced and not exclusively traditional architects. We'd have to talk to our network and assess the market. It would need to pay for itself but we wouldn't be doing it to make money."
He told the magazine it will make a decision on whether to start bidding for design review work by Christmas.
Jim Eyre, a member of Cabe's current design review panel and the designer of the Stirling prize-winning Millennium Bridge in Gateshead, said the public and planners would struggle to feel that the foundation's advice was independent of the prince's own views.
"The prince has such a skewed and particular view of architecture it would colour their assessment of every scheme," he said.
Prince Charles enraged many architects last year when he complained directly to the Emir of Qatar about a design by the modernist architect Richard Rogers for the £3bn redevelopment of Chelsea Barracks. The Qatari development company scrapped the plan and appointed the foundation to advise on a more traditional approach instead. A high court judge described the intervention as "unexpected and unwelcome", while Rogers labelled it "totally unconstitutional".
This month Prince Charles published a book in which he attacked modernist architecture for "deliberately abandoning the grammar of harmony" which he believes "lies within us".
Letters: Prince’s plans
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on October 29, 2010
Your focus on allegations of a style bias (Prince offers to take on key planning role, 29 November) prompts me to disclose the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment' underlying principles. Unlike the critical elite, with its allegiance to often vain statement buildings by famous architects, our bias is toward design in service of walkable, mixed-use neighbourhoods, linked by streets and squares and landscape. A design review panel would be slanted in favour of buildings and communities for people, rather than designers, and for modernity and innovation as a means to building natural and social capital, delight and local distinctiveness. Surely there is room for this kind of vision, alongside the "shock and awe" approach of the past few decades?
Hank Dittmar
Chief executive, The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment
Denny residents lobby for ‘most dismal town in Scotland’ award
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on September 20, 2010
Regeneration campaigners request trophy after no one turns up to collect it for the official winner, John o'Groats
Residents of a small town near Falkirk have volunteered to accept an architectural award for the most dismal town in Scotland in protest at their derelict shopping centre.
Regeneration campaigners in Denny, Stirlingshire, approached the organisers of the annual Carbuncle trophy after they discovered that no one was prepared to collect it on behalf of this year's actual winner, John o'Groats.
The small village on the UK's north-eastern tip may be famous for charity fundraisers walking from there to Land's End, but critics of John o'Groats regard it as one of the ugliest places in the country, largely thanks to a large empty hotel and soulless car park overlooking the Pentland Firth.
Denny was one of four runners-up in this year's award – which is known as the "plook on a plinth" and run by design magazine Urban Realm – because of a decrepit and empty block of low-rise flats and shops dominating the town centre.
Organisers of campaign group Walk Around the Block have been protesting about the delays in demolishing the buildings; a pro-regeneration Facebook page has nearly 1,800 members.
It is the first time people from any of the winning or nominated towns, which have included Cumbernauld and Glenrothes, has come forward to accept the award since it was launched in 2000.
Brian McCabe, a spokesman for the group, told the BBC: "The town centre looks like Beirut on a bad day. It's a blot on the landscape. It's a lovely town but as soon as prospective house-buyers drive down the main street, the deal is off."
The leader of Falkirk council, Craig Martin, said he agreed the block was an eyesore, but was furious about McCabe's accusation that the council was ignoring demands to replace it. Earlier this year, a £15m scheme to rebuild the centre with a new shopping precinct collapsed because of the recession. Martin said a new project was now under way, which would see the blocks demolished next summer.
The council was investing millions of pounds in the scheme, which would lead to 2,400 sq m of retail space and land for a new 1,500 sq m supermarket, he said. "I'm absolutely astonished that an individual would actually ask for this award to be given," Martin told the Guardian. "First and foremost, the award was given to John o'Groats; it's a publicity stunt by Urban Realm and it's an award that nobody wants. People at John o'Groats were rightly thinking about their community.
"Mr McCabe is actively going around bringing down the community of Denny and has given the absolutely wrong impression about Denny, a community built on the hard work of its people."
John Glenday of Urban Realm said it was the first time anyone had volunteered to claim the Carbuncle award. "We have always been at pains to stress that although, on the face of it, this trophy is an unwelcome sight, it should in fact be harnessed as a force for good," he said.
"Our plook will provide Denny with just the catalyst it needs in order to spur Falkirk council into action and articulate their plight to the wider country."
Prince Charles: I defend ordinary people against property developers
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on June 29, 2010
Prince's private secretary claims he opposed modernist design out of duty to make ordinary people's views heard
It is an unlikely claim for a prince who enjoys a £17m private annual income and employs 16 gardeners but Clarence House today said that Prince Charles believes it is his duty to defend "ordinary people" against profiteering property developers.
The claim was made as part of a fightback following a high court ruling that appeared to check the prince's ability to intervene in major planning decisions.
A judge ruled last week that the prince's campaign against the design of a redevelopment of the Chelsea barracks in London was "unwelcome". The judgment sparked criticism that Charles had overstepped his constitutional role by secretly lobbying at the highest levels against planning applications he disliked.
Today Sir Michael Peat, the prince's private secretary, claimed Charles opposed Lord Rogers' £3bn modernist designs because "it is part of the Prince of Wales' role and duty to make sure the views of ordinary people that might not otherwise be heard receive some exposure".
The prince wrote privately to Qatar's prime minister voicing his opposition to the plans for apartments on the Qatari-owned land. But far from acting in his own interests against designs, "he was only writing to the Qataris because he was asked to do so [by local residents]", Peat claimed. The emirate's state-owned developer scrapped the scheme after Charles had proposed an alternative design by Quinlan Terry, a classical architect he admires.
"For many developers, hearing the views of local residents is very unexpected and unwelcome," said Peat. "They are there just wanting to make money."
The claim that Charles is duty-bound to stand up for ordinary people's interests in disputes with major property developers came as it was announced that the prince earned a record £17.2m last year from the Duchy of Cornwall, a professionally managed £664m property empire run solely to fund his lifestyle which has been criticised for failing to listen to the views of its tenants on new developments.
"It is frustrating to hear he thinks he is on the side of ordinary people against developers, because villagers and the parish council here have sent him dozens of letters over the last few years," said Jane Giddins, parish council chairwoman at Newton St Loe, a duchy-owned village near Bath, where the duchy has been planning 2,000 new homes on neighbouring fields.
"We have only ever received replies from the Duchy of Cornwall, fobbing us off. People in this village are at best bemused and at worst feel let down by His Royal Highness. No one can understand why he has not been listening."
Opponents of his interventions believe the prince cannot claim to represent ordinary people because he cannot be held accountable by them.
"Any individual who feels strongly about representing the people should stand for election," Lord Rogers said last night. "There is a carefully organised democratic system of electing councillors who appoint planning officers and there is a process which allows the public to hold open meetings where they can air their feelings. All of that happened over the four years' planning process for Chelsea barracks."
Peat said Charles only intervened on Chelsea barracks after local residents approached him about their concerns.
"They had commissioned Quinlan Terry to propose an alternative design which they sent to the Prince of Wales," said Peat. "They asked him to do what he could to ensure their views received exposure. Their views represented the views of the majority. They asked whether he might be able to raise the issue with the Qataris and so he did."
But Charles' letter to the Qatari prime minister on 1 March 2009 contains no reference to any local opposition to the scheme or anyone asking him to write on their behalf. Charles told Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani he was writing because "quite frankly, my heart sank when I saw the plans". He indicated he was motivated by personal concerns, saying: "For the entire duration of my life we have had to witness the destruction of so many parts of London, with one more 'brutalist' development after another."
Even though the existence of the prince's letter decrying the scheme only emerged in full in a high court dispute between the developers after the designs were scrapped, Peat denied the prince was trying to secretly undermine the project.
"He wasn't writing and expressing views that were private and weren't in the public domain," he said. "He was representing what the local residents were saying all along, so it was well-aired."
Campaigners for a democratically elected head of state said the royal household's claim that the prince has a duty to get involved in planning breaches constitutional principles.
"The role he is making for himself contradicts a well-established constitutional principle that the monarch and the heir to the throne keep out of politics, and that includes planning, for the very good reason that they are not accountable," said Graham Smith, campaigns director of Republic.
"It also appears he is only the people's representative when it coincides with his own views. Someone genuinely representing ordinary people would do so regardless of his personal views."
‘Garden grabbing’ eases the pressure on greenfield sites
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on June 21, 2010
This attack on brownfield development means more green fields will be built on
Michael White draws attention to the government's attack on "garden grabbing" brownfield development (Prisons, power stations and social housing – just not in my backyard, 10 June).
He is right to point out the links to localism, populism and nimbyism: "the empowerment of sharp-elbowed locals to prevent developments they don't like". But why would a minor bit of middle-class rabble-rousing find a place in the incoming government's first legislative programme?
White appears to assume that the issue is about the physical capacity of "old industrial land [and] gardens from past eras" to accommodate enough new homes. In fact, the key question is the right balance between extending the city and renewing its existing fabric. During the Thatcher and Major years, I was responsible for planning and transport policy in Newcastle and Birmingham. I coined the term "brownfield" (in 1976) to express the tension between urban renewal and greenfield development in the dynamics of urban change. Brownfield development, in this view, is like cell replacement in the body, an essential part of the continuing health of a city.
White rightly draws attention to how Prescott's brownfield strategy "eased the pressure on green belt and greenfield sites". However, by focusing simply on numbers of new houses, he (like Prescott) underplays the importance of the strategy to housing choices more generally. In practice, only 10% of housing transactions each year are new homes – and most of these are built within existing neighbourhoods and on brownfield land. As Prescott recognised, there is not a finite stock of brownfield sites; with good local planning brownfield supply is constantly being replenished.
White implies that the current furore is just the perennial conflict of nimbyism with developers. But there is a bigger issue: rapidly rising house prices from the mid-90s were blamed by the 2004 Barker Report on an inadequate supply of new homes, and this in turn on lack of land. Developers took the opportunity to attack Prescott's emphasis on brownfield because greenfield land is easier and more profitable to develop.
We can now see that house prices were a bubble pumped up with hot money and unreal expectations of capital gains. But the last government did a policy U-turn, persuaded by developers that more greenfield land would mean more new houses and (eventually) lower prices – and that higher profitability would provide infrastructure, services and social housing. As a result, twice or three times as much greenfield land is now in the pipeline.
With nimby constituents, Conservatives and Lib Dems generally opposed these increases. How ironic, then, that the coalition's attack on brownfield development inevitably means more green fields will go under the bulldozer – even as developers are backing out of the planning gains that justified this.
However much (or little) new housing the market will now bear, almost all will henceforth be on greenfield land, with dire consequences for cities, neighbourhoods, social fabric, transport demands, and most people's housing needs.
• This article was amended on 21 June 2010. Owing to an editing change, a line in the original said: "As Prescott recognised, there is a finite stock of brownfield sites". This has been corrected
Video: Outrage revisited – save Hadleigh from Tesco
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on June 10, 2010
The final leg of Jonathan Glancey's road trip follows the route of commercialism from the Folkestone docks to his hometown of Hadleigh, where residents are fighting a proposed superstore
Video: Outrage revisited – from Newport Pagnell to Ely
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on June 9, 2010
Jonathan Glancey visits two old towns dealing with housing in very different ways and meets Bill Slack, an old colleague of his architectural hero, Ian Nairn
Video: Outrage revisited – from Northampton to Daventry
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on June 8, 2010
Jonathan Glancey continues in the path of architecture critic Ian Nairn, visiting the once-proud market town of Northampton and the vast goods depots of Daventry
A disdain for urban planning is the problem, not overcrowding | Owen Hatherley
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on August 26, 2010
Lack of planning has given us urban squalor, where, with a bit of regulation, dense populations could live in comfort
England is now the second most crowded country in the European Union, after Malta. It has, for the first time, inched past the Netherlands, with 402.1 people per square kilometre, compared with the Dutch 398.5. This statistic coincides with a rise in net migration, partly caused by a decline in outward emigration. Some have already been quick to link the two.
Overcrowding, class, immigration and race have long been linked in certain quarters. From the apocalyptic 18th century predictions of Malthus through the cannibal megalopolis of the film Soylent Green to the "demographic threat" in Israel-Palestine, the prospect of a teeming mass of inferior folk causing mayhem and starvation, or simply outnumbering "us", has been a persistent obsession.
But if the EU report is given more than a cursory glance, it is easily seen that the apparently alarming statistic is actually about population density, not immigration, "over" crowding or "over" population – nor even the population density of the UK. England might have a density of 402.1 per square km, but the UK as a whole is well below the Netherlands and Belgium at 256.3, roughly the same level as Germany. Scotland and Wales are far below either, with Scotland's level of 70.9 placing it lower than Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania. So what this is really about is concentration of population in very particular places and underpopulation elsewhere. A response to that doesn't necessitate draconian immigration caps, but rather something terribly unfashionable – town planning.
Densely populated areas are not necessarily slums. Among the densest places in the UK are Mayfair and Pimlico, or the west ends of Glasgow and Edinburgh. With their expensive stucco squares and sandstone tenements, these places are by no means dystopian. Given their extreme desirability, an extremely high population density is clearly not so alarming.
Architects and planners, disenfranchised by the suburban non-plan of Thatcherism, spent the 80s and 90s agitating for tightly packed housing, the use of urban brownfield sites, compact cities, piazzas and public transport – all attempts to manage and make urban density comfortable. Under New Labour, this generation – architects like Richard Rogers, planners like Ricky Burdett – had the chance to implement these ideas.
You can see the results all over the UK, wherever "mixed use" blocks of flats fill former industrial land, in the skylines of Leeds and Manchester, in east London. Usually, the results entailed four- to 12-storey flats, built around squares, with mooted shops and facilities in the ground floor. An inner-city housing boom started to match its suburban precursor.
In reality, the shops and nurseries became empty units or estate agents, the squares were inept and windswept, and speculative developers crammed as many tiny flats into their plots as possible. In Stratford you can see the grimmest results – aesthetically stunted, architecturally bumptious towers crowding round wasteland. Does this invalidate the idea? Should we, as some Tories suggest in their screeds against the ludicrous myth of "garden grabbing", celebrate the end of the attempted "urban renaissance" and return to the pseudo-rural suburban sprawl of the 80s, and the depopulation and desuetude of our cities?
Or rather, should we acknowledge that the problem with New Labour, and Rogers and Burdett was that they didn't plan enough? Rather than being held to strict standards, developers were given carte blanche; instead of council housing easing the overcrowding of the poor, a percentage of allegedly affordable housing was sold in each block of terracotta-clad yuppiedromes. Meanness – "value engineering" as it is euphemistically known – was what made the New Labour landscape so grim, not height, planning or modernity, and certainly not overcrowding.
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