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The rush to build - are we repeating te mistakes of the past?

01.06

Barry Munday

For all its warm words and excellent intentions, what makes the Government’s Plan for Sustainable Communities any different from the clumsy building efforts of the 1960s and 70s?

Much of my practice’s work over recent years has derived from picking up the pieces from the aftermath of the public sector building boom from this era. Too much was built too quickly, too cheaply and in the wrong places.

I am becoming increasingly concerned that this is the direction we are heading in again. Take the so-called Thames Gateway where 200,000 or more new homes are proposed over the next decade. The fact is that much of this area has remained undeveloped for good reason. It is prone to flooding and has been serially industrialised and polluted for a century or more. It is poorly served by transport links and of low amenity value. It is also notoriously expensive to develop. If we are then to compound the problem by building at very high density, we will be providing high cost housing in inherently low value areas. This is patently unsustainable.

We can see from the example of the post war New Towns that such efforts in the end fail because their existence has been driven by numbers rather than choice, and the upwardly mobile will move onwards and outwards, leaving a residue of unloved property and social problems behind.

Similarly, when Governments of all persuasions have tried to dictate the shape and size of housing development and the means of production, it tends to result in inappropriate design and shoddy construction which is difficult and expensive to maintain.

In Stockholm a visionary project is underway to develop 10,000 new homes near the city centre – where people want to live. The success of the project is down to the drive and vision of the city planners (one man in particular) and the collaborative approach of all concerned. Architects, developers, housing associations and government – all have worked very closely together, often meeting weekly.

In the UK, the different parties involved in regeneration are typically confrontational and distrustful of each other (despite the recommendations of the Egan report on the industry) and we are not good at involving the community and getting them on board.

People argue that we have so little land available, yet most of our towns and cities still harbour a plentiful supply of redundant land as a result of changes in the industrial base and the privatisation of our utilities. There are also areas designated as Green Belt which are of low visual or amenity value.

Why not re-define our city limits and let the Green corset stretch a little? We could then begin to develop new suburbs and urban centres in those parts of London and the South-East where people really want to live. The rest could be turned over to new regional parks, forests and nature conservancy.

In short, I believe it is our responsibility to look to the future rather than playing short-term numbers games. We must build in areas people really want to live in. And those involved need to work together in a spirit of trust and partnership. Then we have a chance of avoiding the mistakes of the past and creating new suburbs and urban extensions we can be proud of in twenty years’ time.