The BURA series of Re:Invigorate events take a ‘big picture’ overview of regeneration
Read BURA's overview of the event here (word document)
Urban regeneration involves many physical, social and economic elements. In this overview, we focus on the physical – the development of the built environment. The creation of public spaces, streets, housing and different types of buildings, is, of course, supported by sustainable community life based on local jobs, transport, leisure, decent housing and cultural offerings.
The idea of Re:Invigorate is to get together an informed group of around 40 people, some that know the local area, and some that don’t. These ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ are given an overview of background material and development plans for a specific area, take a guided walking tour to soak up the atmosphere and the main visual elements, and then sit down to debate solutions and practical ways forward.
Tottenham's quality buildings
Portions of the local community are strongly rooted
The High Road's buildings need attention
The group discussions are led by insiders. Both insiders and outsiders use their knowledge and experience from past and present projects to tackle the defined challenges. Each group elects a speaker, who then ‘plays back’ the group’s ideas and comments to a ‘high level’ panel of council and other community leaders. The plan is that ideas will translate into action.
Kevin Sugrue, Chief Executive, Renaisi (a London regeneration company), introduced the event and set the scene by stressing that regeneration needs to be based on evidence.
- the key focus of local government is place-shaping. Crucially, this has to be approached from an evidence base, and any development plans need to continually refer back to a locally focused evidence base. Good ideas are welcome, but they must be evidence-based
- any plan must consider the evidence and decide who it is aimed at: improvements for the existing community, or laying foundations for a new community? any regeneration needs to take on board the full range of drivers for social change, form local up to EU level and beyond. Expected Eastern European immigration, for example, may play a major role in shaping Tottenham’s community in future
- be prepared for cause and effect, and create a balance of regeneration routes based on community expectations. The creation of a high level business park needing an influx of skilled workers, for example, may lead to gentrification and house price inflation
- image is important: creating a positive image of a community, ideally through genuine buy-in, is vital to spreading goodwill. Efficient management of the public realm and local services is a key factor here, also supported by events, marketing and reinforcing the positive through branding
David Hennings, Assistant Director, Economic Regeneration at LB Haringey, outlined LB Haringey regeneration efforts so far:
Haringey is faced with the decline of traditional manufacturing. There are several development zones within the borough, but the key areas in Tottenham, the deprived eastern half of the borough, are:
Tottenham High Road: a historic, vibrant high street in an area of extreme deprivation
Tottenham Hale: a major new development zone beside the River Lea
Within these zones, the plans were originally defined:
- Southern High Road: the creation of an arts, culture & public sector ‘quarter’
- Tottenham High Road – Northern Gateway: Tottenham Hotspurs FC, hotel, leisure
- Consolidation of Bruce Grove area as the core shopping location
- Tottenham Hale: the development of a University campus – leading major area change
What is the current state of play, May 2007?
Progress varies between areas, and the original vision has shifted with the realities of development process.
- Southern High Road: the David Adjaye-designed Bernie Grant Centre for the arts is due to open in Septermber 2007; Tottenham Town Hall redevelopment plans are under discussion
- Northern Gateway: currently no planning application
- Tottenham Hale 2006 masterplan published: Mixed-use development; TfL re-thinking gyratory
Main challenges
- How do we harness the full potential of the Tottenham Hale masterplan?
- How do we add momentum to the High Road, given expanded retail at the Hale?
- What opportunities exist to build links between the High Road & the Hale?
- How can these high-value developments reduce long-term depravation?
- What are the key things we have to do to make lasting change?
Development in Haringey
There are several areas of Haringey undergoing development: the focus of the day was on the plans for Tottenham High Road and for the new mixed-use Tottenham Hale site in the deprived east of the borough.
Tottenham High Road
The Bernie Grant Centre opens 2007
Clutter affects the streets
TfL is responsible for much
of the public realm
Railings and clutter divide the street
Poor maintenance equals
poor public realm
TfL have been asked to fix problems
It is difficult to enforce facade control
New developments line the High Road
Bruce Grove Townscape Heritage scheme
A 'patchy' approach to development
The built environemnt offers many possibilities
Scotland Green development area...
offers many residential possibilities
Heritage railings and lights open
up an alley
See an overview of Tottenham Hale on RUDI here
Tottenham High Road (THR)
A walk along a section of Tottenham High Road instantly outlined its main problem: it’s a busy, traffic-choked thoroughfare that permits little in the way of access from side to side of the street. There are pleasant green areas and quality heritage buildings along the street.
Efforts have been made to improve the quality of the public realm through small scale interventions. The development plan for THR was outlined to the group.
Summary: strengths, weaknesses and opportunities
Strengths for regeneration
Quality of the built environment
Good quality properties are prevalent in the area. Many are attractive, quality buildings designated for conservation, many of them either listed or locally listed. These buildings could form the core of an attractive core for local regeneration activity. Much of the area around Tottenham High Road is classed as a conservation area. There are also many good quality buildings and homes on, or adjacent to, the main street.
The group made several points:
- Preserving heritage per se is not always a good plan. Going back to Kevin Sugrue's point about evidence-based development, we need to ask whose heritage we’re protecting, for which communities, and at what cost.
- New uses may bring greater benefit to a community than protecting old uses; and preservation must serve a greater purpose, for example creating additional jobs or training opportunities.
Vibrancy and diversity of the area
There are no empty stores on teh High Road, and plenty of shoppers. The High Road shows a diverse mix of uses. There is green open space, plus plenty of outdoor trading.
The retail units are mostly small local businesses of less than 100,000 sq ft. It was noted that while this is good for the local community that lives and shops on the High Street, it also makes it difficult, in development terms, to provide larger units that could attract additional jobs.
Previous plans to focus larger scale retail in specific sites along the High Street are currently being revisited.
Established leisure and development draw: local premier football club
The council and regeneration panel is in talks with Tottenham Hotspur Football Club to explore possibilities for regeneration at the north end of the High Road through a leisure, mixed use, sports-based offering. Many wealthy fans regularly visit Tottenham, and they need to be encouraged to spend longer in the region and eat, drink and shop.
Transport links, while good generally in the area, need to be improved in specific spots. Park and ride services and additional local bus routes were suggested to combat this.
Strong communities; potential for engagement
The group acknowledged that the local community has been extensively consulted on local development plans; and in fact that it may be ‘all consulted out’. It was suggested that:
- consultation should be more focused on actually involving, rather than informing, the community
- Promotional materials and messages should be taken to the people, not focused on standalone events. For example, a scheme in Blackpool focused on handing out materials in supermarkets, which had proved popular. A ‘regeneration event’ in the council offices, however, attracted few people
- Local people should be trained, and provided resource and services, to become useful and positive voices in community engagement. The tokenism of ‘tick box’ public exercises should be abandoned.
Weaknesses of regeneration
Heavy traffic on a main red route, and lack of local mobility
Tottenham High Road (THR) the A10, is the major red through route into central London. Traffic powers along, dividing the streets, causing pollution and causing pedestrians to watch where they are going. This prevents them from even noticing the quality buildings and spaces along the street.
Through route into London central: not a place that encourgaes vistitors to stop and shop. This also means that TfL is responsible for much of the public realm (pavements, railings) – a problem not found outside of London. In Blackpool, for example, under a unitary authority, there is no need to petition for months to make a change in paving or removing a rampant tree root.
Traffic powers along the High Road at a constant 30mph. Crossiings are situated with a distance, on average, of 350 m between crossings, so users can't cross the road.
The group thought that:
- any real solution to this problem would involve re-routing the red route – with all the difficulties that entailed
- it was felt that a shared space scheme could be a solution, at least on parts of the road. The group felt that that the enormity of the task in taking up the issues with TfL and the Mayor's office had led the LB Haringey officers to back away from the challenge
- Green bridges have been proposed by LB Haringey, rising high above the gyratory. But the group felt that these are very expensive and don't really solve the problem of connecting the people on the ground to the local amenities and spaces. The group advsied that LB Haringey forget green bridges: it was suggested that these funnel people from A to B rather than offering mobility choices
- The large gyratory at Tottenham Hale, heart of the area's development site, effectively cuts the High Road off from these new homes and businesses. A solution needs to be found to link the two zones and integrate them. It was noted that without community invlovement, rather than consultation, this was unlikely to happen the the community's satisfaction
- Length of the street: The long strip of THR presents a difficult management problem. The group suggested that the street be zoned so as to focus development and activity.
Poor public realm
The quality of public space is poor, with shabby detailing and layers of clutter. This is, the insiders claimed, largely due to poor communication and working relationships with TfL.
There are several initiatives in place to remove excess street clutter, improve building facades and bring existing quality buildings back into new use, for example the Bernie Grants Arts Centre.
The employment of a town centre manager to coordinate the development of the High Road is proving to have positive effects on the public realm and the cross-agency communication.
Multi agency confusion, and lack of tools at the Council's disposal
- Connecting a strategic 'Big Idea' with the practicalities of delivery has been the downfall of many regeneration schemes
- The group noted that outer London boroughs such as Haringey suffer from multi-agency confusion and lack of clear communication channels
- The area’s town centre manager recounted numerous tales of 'on the ground' frustration in trying to convince landlords and building owners to conform to required legislation – or even to find out who is responsible for compliance
- Resorting to legal channels is expensive, time-consuming and creates negative feeling
- There are also documented problems working with TfL in order to improve/maintain properties and frontages under its control. However, having published the latest Streetscapes guidance, TfL has now agreed to review policy and practice in Haringey to ensure that it meets its own guidelines.
Lack of a Big Idea or uniting vision for the development of the High Road and the larger area
Big Ideas proved universally popular with the group as a means of building civic pride. Tottenham’s lack of a ‘Big Idea’ to drive regeneration was often mentioned. Improvements were patchy and lacked conviction.
The feeling was that simply tidying up the High Road and attempting to reduce or control traffic flow wouldn’t be enough.
A connected Vision for the entire road, communicated well, was felt to be necessary for encouraging Tottenham’s diverse and frequently transient populations to notice and be proud of their High Street.
The group felt that LB Haringey was looking at 'easy' solutions, and wasn't facing up to bold, large scale interventions, ones that may well be unpopular with businesses and communities in the short term.
Poor quality housing, and lack of housing variety
Currently much of the area’s housing is of the worst quality – private sector rooms, multiple occupation and private landlords benefiting from buy to let investment due to relatively low prices for London.
Tottenham is a gateway for new communities, with a high level of private sector housing (66 per cent of housing in the borough private sector).
It has therefore been targeted for 'buy to let' and temporary accommodation. The aspiration must be to create an environment where people stay and live in decent homes. Rent to buy and affordable homes will help to establish a community with ties to the area.
New housing should promote a more balanced, mixed, sustainable and less transient community, and the proportion of affordable housing should not exceed 50 per cent, the majority of which should be for intermediate forms of housing (shared ownership, key worker and sub market schemes).
The group felt that the housing in the area must be tackled fisrt to ensure that any new businesses and services in the area can be suppoted locally by residents who would choose to live the the area and support them.
Lack of effective consultation
It was noted that although extensive consultation had been carried out, particularly around the development of the Tottenham Hale masterplan, that this may not have proved particularly effective. Showing the public large numbers of complex plans and proposals isn't the way to get them to engage with a project. There was little empowerment in terms of offering the comunity any real control.
Unique problems of outer London boroughs
It was noted that outer London boroughs such as Haringey face particular challenges, even within a London context.
It was noted that the London Plan is directed towards getting traffic and people in and out of London as quickly and easily as possible, to strategic central of development sites.
There is a conflict between Tottenham High Road’s vision, which is of slowing traffic and developing public space and facilities, and the London Plan that sees Tottenham High Road as the main A10 route through North London to the centre.
As TfL has a high degree of control over transport and associated infrastructure, Haringey has to work hard to argue its case for major traffic changes, such as the removing of a ‘red route’ down Tottenham High Road or the remodelling of the ‘Racetrack’ gyratory system at Tottenham Hale.
It was also noted that the traditional view of London as a series of villages has some relevance to Tottenham. The Big Idea, or Vision, for the area must tackle the fact that much of the population is transitory, and to begin to connect them more definitely to their ‘roots’ in Tottenham.
LB Haringey has little control over its public realm.
Outcomes and feedback from the panel, which included:
- Cllr George Meehan, Leader, LB Haringey
- Ita O’Donovan, Chief Executive, LB Haringey
- Eric Sorenson, Chief Executive, TGLP
- Alison Dickens, Director, NLSA
Cllr George Meehan, Leader of Haringey Council, began the feedback by professing himself ‘disappointed’ that the sessions had, to his mind, highlighted the challenges facing Tottenham, whilst being rather light on possible solutions. The time for discussions was long gone, he declared; only action was required.
The panel confirmed, however, that they had, over time, reached many of the conclusions that the day’s two groups arrived at, although they were sceptical about the possibilities of the group’s Big Ideas, for example de-red-routing the A10 (Tottenham High Road) and introducing pedestrian zones.
They agreed that there was a lack of vision for both Tottenham High Road and Tottenham Hale development plans.
The panel also stressed that there is a need for positive reinforcement and leadership (championship) from senior council and community stakeholders, encouraging others to buy in to a shared vision.
Carl Carrington from Blackpool LA, leader of the Tottenham High Road review group, felt that the LB Haringey repsonse so far has been 'rather faceless, formless, and only offering patchy solutions'. He suggested that the Council needed to change focus, shift ideas, and break the problem down into sizeable chunks.
It was noted that Council officers supported the group's more creative and innovative solutions in the discussions, but that they didn't show their support when faced with the 'high level panel'. If there is no directness and honesty inside the council, suggested Carl, and only good news can filter up the the leaders, then it's unlikely that there will be buy-in and a sharing of support and responsibility from the community – which will recognise this lack of directness.
Carl suggested that rather than LB Haringey emplying land use planners Ian Grimshaw as consultants, it might be worth trying a smaller and 'more innovative' company. Other deprived areas have succeeded throiugh the implementation of more radical ideas, for example New Islington in Manchester from Urban Splash. Carl has invited LB Haringey to contact Urabn Splash with a view to visiting the site.
Unless the LB Haringey puts its cards on the table and comes clean, about monies available and plans and timescales, then the situation will remain stuck.
The style of the event
The style of the event may be responsible for these rather weak outcomes. One problem is that the groups do spend valuable time going over background that is already available ito specialists (see RUDI resources). It’s too easy to dwell on common problems and challenges in a search for consensus in such a time sensitive setting.
Another issue is that there is no community representation amongst the groups.
With only 15 mins to present a day’s outcomes at the end of the day, much stands or falls on the success of the presentation, and groups feel the need to over-contextualise their reports with reference to the areas's many enormous challenegs. Suggestion: forbid participants to highlight a challenge without suggesting a possible solution…
The group felt that the ideas for the major masterplan were dead, and felt that LB Haringey needs to re-engage with consultation. It thought that a new Big Idea, with close reference to involving those who live in Tottenham, is required.
The group acknowledged that some issues are very hard to tackle, and that without credible and genuine buy-in from the community it doesn't get any easier.
Given that LB Haringey faces such extensive problems, the group felf that the event had provided a welcome opportunity to bring in a fresh view from outsiders who may be able to recognise these very real difficulties, and to 'break through' with new thinking.
It was felt that the event provided a framework or bringing people together and letting developers and architects experience for themselves the problems that Local Authorities face. It is commonly thought that LAs can do as they wish, which is far from true, according to the group.
Mix of participants
- Lack of community participation and community representation in the event
- No use of existing design guidance and planning toolkits and existing material which could help the group to reach a consensus
