we need to improve the spaces between housing to end the neglect

We need to improve the spaces between housing to end the neglect

Far more needs to be done to create attractive green spaces around the residential areas of towns and cities, says the landscape manager of one of Britain’s largest social landlords, the Peabody Trust.

Two million households living in urban areas still don’t have access to clean, green open space, Mathew Frith, Landscape Regeneration Manager at the Peabody Trust told the recent Quality Streetscapes conference, held in London in May.

Many spaces suffer from neglect as no one takes responsibility for them as they are ‘neither public or private’. Examples include the areas behind parades of shops, in between car parks and the road, or around residential blocks.

The situation has been made worse by the fact that spending on public parks has suffered £1.3 billion disinvestment between 1979 and 2000, he said.

Social housing with poor public spaces


Social landlords such as the Peabody Trust are essential to the delivery of new housing, he said, and can play an important role in creating attractive new open spaces. Five million houses, 20 percent of our housing stock, are owned by either local authorities or one of over 1,400 registered social landlords.

However, many of them take an ‘arm’s length’ approach to management of their estates. ‘There’s a huge issue we are trying to address, which is social and economic exclusion. The quality of open space is too often regarded as not of critical importance in daily life,’ he said.

‘What we are left with are tiny pieces of green space, surrounded by railings. Who is this space for? It serves no real purpose,’ he pointed out. ‘They only serve to encourage crime and anti-social behaviour.’

Green spaces are too often neglected in housing policy, he said. For example, the new report on the assessment of the aims of social housing launched in February 2007 Ends and Means: The future roles of social housing in England by John Hills was commissioned to help the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government stand back and ask what role social housing can play in 21st Century housing policy. It contains few references to open space, he said.

Mathew Frith said that a new approach was needed, exemplified by Neighbourhoods Green a three-year project funded by the Department of Communities and Local Government. It aims to highlight the importance of green spaces for the residents of social housing, and to raise the quality of their design, management and safe use within social housing providers.

A report, including case studies of good quality public realm, can be found in Neighbourhoods Green report Decent Homes, Decent Spaces.

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Green spaces around Peabody Trust estates

The approach taken by the Peabody Trust, which houses 50,000 people in 100 estates around the country, can be highlighted by their work at the Stamford Estate in London, and described in the report, Splash of Colour.

The Peabody’s Trust's Stamford Street estate, built at the end of the 19th century, has 214 dwellings, and is situated close to Waterloo station. Subject to a major environment improvement programme in 1996-9, the original hard courtyards were greened through the installation of new flower-beds, shrubberies, trees and a redesigned tree-lined car-park. New play facilities were established, partly designed by the estate's children, and new seating installed.

A number of residents felt that further improvements could be made to the landscape, and formed the Riverside Green Scheme in 2002. They were successful in securing additional funding for plant stock, training, materials and tools to bring more colour to their estate.

The Peabody Trust now aims to carry out more initiatives like this, working with a range of organisations, including BTCV, Groundwork, Forestry Commission, Trees for London, and the Royal Horticultural Society.

In conclusion, Mr Frith said ‘we need inspiration for the future’, as well as which we need to adapt to climate change. Otherwise, there is a real danger of landscape being left out of the equation.

RUDI co-organised this event for the first time, and we hope that the discussion will help to progress the debate about the state of the public realm in the UK. The conference aimed to identify the different types of value created by well-designed and managed public places and assist in the dissemination of knowledge to help make the case for investing in improvements.

The conference was supported by: The Academy of Urbanism - Association of Town Centre Management (ATCM) - Living Streets - UrbanDesignJobs.com - Public Realm Information & Advisory Network (PRIAN)

The conference was sponsored by: Project Centre