Regeneration report calls for improvements

By Edwin Heathcote, Architecture Critic
Published: May 12 2009 01:20

All new public projects including housing, schools, and hospitals will be subject to new design standards, the government will say on Tuesday as it publishes the first big report on urban regeneration in a decade.
Ten years after Richard Rogers launched his report, Towards an Urban Renaissance, Hazel Blears, communities secretary, and Andy Burnham, culture secretary will publish new objectives to improve the public realm.
The report will also try to impose similar quality demands on the private sector and involve the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, the government’s architecture watchdog, in the process.
There have been improvements in the quality of public space in the UK but the report stresses that it remains inadequate in socially deprived areas.
Poor public space can lead to crime, fear and social and economic exclusion. The old, poor, children and disabled are particularly at the mercy of ill-considered public space.
Ms Blears told the Financial Times on Monday: “Badly designed housing estates and low-quality neighbourhoods encourage crime, undermine communities, deter investment, spoil the environment and cost a fortune in the long-term.”
The report begins to acknowledge some big problems in the nation’s built environment. Decades of planning for traffic first and pedestrians second will take many years to redress. The penchant of the big housebuilders for closes and cul-de-sacs arranged in dormitory suburbs accessible only by car has led to low density, unsustainable development in which walkability is barely an option while the new wave of private finance initiative hospitals has not properly engaged with public space, invariably offering only a bleak car park facing the town.
However, there are also deep concerns that the report may struggle to confront. Chief among these is the decline in the country’s high streets. Fuelled by the domination of national chain stores and the decline of traditional social hubs including pubs and post offices, public space and space for social engagement face the harshest challenge for centuries.
The report also addresses climate change with an increased emphasis on green spaces and green roofs, using the urban fabric to soak up CO2. It remains to be seen whether the mooted improvements will address some thornier issues: the increasing predominance of surveillance in what is now the world capital of closed-circuit television; and the blurring of public and private space in new commercial developments as malls and streets become closer in nature and ownership.
The guidelines urge councils and developers to put good planning, local character and high-quality design at the heart of new development.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009