Author: Editors

Finally, after much backwards and forwards among the campaigning groups, and with marvellous lawyers, the Judicial Review of Camden Council’s ‘fettering of its discretion’ is under way. the phrase is quaint but in effect it means that the proper democratic procedures were suppressed. Lots of detail at www.kxrlg.org.uk
18th February:
One of the Labour Councillors at Camden, Theo Blackwell, clearly one of those very committed to Argent’s scheme and proud of the S106 agreement, has written a quite strong attack on the campaign in his own blog which is here I posted a short personal comment and I hope he’ll permit it to appear. (Next day: he did.)

Massimo just gave me a copy of the last issue of The Land number 3 – journal of TLIO This Land is Ours. It contains some fine trenchant material on Barker, well-reasoned and viewing it quite explicitly as part of a strong neo-liberal push. The objections are mainly to the anti-environmental and anti-democratic dimensions of her proposals. I am trying to find if there is an online version but in the mean time you can order it by sending £2 for one issue or £10 for three to TLIO at The Potato Store, Flaxdrayton Farm, South Petherton, Somerset TA13 5LR.

Incidentally there is now stuff on the pnuk web site…… www.pnuk.org.uk

[Has new bits pasted in below, as well as comments – to Feb 6 2007]
Interesting evening 25 January lecturing at Milton Keynes Gallery www.mk-g.org as the first speaker in their series of 4 talks entitled ‘What is Contemporary Architecture?’, presented in association with their new Project Space exploring art, architecture and the urban environment. I said my piece to a good-sized audience – pulled by this publicity blurb:
In his first job he worked on the original master plan for Milton Keynes and has since then watched the development of the town which, in his opinion, has led to a much less sustainable place than could (and should) have emerged. He argues that it is not too late and that a number of policy changes could turn the story round, leading to better bus services, stronger local shopping, more housing diversity and an end to getting lost on the grid.
Lots of strong resistance – mostly from men my age, some of whom I learned were the people I was attacking – and some support, much but not all, from women. Some very open-minded discussion too.

Continue reading “What went wrong at Milton Keynes?”

Last night, 16 November, Camden gave outline permission finally for the Argent development proposals, despite the representations of many objecting groups and despite many of the borough councillors saying (?just saying) that they would have voted against it if they felt they legally could.

I just wanted to jot some comments down while it is fresh in my mind – personal comments, not made on behalf of any group or organisation. If you want to join in a public post-mortem do comment but remember this is a public forum and some points you may prefer to send as direct email m.edwards@ucl.ac.uk

Continue reading “King's Cross trouble”

The various action groups of citizens in and around King’s Cross have been very active this last year (maybe even more than usual) in trying to persuade the elected Councillors of the London Borough of Camden that they were acting improperly in March when they resolved to grant an extremely ‘flexible’ planning permission to developer Argent. Legally they are bound to re-think – in the opinion of our fine team of barristers (=advocates) who have devoted a lot of time, much of it pro bono publico, to advising us. Sooner or later there will be a development on the railway lands at King’s Cross and we have been equally active in negotiating a section 106 agreement about how the implementation would go.

Continue reading “King's Cross, the continuing saga”

An article on Thames Gateway – and how it could all go wrong; a report for the British Council for Offices on work-life integration / balance and office buildings / location; a preface to a book of essays celebrating my first employer Nat Lichfield – now 90 – and some collected papers of mine from the 90s.
More details….

Continue reading “Some recent publications”

Inura ended very well and I travelled with Massimo Alamandola in the train to Brussels, so we could write up our notes of meetings in the train. Then in Brussels enjoying a bit of solitude, sitting in my favourite cafe Fontainhas with its free wifi I wrote a document which was needed for Inura – a very simple explanation of REITs on which we are starting some campaigning and research. There is very great apprehension among soicial housing tenants in Germany and elsewhere as international investors acquire big stocks of formerly-social housing….. It seems quite right to be doing this in Brussels, the one place from which all this could conceivably be regulated. If you are interested please do read it and comment so we can make it a better and more useful document. It is in the extended entry below.

Continue reading “Brussels follow-on to Inura”

Writing from the annual meeting of INURA at Essen in the Ruhrgebiet. Sitting in the garden of the house where we are meeting – a garden with wi-fi and fireflies at night. It’s a residential centre for youth activity (and I am scarcely youthful enough to climb the 3m ladder to my sleeping balcony each night). It is so interesting to see the residues of industrial capitalism and social democracy in this region – the scattered settlements separated by forstes and hills, the grimness of the industrial history sanitised by disuse and forest… wonderful public transport and other public infrastructure……

Continue reading “inura 2006 essen”

June 20: how to get British planning more critical
Went to an interesting meeting in Oxford called by Tim Marshall and Huw Thomas to consider how to counter the shift of UK planning to the right. Good discussion and decisions about how to extend and develop the network and resources/support people trying to take a more critical/left line. Partly university people, partly practitioners – and only about half of them were people I knew (the oldest ones) which is good. More to follow about this for sure.