Category: planning

There is much discussion about this, including some wry jokes about how little Boris will need to change in Ken’s Plan (and even less in his actual practices). Peter Eversden and Mike Back at LFCAS have done digests of what the Mayor said in his campaign http://www.londonforum.org.uk/news/governance/whats_new_with_borisand another document which I’ll put up shortly.   Clearly there will be less social rented housing produced, more favours for small shops and suburban areas….

As housing crises spread across Europe I’m discovering that there are whole strands of activity and thinking which I was completely unaware of. Silvia Macchi at the University La Sapienza in Rome invited me to speak in a 2-day even at a squatted social centre in the eastern suburbs of Rome – a mix of young activists in various autonomist movements and intellectuals and politicians. Partly a campain meeting, partly self-education, partly celebration of this squat having lasted a year (though it is now facing the facist mayor’s promise to evict such social centres).This phrase ‘The Art of Rent’, which strikes me as weird,  Continue reading “The Art of Rent – Italian meeting Horus Occupato”

On Thursday 20 Sept the government was reported as making yet another attempt to get private interests, especially those which stand to profit most, to contribute heavily to Crossrail – as a condition for government funding.

They published this letter from me next day and we’ll see whether it generates any flow of further stuff, either on crossrail or on what kind of growth London needs…

Continue reading “Stopping Crossrail and London's centralised growth”

Two major criticisms – of the Planning Commission and its powers to replace decisions based on local public inquiries; and of proposals to weaken public participation in planning, Serious failure to create a new emphasis on positice implementation based on collective long-term ownership of land value growth. See the detail below.

Continue reading “Comments on Planning White Paper”

Today in the High Court Mr Justice Sullivan decided against our judicvial review of Camden Council’s grant of planning permission for Argent’s scheme. Full details of the judgement will follow. In the mean time…. we have to find £10,000 and you can help with that at www.kxrlg.org.uk

Some further comments….

Continue reading “King's Cross Judicial Review Fails”

March 07: The High Court (Mr Justice Collins) has now approved our request for a protective costs order so we can afford to go ahead (just – if everyone helps by subscribing). Camden tried to prevent this going through but backed off in the end.
Argent, the developer, has been trying to get the Court to lift the order it made to prevent historic buildings on the site being demolished pending the JR and we are resisting that.
More about all this – and some excellent press coverage secured by our indomitable press officer Diana Shelley – at www.kxrlg.org.uk , including how to donate or pledge.
If you want to comment email m.edwards[at]ucl.ac.uk because I switched off the auto-comment facility in the blog software – it was drowning me in hispanic garden furniture and car insurance.

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”