Category: planning

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.

Two days June 13 and 15 spent in the Examination in Public of the housing alterations to the London Plan, one day on behalf of the London Social Forum and the other (with Una Sapietis and Marian Larragy) on behalf of King’s Cross Railway lands Group….

Continue reading “London Plan "early revisions" on housing”

The Guardian on 4 May 2006 published an article summarising a parliamentary committe report under the headline MPs criticise slow start to Britain’s fastest railway line as costs mount. I felt impelled to write to the Guardian and protest because the article argued that “regeneration” benefits in North London might be the saving grace of the project. The letter I wrote was as follows…

Continue reading “Does north London "regeneration" help justify CTRL?”

Severe setbacks at King’s Cross this spring.

Continue reading “King's Cross”

I just came back at 2345h from the best event I was ever at – apart from demonstrations perhaps. Dario Fo is standing for election in the primaries for mayor of Milano and held a rally today, one week before the voting. It was in the mazda palace – a huge place a bit like Wembley Arena out near the S Cirio stadium, holding about 7000 people and it was full. He’s a candidate of a “Civil List” or red / green people but not directly parties.
http://www.dariofo.it/

Continue reading “Dario Fo for mayor of Milano”

In Istanbul with 157 students and such a great staff team – it gets better and better. I hope is being good for the students and certainly many seem hugely stimulated though it is easy to be rose-tinted. Today, by that wonderful tendency of modern networking, we made contact with Orhan Esen, Teresa and I spent some time with him and we are having a talk from him on Tuesday morning – our last day.

Continue reading “Istanbul”