How to design unsustainable communities

A couple of months back, in conversation with a researcher who had been looking at the government's sustainable communities house-building programme, I was a bit gobsmacked to be told that there was no requirement for the new developments to include a decent rationing of what used to be called 'community facilities' - yer actual clinic, dentist, school, playground, library and so on.

I don't think I really believed him. Surely it's standard, if you're building any kind of new housing estate, to consider the provision of amenities and upgrade them or provide new facilities, according to formulae which presumably drop down off the menu on the desktop of any self-respecting planner. And if you're going to be so rash as to brand your house-building programme 'sustainable communities' then it's not just standard, it's a no-brainer.

Whatever 'sustainable community' means, I'd have thought it has something to do with access to common resources. The ODPM definition says it should have "facilities for everyone including children and older people." (I know, it's an odd phrase: under what circumstances would the category 'everyone' not include children and older people?) And it talks about having a "good range of affordable public, community, voluntary and private services."

My doubts began to peep through, like those bulbs, late this year, whenever I've been near a recent development in the south-east. And now I've come across this Telegraph article, by Jim White, describing what seems to be going on.

"Looking around the new estates the other day, watching instant suburbia flourish where once were just oily puddles, it soon becomes clear that there is nothing here except houses and cars - lots and lots of cars. There are no schools, no shops, no doctors' surgeries, no parks, no leisure centres, no public transport connections, just streets called things like Brook Drive and Meadow Avenue.

"The people who live here are expected to use the town's existing facilities. They must add their names to the school waiting lists, join the queue for the over-subscribed dentist, line up at the bulging health centre.

"Incredibly, developers have been allowed to build 2,500 homes and sell them at more than half a million apiece and yet add nothing at all to the city that has provided them with their bottom-line bonanza. Building companies must provide 'planning gain' only if they build more than 200 houses. So the strip has been developed piecemeal, 199 at a time."

Someone tell me it isn't true.

Comments

[Paulie]

I'm not generally given to hollow outrage and cynicism about the government and it's intentions, but the fact that they aren't even making any effort to identify the people that will be living in these homes and asking them what their neighbourhoods should be like... words fail me.

It means that everything they ever say about consultation and involvement is just hollow rhetoric. If they aren't interested in consulting on something that is such a no-brainer - and so many consultations that government DO insist on doing are highly contentious - then they should stop pretending that people's views matter.

How on earth can they be talking about neighbourhood democratisation without actually involving people in the design of their neighbourhoods? It's a fantastic opportunity that is going to go wanting.

How does one organise a Coup d'etat?

[Jim]

Isn't it up to the local authority to assess the need for facilities and require their provision where appropriate? I'm not sure this one can be solely laid at the door of ODPM. And I really think we need better evidence of what's going on - I tend not to trust the Telegraph on these issues because of its pathological antipathy towards both John Prescott and housebuilding.

[Hana Loftus]

It's not actually true about the 200 house rule. Section 106 agreements can apply to any scale of development at the discretion of the local authority. I don't know where Jim White lives, but it is fairly rare for local authorities not to demand any money in return for planning gain like that. Whether or not they spend the money wisely is another question - a lot often goes on refurbishing roads and otheter petty bits and pieces rather than being ring-fenced for schools etc; and often LAs don't really exercise the power that they have to ask more of developers.

I wouldn't believe everything you read in the Telegraph. I would say that the estate he describes, if he actually went to talk to the council or the developer, would have been liable to a section 106 agreement, or there's a story underneath it that he doesn't want to get into. Not to say that all is perfect in the world of development either - but there are formulae for the provision of social services (e.g. the development at Kings Cross Central that I worked on is providing two new primary schools and lots of other public amenities) and I would probably lay the blame on the local authority if they are not being strong enough to demand them, as they do have the legal power.

If you want to know more about how this all works please email me!

[Matrin]

Ignorance and greed - as usual. What can we expect when the barrow boys run the country?

Why do we think we ended up with a labour government in 1945? To create a 'welfare state' where profit was not the only motive. Why do you think we ended up with a labour government in 1997? To reverse the damage of Thatcherism? ha ha!

I wonder who gets the worse deal - inner city deprived areas, or these new estates. Rip-off - oh yes!

[Charlie Garratt]

How can you be surprised at the lack of sustainability or community - putting together two sexy words like these (that no profit-driven developer really understands) is a sure fire way of attracting the contract but somebody elses' problem in the long term.

Whilst, as one of the comments suggests, Section 106 can be deployed it will only pay for a tiny bit of infrastructure. Sometimes this is a community centre, sometimes it's a traffic island, rarely is it a long term commitment to ensuring that neighbourhoods which tend to house the most vulnerable have the resources and facilities that will help them grow. I still remember the occasion on a regeneration programme where the amount committed to a community development input was the same as the sum spent on the site hut - I'm not convinced that things have changed.