Last Thursday evening (25 November) 330 residents, business people and investors gathered at the Holiday Inn Brentford, West London, for our annual Christmas Lights fundraising dinner. This was the fourth such gathering – the Big Society has long established foundations in Brentford, a town whose roots can be traced back to 781AD. Yet whilst we enjoyed a wonderful evening, rather than unbounded optimism at a new Government that recognises the vital importance and role of civic society, talk amongst leaders of third sector organisations inevitably turned to how we would cope with cuts. We asked whether a philanthropic or voluntary response on the scale needed to plug the gap was indeed achievable, whether local government appreciated the lead times third sector organisations – like any other – need to plan redundancies and achieve savings as contracts are terminated or squeezed, and whether, with more of a shift towards volunteer staffing, the same quality standards could realistically be maintained.
Four years ago when the community realised, in better times, our local authority did not have the resources to galvanise town centre regeneration or even do basics such as putting up Christmas lights in Brentford high street we took matters into our own hands. A group of active local residents and business people formed a Steering Group with cross-party support of local councillors, at a time when our Council was hung and a coalition had formed between Conservatives and Independents. Support for the Group has remained strong as our Council switched back to Labour control and the area elected a Conservative MP in May’s elections.
The Steering Group’s work over the past two years, with the community setting its own vision for the regeneration of our town centre, has led to collaborations with The New Economics Foundation and The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment – both contentious organisations in some quarters (“Charles seeks ‘big society role’…”, The Guardian, 27 November).
Working with the both organisations up close – and also leading public affairs for another charity in the network of Prince’s Charities – has left me with the sense that commentators often miss these organisations’ ability to accept and endorse the more nuanced positions of local communities, as well as the Prince’s own role.
In September 2010 a study by The New Economics Foundation (NEF) rated Brentford London’s top ‘home town’, with a score of 84.6 in contrast to Richmond, which scored 19.5 and has the most cloned high street of London’s “villages”, with only five independent shops found down its length. Yet, for all the diversity of our independent shops the quality and capitalisation of the businesses can vary substantially. So it was no surprise that the published Community Vision, produced with the support of NEF in 2007, accepted the need for the addition of a national chain as an anchor store in Brentford, drawing more customers in for their weekly shop and enhancing the retail mix. This more complex reality was not challenged by NEF.
Over the past few years Brentford town centre’s largest landowner Ballymore has come to accept “90% of the community vision” recognising that it is both informed by local knowledge and heritage – and a commercially attractive proposition. This led to the Steering Group and Ballymore co-commissioning The Prince’s Foundation to work with all stakeholders to produce a report that will shape the brief for a master planner that we hope will be recruited through an open and competitive process in early 2011. The earlier Community Vision suggested that whilst incorporating older buildings and their style was important “high quality contemporary and innovative design would be welcomed as elements of the overall scheme”. With respect to the architectural approach the more recent study by The Prince’s Foundation suggested: “The [town centre site] has some good warehouse buildings from different decades but with framed structures, masonry infill and often metal windows… New development should attempt to pick up on these local clues and develop places of subtly different architectural character that marry well with the heritage and function of the area.”
Whilst promoting the local, historical vernacular neither of these statements are NIMBY, retrogressive or particularly limiting. Hank Dittmar recently said the Foundation advocates: “design in service of walkable, mixed-use neighbourhoods, linked by streets and squares and landscape. A design review panel would be slanted in favour of buildings and communities for people, rather than designers, and for modernity and innovation as a means to building natural and social capital, delight and local distinctiveness “. Most local communities welcome this as a defence against both ‘shock and awe architecture’ as well as poor quality urban design that obliterates our heritage, which is so vital to understanding where we are today and building strong communities. Poor quality urban design should not be allowed in anyone’s backyard.
As for the Prince’s role, he is President of the charities in his network. This role is not Executive, although clearly the charities that he champions and often initiates reflect his strongly held beliefs and interests. He will quite rightly and reasonably share his views with the leaders of these charities and spot opportunities for them to intervene as he travels the country. However this does not and should not inhibit the trustees, management and staff of the charities from making professional judgements about what they can and cannot support – both with respect to available resources and alignment with the charities’ objects.
So what must local communities and the Government watch out for as they start to make moves towards “Open Source Planning”? Community planning, using Enquiry by Design and similar methodologies, does demand funding.
Producing community plans that are ideas rich and legitimised by involving the whole community in decision-making is a resource intensive activity. Our work in Brentford has been achieved with seed funding of twenty thousand pounds that has been matched by tens if not hundreds of thousands of pounds of pro bono support by local professionals contributing their expertise and vast amounts of time to the Group. Effective project management and occasional expert input from outside the community can demand the recruitment of paid professionals. Whilst this is not much money in the context of regeneration projects that may be valued at many hundreds of millions, it can still sometimes be difficult for community groups to identify and secure such funding in the current climate.
Community plans that are to carry weight and be implemented must be rooted in financial realities. This means that community groups must be given the skills and tools to undertake development appraisals that unpack land values, the costs of construction and the “planning gain” monies which different densities of development should reasonably unlock for community investment. Developers should accept that local authorities and communities will expect the financials of large schemes to be “Open Book” and thus open to external scrutiny. Opening up this aspect of the process also requires a national conversation regarding acceptable profit margins and the varied risks and returns that different types of scheme demand if they are to secure financing.
The Prince’s Foundation, NEF and other national centres of expertise do have a vital role to play in supporting community groups and sharing best practice as planning powers are localised. However these national organisations’ resources will need to be enhanced too if they are to expand successfully and provide the quality of support local communities deserve so that we avoid the planning disasters of the past.
Reports referred to can be downloaded from www.brentfordhighstreet.org.uk
Andrew Dakers is Chair of Brentford High Street Steering Group, a former Councillor, Leader of Hounslow Liberal Democrats and parliamentary candidate. He has led public affairs for Business in the Community and remains an active community organiser specialising in corporate responsibility and community participation in regeneration.
