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News Release from: Chartered Institute of Building [CIOB] | Subject: Thames Gateway
Edited by the Buildingtalk Editorial
Team on 06 January 2006
Thames Gateway as a sustainable
community
'Gateway people' not convinced about sustainable community prospects.
'Gateway people' not convinced about sustainable community prospects The Thames Gateway is one of four growth areas for new housing in the South East of England
This article was originally published on Buildingtalk on 12 Mar 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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This large area, extending for more than 60 km along the River Thames eastwards from the London Docklands, has been identified as a national priority for regeneration and growth.
As the United Kingdom's Minister for Communities and Local Government David Milliband has said, it is both a symbol and a test case for the Government's commitment to build a country 'more equal in its opportunities and more secure in its communities'.
This is not quite the present situation: the study carried out by the Institute for Public Policy Research, with the support among others of the British Property Federation, the Building and Social Housing Foundation and English Partnerships, points to a number of significant risks that could undermine the creation of sustainable communities in the Thames Gateway.
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Having set out with the aim of assessing the aspirations and attitudes of prospective and existing residents of the Thames Gateway, the researchers Jim Bennett and James Morris found that perhaps the most troubling insight afforded by their inquiry was into the ill-informed and suspicious attitudes of existing residents in the outer areas of the Gateway.
"While this was a small sample", they say, "there was virtually no dissent from the view that the Gateway development was unlikely to bring any significant benefits to participants and would lead to significant tensions between new and existing populations".
"When one respondent described the Gateway plans as 'a recipe for violence', there was little disagreement".
"These concerns were underwritten by a general sense of powerlessness and exclusion".
"Participants felt that their part of the world was generally ignored by the Government, and that within their locality they were ignored by the 'authorities'".
"They simply did not believe that growth might correct this perceived imbalance." 'Equal opportunity and social justice'.
The Government's view of the prospects for Thames Gateway is radically different".
""I came into politics", said David Milliband, "out of a belief that the modern age of interdependence, where the fate of people and communities and nations are tied together as never before, demands values of equal opportunity and social justice, but it also demands that those values are applied in new ways and, if we cannot do it in the Gateway then we will struggle not just to do it elsewhere, but to convince people it can be done elsewhere".
Judging from the sceptical responses from the 56 participants interviewed by IPPR, they require some convincing that sustainable communities can be built in the Thames Gateway.
The respondents were drawn from three distinct segments of London's population: people either in temporary accommodation or overcrowded social housing; people mostly in rented accommodation that did not meet their aspirations; and thirdly, people with higher incomes, many of whom already owned their own homes.
The researchers explained that all the prospective residents interviewed had been selected on the basis they were planning to move within the next year.
People in the higher income groups were keen to upgrade their home, whereas the mid-income participants keen to buy their first home saw payment of rent as a waste of money.
Those in temporary or inadequate accommodation wanted to move because their current accommodation was inappropriate to their needs - for example the man living in a small, damp two-bedroom flat with six other family members, and a woman living in a hostel with three children, one of whom had sickle-cell anaemia and was a wheelchair user.
As to the concept of Thames Gateway as a sustainable community, the report found that while the term Thames Gateway has a great deal of currency in policy and planning circles, it had very little meaning for the groups they interviewed.
Very few of the participants had heard of the Thames Gateway.
Among the few who did recognise the term, there were two responses.
Some identified the term 'Thames Gateway' with the Thames Gateway Bridge that will link Thamesmead and Becton.
They did not think it was anything to do with housing.
A couple did associate the Gateway with housing development.
Their main association was with flood risk: "'You'll need a periscope to see it out of your window'".
"Higher income, Bexley." Prompting with a fact sheet did allow people to form a view on the project as a whole".
"Introducing the Gateway concept initially led many to fear the development of a homogeneous housing estate stretching from Greenwich to the Thames Estuary".
"It proved important to be clear that the Gateway developments would cluster around existing settlements.
It was also made clear that the new development would be linked to improved transport and other infrastructure.
Once these points were made participants were invited to think about the areas of Gateway that were most appealing to them".
""The mid-income groups were broadly enthusiastic about the Gateway though sceptical that the plans would be delivered".
"Participants in temporary or inadequate accommodation were similarly enthused, hoping that the development would enable their local authority to find them more suitable accommodation".
"One in this group saw it as the only prospect of moving out when housing was unaffordable for single parent families".
"The higher income groups on the other hand saw the Thames Gateway as a Government-driven initiative that would provide low-quality, monotonous housing, associations that led a minority of higher-income participants to reject the Gateway out of hand.
"The more I hear about it, the more I worry that it will be like Thamesmead or Milton Keynes" said one.
"You wouldn't know whether you were in East London or the middle of Swale", said another".
"'Negative associations' among the better off".
"One of the leading policy conclusions drawn from this inquiry, which itself is in no way hostile to the concept of sustainable communities, arises from the understanding that in many parts of the Thames Gateway and the other growth area local delivery bodies [such as the urban development companies set up by the Government] will be aiming to attract higher-income residents.
"Our research indicates that people with more choice in the housing market are less likely to be attracted to the Thames Gateway.
Their negative associations with large-scale new development, Government planned housing and mixed tenure has implications for the way in which developers and delivery bodies should market housing to this group".
"It also has implications for the investment strategy for the Thames Gateway".
"Areas without strong cultural heritage or high quality transport connections (such as the Channel Tunnel Rail Link) will struggle to attract higher income households.
"Locations of significant growth will need to offer more than just aspirational housing to attract this group and will require investment in services, infrastructure and culture to improve their marketability.
Otherwise they will not attract a broad enough range of incomes to improve their prospects for economic sustainability".
"Given that the higher-income group had very negative views of social housing and social housing tenants, it will be important that, in delivering mixed tenure developments, planning authorities require developers and housing associations to adopt a 'tenure blind' approach".
"If social housing is sensitively blended with market housing this will help to address the perception of social housing and reduce fears that a mix of tenure will impact on the value of properties.".
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