Examination of Witnesses (Questions 380
- 394)
WEDNESDAY 15 MARCH 2000
MR T BEATTIE
AND MR
D SHELTON
380. Is the tension arising because they do
not like it or because the results are something you do not like?
(Mr Shelton) No, the tensions are the creative tensions
as designers try to make their designs and aspirations practical
and deliverable and developers embrace this new agenda. Inevitably
change creates tension. It is vital that this happens because
the sceptical housing industry, it seems to me, are only going
to embrace this as a wider approach if we can show that it happens
in practice, that people will want to live there and you can do
it at a profit. We cannot influence every scheme in that way.
Not every housing estate or housing scheme can be a millennium
community, but we are putting huge amounts of resources, talent
and effort, into demonstrating that this can work in practice.
It is only by doing that, that the rest of the industry will sit
up and take notice.
Mr Blunt
381. How do you respond to the criticism that
Allerton-Bywater is exactly the sort of place which as a millennium
community is hopelessly over-designed in that particular area,
whilst you have had the architect in Greenwich walk out saying
it was not challenging enough and much more could have been done
and in fact you have the developers trying to be in and out of
the place as quickly as possible in order to make their return?
(Mr Shelton) As a point of clarification, it is true
that an architect at Greenwich left the consortia, but the main
creative talent behind that, Ralph Irskine, who is the overall
coordinating architect, is there leading the consortium and very
happy with the way the scheme is going at the present time. I
know that is the general view, but factually it is not correct
and it is important that is understood if the right lessons are
going to be drawn. So far as Allerton-Bywater is concerned, I
think one of the problems with Greenwich—the question mark—is
that it is unique. You are not going to come across a 300-acre
site with a new Underground station, with all the focus given
by the dome, every day of the week in an area of huge housing
demand. In Allerton-Bywater what we have tried to do is to run
a competition to create a new heart for a community in distress.
When its pit closed, that was a community which had nowhere to
go. What strikes me is that there are many more places like Allerton-Bywater
in this country than there are in the Greenwich peninsula. I believe
passionately that it is absolutely right and proper that the people
of Allerton-Bywater deserve the best of design, they deserve a
new community, they deserve a new heart for their village.
Chairman
382. You have a substantial bank of greenfield
land which you inherited from the Commission for New Towns. Are
you going to be able to keep it greenfield?
(Mr Beattie) That bank of land is part of a statutory
responsibility which we have inherited to complete the development
of the new towns. We inherited statutory responsibility from the
Commission for New Towns. It offers enormous potential. This Committee
in its report on PPG3 advocated an urban extensions code and one
of our intentions for that land is to do just that: build sustainable
self-supporting, relatively dense, urban extensions as mixed communities
which will actually accommodate some of the additional housing
demand which the Deputy Prime Minister identified as being necessary
only a few days ago.
(Mr Shelton) It is not all greenfield. Remember that
our land ownerships in Telford are largely former mining sites
and in Warrington are largely former defence sites.
383. Your development at Peterborough is out
of town. Are you now sinners repenting?
(Mr Shelton) This is Papyrus Road we are talking about.
The Papyrus Road one is in fact in town. It is a community leisure
scheme to serve an existing community which was supported by the
local people, the Parish Council and the site which was selected
was selected following a sequential testing approach and this
was the nearest site which was suitable to serve the needs of
the local community. We are perhaps not sinners, but we are repenting.
Mr Blunt
384. Could I make that clearer? Advice is that
David Shaw has said, "In short English Partnerships have
authorised themselves a development which the local planning authority",
which is not a Parish Council, "would have refused and where
there is a large amount of appeal evidence which very strongly
indicates that such a decision is contrary to Government guidance.
Is that what you are repenting about?
(Mr Shelton) No, no I am not. I am saying that English
Partnerships have statutory planning powers in the New Towns which
have been given to us by the Secretary of State. In exercising
those powers, we fully follow all Government planning guidance.
In this particular instance, which is fairly unique I have to
say, we have come to a different conclusion in the process from
the local planning authority.
Mrs Dunwoody
385. Do you mean you got it wrong?
(Mr Shelton) I believe we actually got this particular
instance right.
Chairman
386. Urban regeneration companies in Manchester,
Liverpool and Sheffield. Gimmicks?
(Mr Shelton) May I declare an interest because I am
a director of all three of the pilot urban regeneration programmes?
I think they offer a very good way forward, a genuine way of implementing
urban renaissance. The pilot programme has every indication of
working well and the basic principles of developing a vision for
the future of Sheffield or Liverpool city centre, East Manchester,
which is owned and endorsed by the key stakeholders, then establishing
a management mechanism to coordinate the public and private sector
investment to deliver that vision, is sound.
387. So the unitary development plan which Manchester
has for East Manchester was a waste of time, was it?
(Mr Shelton) A vision is a very different thing from
a unitary development plan.
388. So all those people who went to local consultations
about the unitary development plan were just wasting their time.
(Mr Shelton) No; no. The unitary development plan
is a very important key statutory document. Unitary development
plans tend to take things as they are or, where they are ambitious
for the future of the areas, the extent to which they are ambitious
largely depends on the aspirations of the planning officers.
389. So the regeneration company is going to
tear up that plan.
(Mr Shelton) No, it is going to evolve that planning
process. The important thing to remember with urban regeneration
companies is that the local authorities are crucial and critical
to the process. It does great credit to Manchester, to Sheffield,
to Liverpool, that they are prepared to be open to the best minds
in the world, that they do want the best for their area and they
are prepared to operate in a different way to ensure that vision
is delivered. I think they deserve great credit for what I think
is a fairly ambitious and credible step forward.
Mrs Dunwoody
390. That is rather nice, but what you are actually
saying is that the aspirations of the local people are not high
enough and we are going to teach them better.
(Mr Shelton) No, I do not think that is right. One
of the interesting things in East Manchester, when we had the
display of the vision proposals, with six separate proposals which
came in from international consortia, what interested me most
was that the local people who were coming to the exhibition liked
the most ambitious of the solutions. Local people were far more
ambitious than the planning officers, interestingly enough.
Chairman
391. When shall we actually see anything being
built in East Manchester?
(Mr Shelton) Things are being built in East Manchester
at the moment.
392. As a result of this.
(Mr Shelton) The process is that the visioning—
393. I am not asking about the process. When?
(Mr Shelton) By July the master plan, the vision,
will be in place and we will begin to see investment flow, I think,
after that has been done.
394. When? It is no good raising your hands
for the record.
(Mr Shelton) It will be a ten-year process to turn
round the future of East Manchester.
Chairman: On that note, may I thank you very
much for your evidence?
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