Regeneration or Redevelopment?

It is time! I am going again to put you through my vague observations, innate ramblings, strange reflections and odd questions usually all about what has been going on in my interim world of working across the public sector. This as always is purely a cathartic session for me but if someone gets something out of it as well even if only a smirk, then I am a happy man. It comes with the blatant health warning that I am a cynical, odd, old man who is far too opinionated, and these views do not reflect those of any current or previous employers and definitely will vary according to the time of day, the week and personal circumstances. My home will be at risk if you interpret them in any way that they are not meant. I thank you.

So, the question of the article is something that I often reflect upon as there is such a difference between regeneration and redevelopment projects and programmes. It bothers me for some reason when these schemes are defined wrongly. However, as I keep saying I am a cynic with too many opinions. We do though seem to confuse them so much in my eyes and value them wrongly.

One of the things that I find really funny is how we currently approach projects and programmes in that we can often think everything is new and has not been undertaken before. We have new concepts and new thinking and present them as such very visibly. We have articles about how new it is for this and that and highlighting incredible new approaches. We celebrate those that bring the new as reborn revolutionaries. However, in my view there is nothing new. There is always something within any project or programme that relies upon something from the past. It could be a street pattern, a building profile, a building material or construction technique, a meanwhile use - tee hee. I digress but we also have to have a new name for it as well that often is made up possibly for marketing purposes but then becomes standard. When is a meanwhile use not a temporary use? I think I have said this before in one of these articles but when I worked both in KPMG and Deloitte, we used to make up words to see if they would get into the language of some of our more senior colleagues. It was great fun but is now reflected in the terms that are often used in Consultant bingo games.

So back to the topic - when we look back at my favourite world of model villages (sorry boring you with this again) such as Bournville, Port Sunlight, New Earswick, Saltaire etc. we see design that still works, is sought after, valued wonderful areas of public space and community use, ways of making an inclusive community, longevity of construction, sustainable long-term maintenance built in and so on. Need I say anymore. I am not sure I have seen many regeneration projects in these locations but have seen renovation, refurbishment, enhancement, building upon the great foundations put in, in the past.

In the picture is the Saltaire Insitute, now known as Victoria Hall. A circular issued to Saltaire residents?in 1870 announced?that “the provisions of?the Saltaire Institute?were to be for innocent and intelligent recreation and the accommodation would house – a reading room; a library; a chess and draughts room; a smoking room; a billiard room; a bagatelle room (2 tables); a lecture hall seating 600 people; lecture theatres for 150 people; a science laboratory; a school of Art; various classrooms; a curator’s house; a gymnasium and rifle drill rooms”.?The large and beautiful building formed a quadrangle with the new Salt Schools that had rapidly proved to have insufficient room for Saltaire’s children. I am not saying to create museums but develop, regenerate, redevelop by building well for as long as possible with the right flexible spaces for many differing yet valuable uses. This will serve the community extremely well as it has and continues to.

For some reason, we approach regeneration as if it is a new world as a result of the failings of the developments of the 1960s and 1970s. The actual word regeneration has not only been used by Doctor Who in the BBC TV series since it started in the 1960s for one actor to pass on to the next (topical recent occurrence) but it is a word that is in the Bible in Matthew 19 and Titus 3 for example. It is not new to talk of regeneration. In Latin, the word "regenerare" means to create again. To create again there has to have been something there previously to get back to or to enhance. Regeneration for me is about people and less about the built form. It is about getting people to love and appreciate where they live, they eat, they enjoy, they work, they grow, they rest, they reflect and they behave. They do this by feeling part of the place. They feel they own their parts of it and want to keep hold of that feeling. They respect it and want it to flourish.

Have you ever had that conversation with someone who has come back from an area and raved or ranted on about it either negatively or positively. You can see the passion, the joy, the disappointment, the regret of wasted time in their eyes. We do all however have a view, a perception, a feeling of that place. It is often for me reflective of how the people are interacting in that place as well as the condition of the built environment. The condition of the public space, the buildings themselves is not about purely the design or the public sector cleansing and maintenance regime but the way people behave in it and treat it. Do they care? This is what regeneration projects and programmes are all about for me. How to tap into that positive feeling; to create again or enhance an area that is ultimately loved and enhanced by the people who use it.

We as a family have always loved the film Mr Beans's holiday. If you have not seen it, I urge you to. Even like me if you are not a fan of Mr Bean, you will enjoy it. I sat there the first time through gritted teeth of having to watch the Bean when for me it was not the humour, I was going to enjoy based on other Bean back catalogue work. However, it is a great film revolving around his eminence the Beanster winning a raffle for his dream trip to Cannes in the south of France. Obviously, it is all about the trip there and a series of jolly jape mishaps. It is one film (like Good Morning Vietnam) that I will happily watch again and love. This is despite when all of our three daughters at various stages of growing up have put it on again and again and I mean again. Why am I telling you this? Well, the place Cannes where the Beanster succeeds has been somewhere I have had a form of resentment for when mentioned because of the annual international property conference MIPIM.

Having been forced to go once, MIPIM lived up to all the reasons I imagined and actually did not want to see. For in depth analysis, please spend some time with me over food or beverage and here my rant. For me, and it is only my opinion, there is so much public sector funding wasted on this event with, in many circumstances, little perceivable impact or value for money demonstrated. I am sure the big cities do get something from it, but the remainder who should not go seem to go along with the bigger crowd. Do they really see themselves in the same bracket and competing with the likes of Singapore as an investment destination? I do not complain about the private sector here as if they want to waste their money pretending it is valuable and billions worth of deals can only be done in the warmth of a French Riviera city in March that is fine. It struck me when I was there as a great event to be treated to or to not worry about expense accounts or audit. I always love to see the FoI requests that come in from those monitoring the public spend in total for this event against the levels of investment deals secured. UKREIF watch out as this is coming your way too.

The lavish events in overinflated venues and the hikes in accommodation and travel costs just wind me up. It is just how I am as a grumpy cynical git that should know better and stop going on about it. However, I am passionate about the public sector not wasting money and pretending to be something it should not be. For me, we are public servants. So, it was with mixed views for me on the family holiday this summer we arrived at Cannes as a port of call. The girls were so keen to see The Palais des Festivals et des Congrès?where the end of the Mr Bean film is located. He finally gets there and walks over the cars to get to La Mer with the wonderful song playing of the same name - La Mer ("The Sea") by the French composer, lyricist, singer and showman Charles Trenet.? Google it, you will remember the song (other search engines are available). He wades into the lovely deep blue Med with the wonderful song still playing. It is also the venue for the MIPIM conference and exhibition for demonstrating place making and investment opportunities to interesting sources of worldwide money.

We arrive in the morning and walk to the Mr Bean beach past the conference centre and onto the adjoining sand obviously singing La Mer as a family. Me as the Dad completely singing it too loudly to annoy the girls. Dad things just rule. The memories flood back of seeing young surveyors on that beach in suits not bathing suits whilst not in the same state of alertness to their environment that we currently are. The marquees are not there with usually jazz bands playing, early evening closed off bars with ornately dressed chefs toiling over sumptuous BBQs, Squeeze without Jools in full voice. It is just a beach with mainly local families as it is a weekday and a good smattering of day visitors like us. As a buoyant whale, I spend my day bobbing on my back in the saltwater waves and reflecting on the sea front skyline, the Victorian style ornate seaside design and the joys and heartbreaks of various pieces of infill. Of course, I get sun burnt on the back of my neck. I don't think I left the bobbing for maybe three hours. I muse on the place that I resent for one reason alone being actually rather lovely and enjoyable. Have I actually learned another lesson; of course I have. The place is one thing but the people you are with, what you do and how you interact with it is what gives it the meaning. This feeling is what we need and what is actually the essence of regeneration as opposed to redevelopment. I do hear you now saying, oh no he is going on again about waterfronts in the strangest places.....dont worry avoided it.

Redevelopment according to Wiki (so it must be true) is defined as "any new construction on a site that has pre-existing uses. It represents a process of land development uses to revitalize the physical, economic and social fabric of urban space". This is actually based on R W Caves book - Encyclopaedia of the City's definition but you get my point. We are often redeveloping but want it to be presented as regeneration as this has a better and more marketable vibe. Wiki also goes on to state (and therefore must be true again) that variations on redevelopment include:

1. Urban infill on vacant parcels that have no existing activity but were previously developed, especially on Brownfield land, such as the redevelopment of an industrial site into a mixed-use development.
2. Constructing with a denser land usage, such as the redevelopment of a block of townhouses into a large apartment building.
3. Adaptive reuse, where older structures are converted for improved current market use, such as an industrial mill into housing lofts.

I see so many schemes that are held up as great examples of regeneration that for me really are redevelopment. The redevelopment of previous areas and uses without the people factor as an imperative. They have not understood as yet the role the humans play or will do. They can be memorials to the designers if we are not careful regardless of how the resident, visitor or user feels. When you look at some of the more deprived areas of our cities they can often have started out as the best places in the city. When I was at college in Bristol, I would be amazed at the beauty of some of the old Victorian villas in St Pauls. I remember walking in Halifax thinking we have better buildings than Harrogate but worse shops.

But why does it matter? I feel that when you undertake a major project or programme that we can only judge it as a success over a long enough period of time for people to interact with it and show their appreciation or contempt. If we do not consider the user first, the visitor, the human being we are only redeveloping. We are missing the opportunity and undervaluing it. Redevelopment for me can be motivated by the return on monetary investment and not always the social value being a more important factor. Redevelopment schemes of course do understand this and present very well against my thinking, but we need to be honest from the start and call it what it is.

To be worthy of the tag of regeneration in my gnarly old opinion and to be seen as successful, the project or programme must be adored, enjoyed, respected and used well, over a number of years by people and not initially by reviewers. It must be constantly and easily refreshed. It should be able to adapt to changes effectively and efficiently. It needs to engender that feeling of being somewhere that you really like being for that moment or lifetime. I know I don't want much but to avoid my nonsense please let's not make a new science out of it, call it what it is and not what it is not. A simple man with a simple request. In the words of Fraser Crane, "thanks for listening".