document

regeneratenorthwest

Big bang for Manchester

For some it is The Porcupine, for others a giant firework and for yet more an embodiment of the moment a starting pistol shatters the silence in an athletics stadium. Whatever the interpretation, Thomas Heatherwick’s B of the Bang, which has just been officially unveiled in east Manchester, is destined to provoke strong opinions. Ian Herbert The sculpture – created by the same prodigious talent that has carpeted a Newcastle pavement in a £1.4m shimmering glass Blue Carpet and given London’s Paddington Basin a new Rolling Bridge – was commissioned to mark the resurgence of east Manchester and commemorate the 2002 Commonwealth Games. At 58m, it stands three times the size of Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North and taller than any sculpture in Britain. It takes its name from Linford Christie’s comment that to win a race, an athlete must depart on the ‘B’ of the starting pistol’s ‘bang.’

Tyneside’s affection for its now iconic Angel beside the A1 was best demonstrated in 1998 when a colossal football jersey bearing the name of the Newcastle United striker Alan Shearer was draped over her wings as the team set off for the FA Cup Final. The Millennium Bridge by Chris Wilkinson, which links Newcastle to Gateshead and won architecture’s Stirling Prize in 2002, also underlined the area’s extraordinary knack for inspirational public design commissions. continued p2

“The importance of delivering something that truly belonged to Manchester was vital”

Produced for the Delivering Sustainable Communities Summit 31 January - 2 February 2005, Manchester, England’s Northwest

INSIDE REGENERATE 01

FeaturesNew land values: Newlands, Revive, Remade: a host of programmes are bringing a new, green look to the post-industrial landscapes of England’s Northwest. 2

The lasting legacy: What kind of long-term impact do major events like the Commonwealth Games or Capital of Culture have on the regeneration of our cities? Page 6

RENEW thinking: The latest Regional Centre of Excellence for regeneration is leading by exemplar. Page 8

All up front: Apparently, ‘blue is the new green’ as regenerators start to realise the true value of Mersey Waterfront. Page 10

Also in RegenerateRay of light: New PV cladding is set to transform the CIS tower into one of Europe’s largest solar generators. Page 14

Hot prospect: A Cumbrian village is ploughing up and warming up with underground heating. Page 14

Building better: A new school in Cheshire and a Lancashire housing scheme are just two projectsintegrating renewables into their build. Page 15

Delightful deco: The stunning Midland Hotel in Morecambe is set for a transformation, courtesy of the NWDA and Urban Splash. Page 3

Mediterranean Salford: Italian archi-tect Massimiliano Fuksas is hatching a new plan for the transformation of Central Salford. Page 5

Sweet dreams: A river of chocolate and traffic-free playzones are just some ideas on the wishlist of children taking part in East Lancashire Housing Market Renewal Scheme, ELEVATE. Page 3

Westlakes wants you: How Cumbria’s urban regeneration company West-lakes Renaissance is making young entrepreneurs a central strategy. Page 2

CommentWalter Menzies of the Mersey Basin Campaign on the future challenges for waterfront regeneration. Page 11

Phil Barton of RENEW on the skillswe need for a better regeneration.Page 8

Louise Hopkins of Mersey Waterfront on the shifting cultural attitude towards public space. Page 16

Mark Atherton of the NWDA on a new definition of sustainable commmuni-ties. Page 19

Ian MacArthur of Groundwork on health and the regeneration agenda. Page 17

Space-age spectacular in East LancsA SERIES of public exhibi-tions have been launched across Burnley, Hyndburn and the Ribble Valley reveal-ing shortlisted designs for space-age installations that have been labelled ‘land-marks’ for the 21st century!

A series of six ‘Panopti-cons’ is planned as part of a wider regional park initiative for the area led by the East Lancashire Partnership (ELP).

Set to become symbols of the area’s regeneration, the designs for neighbouring areas of Blackburn, Pendle and Rossendale have already been selected, with construc-tion due to begin in spring 2005. The scheme is being funded by the Northwest Re-gional Development Agency.

The proposed designs merge architecture with sculp-ture and environmental art,

with earlier headline grabbing designs including the Halo and the Atom. The scheme co-ordinator is Nick Hunt, Director of Mid-Pennine Arts.

“We have invited initial ideas from some very talented designers, each with a strong track record. We are delighted that they are all keen to work in East Lancashire, and we are very excited to see what they propose,” he said. “From

those concept ideas, we want to select designs to be developed and shaped by the influence of local people. Our aim is to create new land-marks that gain international profile, but that belong to East Lancashire.”

Ian Whittaker, NWDA Area Manager for Lancashire, com-mented, “The towns of East Lancashire sit in a pretty im-pressive landscape, but one

which I think we sometimes take for granted. The Panop-ticons project will provide six striking and unique additions to this landscape.

“Such public art, incor-porating high quality design in stunning settings, is a vital factor in showcasing the area as a great place for business to invest in and for people to live, work and visit.”http://www.panopticons.uk.net

Bringing you the very best in sustainable regeneration, environmental solutions and fresh, new ideas from England’s Northwest

Len

Gra

nt

1

Delivering Sustainable Communities, February 2005 regeneratenorthwest

The restoration of the well neglected Midland Hotel will be carried out by the Northwest-based devel-opment company Urban Splash, with £4 million from the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA) and in partnership with Lancaster City Council. Plans are for the hotel to have 46 bedrooms, a public bar and café, restaurant and bathhouse.

Pointing out that the NWDA has a strong track re-cord in heritage-led regeneration, Helen France, NWDA Executive Director of Development and Partnerships said, “The Midland Hotel is a unique asset and the restoration of this landmark building will be a huge step in the renaissance of Morcambe. This development will be crucial to lifting perceptions of Morecambe, not just as a visitor destination, but also as a quality environment in which to live and work.”

It is expected that once restored to its former glory – with plenty of modern luxuries added - the sump-tuous hotel will attract increasing numbers of visitors to the area and add in excess of £1.2 million a year to the local economy. It will also generate employment for the local community, creating prestige hotel, catering and construction jobs.

Morecambe’s hip hotelHoliday-makers and honeymooners wanting a posh trip to Morecambe will soon be able to sleep in the lap of luxury, as a Grade II listed hotel on the seafront is given a new lease of life.

regeneratenorthwest

Demand has been high for space in the glazed, four-storey office complex and restored vanilla essence factory, with 40 per cent of the building’s units let before completion and with 80 per cent of the space now under offer or occupied.

In keeping with the ‘boho’ surroundings of Liverpool’s Ropewalks quarter, the tenants are primarily from the creative and media industries, including Uniform, a design agency; ACME arts and Thunk advertising and design.

Bryan Allan, director of Thunk, is looking forward to getting to work in the new space. “You can’t create great ad campaigns in your front room,” he said. “It’s important for us to have a working environment where staff feel stimulated and in transforming the Vanilla Factory, Urban Splash has managed to preserve the atmosphere of this great building, but keep a stylish and contemporary feel at the same time.”

Now a high profile property developer right across the UK, Urban Splash’s first ever development was in the Ropewalks area ten years ago, where a series of

Barrow’s local heroes

IF YOU’RE A YOUNG PERSON with a snappy business idea living in the Cumbrian port of Barrow in Furness, then your lo-cal Urban Regeneration Company (URC) needs you!

With over 2000 job losses in Barrow over the past two years, and a decline in the number of young people between 18-30 running at twice the national figure for that age group, the town’s employment market is facing a serious challenge. Michael Baker, Regeneration Manager for Westlakes Renais-sance explains that there is no point in the URC creating com-mercial units if there are going to be no businesses to put in them, or people left to be employed.

“The whole remit of the URC is to address market failure in the area. We have a low level of start-ups and a high level of business closure,” he explains, noting that encouraging young people to consider starting their own companies in Barrow will help to re-invigorate the local business sector and reverse the out-migration trend.

Westlakes Renaissance decided to put the call out to all 14-25 year olds with dreams of becoming the Richard Bransons of the future. Billed as ‘Local Heroes’ the event focused around talks, tips and mentoring provided by some of the town’s best and brightest young business-people, all under the age of 30. They included a shoe designer who runs her own shop called Peacock Pie, co-owners of internet café The Custom House, and the managing director of the UK’s leading independent shopping portal, e-Directory.

Full to capacity at its first event in October last year, ‘Lo-cal Heroes’ is set for a re-run in February, and is planned to become a regular occasion for young people in Barrow with talent, initiative and the drive to succeed on their own terms.www.westlakesrenaissance.com

Urban renewal An advertising agency, a construction company and a firm of architects are just some of the organisations that have leased office space in Urban Splash’s latest contribution to the regeneration of central Liverpool, the Vanilla Factory.

Regenerate has been produced to showcase some of the Northwest’s best sustainable regeneration successes, explore pressing issues and inspire creative new thinking as the region’s brightest people, organisations and communities work together for a better future.

Feedback: tell us what you think of regenerate by emailing us now at [email protected]

Edited by Louise Tickle and Steve ConnorProduction by Marion Winward-KaneResearch: Victoria BradfordContributors: David Ward of The Guardian; Ian Herbert of The Independent;Mark Hillsdon, Amanda Wood, Sue Dunn, Claire Martin, Claire Ebrey, Chris Dessent Extra: Urban Splash Photography: Len Grant, Jan Chlebik. Karen Wright, Andrew Williams, Ceri ChamberlainPrinted by: Gyroscope on 100% pcw paper Produced by Creative Concern, Fifth Floor, Fourways House, 57 Hilton Street, Manchester M1 2EJ Telephone 0161 236 0600 www.creativeconcern.com

CHOCOLATE FLAVOURED CANALS, a funfair on every corner, flying cars, and best of all, no adults, were the enthu-siastic suggestions coming from East Lancashire’s junior school pupils when asked to imagine their ideal living environ-ment.

Six schools in the areas earmarked for new housing took part in the My Perfect Town consultation project run by ELEVATE, East Lancashire’s housing market renewal pathfinder, in partnership with Design East Lancashire. Youngsters worked with professional designers to dream up their perfect home, street or town using sculpture, pottery, collage and painting, and the most creative ideas are featured in a new calendar.

Even if their recommendations don’t result in Willy Wonka being invited to establish a factory to supply the local canal network, the children are hoping

derelict warehouses was transformed into loft apartments, commercial space and a bar. The Concert Square develop-ment was considered by many to be the catalyst for the rest of the area’s regeneration.

Another Urban Splash development in Liverpool, the recently-opened Tea Factory, is now home to RENEW, the region’s centre for regeneration excellence, and RIBA’s Northwest office.

The Vanilla Factory development was supported by the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA). Area manager Paul Lakin welcomed the new addition to the area’s commercial space: “The Vanilla Factory plays an important role in the further regeneration of the Ropewalks area and I’m delighted that the Agency has been able to provide funding for it,” he said. “Urban Splash have brought yet another redundant building back into use and have created much needed office space in the heart of the city.”

TAKE THE TRAIN TO LIVERPOOL today, and you could be arriving anywhere – stations across the country look pretty much the same wherever you go. Fetch up in 2008 however and you’ll see the re-stored splendour of Lime Street Station’s Victorian heritage, enhanced by elegant lighting and complimented by carefully designed public spaces and comfortable, informal seating.

On emerging from the newly restored ‘Gateway to Liverpool’, visitors will be faced with a tall elegant new build-ing that replaces the existing Concourse Tower.

The curved elliptical structure will offer clear covered pedestrian access through its base, allowing unimpeded views of the fine station building. It will incorporate sustainable design features including natural ventilation, energy ef-ficient and recycled materials.

IT IS A DEVELOPMENT that will be crucial to lifting percep-

tions of Morecambe, not just as a visitor destination, but

also as a quality environment in which to live and work.

The restoration of the long neglected Midland Hotel

will be carried out by the Northwest-based development

company Urban Splash, with £4 million from the Northwest

Regional Development Agency (NWDA) and in partnership

with Lancaster City Council. Plans are for the hotel to have

46 bedrooms, a public bar and café, restaurant and bath-

house.

Pointing out that the NWDA has a strong track record

in heritage-led regeneration, Helen France, NWDA Execu-

tive Director of Development and Partnerships said, “The

Midland Hotel is a unique asset and the restoration of this

landmark building will be a huge step in the renaissance of

Morecambe.”

It is expected that once restored to its former glory –

with plenty of modern luxuries added - the sumptuous hotel

will attract increasing numbers of visitors to the area and

add in excess of £1.2 million a year to the local economy.

It will also generate employment for the local community,

creating prestige hotel, catering and construction jobs.

www.urbansplash.co.uk

that their recommendations for parks they can play in safely and roads that are traffic-free will influence planners as they co-ordinate the regeneration of East Lancashire’s housing market.

As Kathleen Houghton from ELEVATE points out, though the canals may be a sweet dream too far, “we will be listening to what the youngsters say – af-ter all, some of them will be buying their first homes when the ELEVATE project is completed in ten to 15 years time.” www.elevate-eastlancs.co.uk

The multi-million pound transfor-mation will be carried out by Liverpool Vision and English Partnerships, together with Network Rail and Liverpool City Council.

Eliot Lewis-Ward, English Partner-ships’ Area Director for Merseyside and Cheshire said, “Lime Street is one of Liverpool’s most important locations and, for many visitors, it provides their first im-pression of the city. With this magnificent setting, we have the opportunity to create a new landmark that is as distinctive as the city’s waterfront.”

The regeneration work is ex-pected to start early in 2006 and will be completed by the end of 2007. Existing commuters and visitors shouldn’t take to their cars however - the station will remain operational throughout.

Big Bang for Manchester, continued

But when it began its own search for a designer four years ago, Manchester city council knew that replicating that success would be no easy task. After all, Gateshead council had faced fierce opposition to Angel at the commissioning stage, when the local Liberal Democrats waged a vociferous Stop the Statue campaign and the ‘Gateshead Post’ newspaper said it resem-bled the work of the Nazi architect Albert Speer.

And for all the North East’s success, its much maligned sculpture of 52 Lego Men had to be removed after months of criticism. Liverpool’s ambitions ended the same way last July when it axed plans to build Will Alsop’s ‘Cloud’ on the Mersey river-front. Many locals had detested it.

“The importance of delivering something that truly belonged to Manchester was vital,” said Manchester City Council’s Chris Lee. “It was important to us that local residents should sit along-side art experts, artists, Sir Tom Bloxham and others on the panel which was to choose the artist.”

Heatherwick had another reason for not wanting to drop a big white elephant on Manchester. He is still in touch with the tutors who helped him through studying three-dimensional de-sign at Manchester Polytechnic (now Manchester Metropolitan University.) He was certain his piece must be on a huge scale – and not overwhelmed amid the dominant football stadium and Europe’s biggest Wal-mart. But he still admits there is no easy formula for recapturing Angel’s success.

“Angel was a very, very brave bit of commissioning,” he says. “There was no precedent for that kind of work and you could argue that the juxtaposition of wings and man asks harder ques-tions of the public than B of the Bang, which is more figurative. It just belonged, like this piece needs to belong.”

The designer’s determination to avoid idealised stereotypes about the Games spirit will certainly endear him to Mancu-nians. Traditionally, such monuments have been about “peace between nations and people coming together,” he says. But B of the Bang depicts the “dynamic, aggressive and energetic” part of sport. “It’s about that selfish quality in sport – where your whole life’s effort kicks in and if you don’t win, everything you’ve given is lost.” It is an epitaph some Manchester City fans may consider intimately appropriate to them.

Bringing you the very best in sustainable regeneration, environmental solutions and fresh, new ideas from England’s Northwest

2 3

They should cocoa Next stop 2008

The Vanilla Factory


A GLOBAL CONSORTIUM of regeneration experts is set to put

Central Salford on the international destination map, following

a fiercely contested competition to transform the heart of one

of the world’s first industrialised cities.

Led by Locum Destination Consulting, the winning team

will see internationally acclaimed architect, Massimiliano

Fuksas, join forces with Canadian regeneration expert, Joe

Berridge and Glasgow University economist Professor Stuart

Gulliver.

The team was selected following feedback from a public

exhibition, community consultations and consideration by a

judging panel of regeneration experts and local representa-

tives that included MP for Salford and Home Office Minister

Hazel Blears, influential designer and chair of Building for Life

Wayne Hemingway and Peter Hunter, architect, development

adviser and one of the driving forces behind Salford Quays and

The Lowry.

With a portfolio that includes Ferrari, the Space Agency

Headquarters in Rome and the Peace Centre in Jaffa, the team

for Central Salford is now tasked with rejuvenating an area of

more than 2,000 hectares that encompasses six wards ranked

in the top seven per cent of the most deprived wards nationally.

Central Salford covers the areas of Ordsall, Broughton,

Irwell Riverside, Langworthy, Kersal, Claremont, Weaste and

Seedley, and is home to 72,000 people.

The transformation will include the development of busi-

ness premises, mixed-tenure housing, improved schools, safe

and inspiring open spaces, new community and leisure facili-

ties, retail environments and an improved transport infrastruc-

ture.

Chair of Central Salford’s Shadow Board, Felicity Goodey

CBE, said: “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. The win-

ning consortia have not only demonstrated that they have the

experience, ability and creativity that we are looking for, they

also understand Salford’s existing strengths and assets and

how to build upon them.”

A new ‘Vision and Regeneration Framework’ for Central

Salford is now being prepared to help shape the future of the

city. Salford’s new vision is expected to unlock hundreds of

millions of pounds of private and public sector investment and

transform the image of the city nationally and internationally.

Central Salford will create new jobs and provide better and

safer places to live.

Chairman of Building for Life, Wayne Hemingway, and a

member of the Central Salford judging panel added: “Salford

is seen as a place with real potential to move onwards and

upwards. Sometimes you can sense when a place is on the

ascendancy and Salford certainly is.”

Supported by Salford City Council, English Partnerships

and the Northwest Regional Development Agency, the Central

Salford Shadow Board will work to attract substantial public

and private investment in the area. Central Salford is expect-

ing an announcement of Urban Regeneration Company status

imminently.

www.centralsalford.com

GO TO A BUSINESS PARK and what do you usually see? An uninspiring vista of industrial units, anonymous roads and little sense of connection between the companies working there.

Wander round the Green Business Park in Winsford, Cheshire, and you may think you’re seeing the same thing. But look a little closer, and the reality is somewhat different. In the last three years, with funding from ENWORKS, which helps companies to improve their environmental performance together with securing a competitive advantage, Winsford Busi-ness Park has, quite literally, gone green.

And some of the changes, while seem-ingly small, have made a measurable dif-ference. At Groundwork Macclesfield and Vale Royal, which co-ordinates this ‘green business park’ initiative, Greville Kelly, environmental business services manager explains what emerged from an audit of how businesses worked on the estate.

“It turned out that for the 4,000 work-ers here, there wasn’t a single sheltered bus-stop. If you wanted to use public transport, you were going to get rained on. So we put a shelter in, and worked with the bus companies to get timetables lined up with shift patterns.”

Another breakthrough came with the installation of a frank mailbox on the es-tate. “That saves 30 companies travelling seven miles a day back and forth to the Post Office. That’s a saving of 11,000kg of CO2 every year.”

Many of the businesses have worked closely with Groundwork to minimise their waste output, and for what remains, there is a collective recycling system. When the ENWORKS funding runs out in 2006, it’s hoped that after five years of green think-ing, company bosses will vote to self-fund the continuation of this type of work, mak-ing the initiative self-sustaining.

Green thinking pays off Rome, New York, Toronto, Detroit, SalfordBlink today and you might miss the connection. But a new vision for Salford could soon see urban planning to rival the most sophisticated design in the world. Story by Chris Dessent.

BUSINESSES BASED in England’s Northwest are employ-ing boardroom tactics to meet the challenge of economically developing some of the region’s most deprived communities.

Inspired by a North American Harvard Business School model of business-led regeneration for inner cities, Liverpool has been chosen as one of ten areas in the UK to champion the new, business-led approach to urban regeneration, follow-ing earlier pilot programmes including St Helens. Supported by the Treasury and the Small Business Service, City Growth is a national initiative, which places enterprise and business growth at the heart of long-term regeneration.

Launched as a government pilot in 2002 the scheme focuses on the economic potential and inherent competitive advantages of inner city or urban areas.

Merseyside business leader, Joe Morris, Director of Liver-pool-based T.J Morris Ltd, a discount retailer, is leading City Growth Liverpool to create a holistic and long-term strategy which aims to unlock Liverpool’s full business potential.

“The City Growth Livepool project provides a great op-portunity for businesses in the area to derive maximum benafit from the opportunities for business growth that are emerging throughout the city” he says.

“The city already has a great deal to offer and City Growth will provide the added momentum to ensure that business is at the heart of Livepool’s growth, thus ensuring that wealth creation brings benefits to businesses and residents”

As St Helens begins to implement its City Growth Strategy, Liverpool is just beginning the process of gathering the neces-sary business intelligence and forming the partnerships that will drive the future of wealth creation in the city. The draft City Growth strategy for Liverpool will be launched for extensive

consultation in Autumn 2005.

City-style living for lessThe provision of affordable homes for first time buyers is

rapidly becoming the Holy Grail of housing policy.But in the North West, developer LPC Living is transform-

ing abandoned and derelict tower blocks into quality apart-ments, many of which are reserved solely for first-time buyers.

In Salford five neglected blocks of flats in Ordsall Lane are in the process of becoming desirable ‘city-style’ apartments which, with prices starting below £80,000, are demonstrating that quality housing near to the city centre can be affordable.

In Blackley, North Manchester the company has also redeveloped a further five tower blocks at a cost of £24m, and invested a further £12m in similar schemes in Wythenshawe and Liverpool.

A strict investor quota means that many of the homes are ring-fenced for first-time buyers and all homes priced below £90,000 are sold only to those taking their first step onto the property ladder.

Chairman of LPC Living, Warren Smith says: “some of our homes in Blackley have prices starting from £59,950, specifi-cally targeted at first-time buyers, recently qualified profession-als and those deterred by high-priced accommodation in the city centre. LPC Living is providing ‘city-style’ living at realistic prices.”

By the end of this year, LPC will have up regeneration schemes worth up to £100m underway in the Northwest, and over 1000 homes in development.

Massimilliano Fuksas is set to deliver a new vision form Central Salford

Len

Gra

nt

Environmental management systems are also being taken seriously by a variety of small and medium sized companies wanting to reduce the ecological footprint of their internal processes. With support from ENWORKS, both a zoo and a heat insulation company have cut their operat-ing costs, come up with new products from waste materials, created jobs and discovered lucrative new markets.

Chester Zoo is the first zoo in the UK to achieve environmental accredita-tion standard 14001. With help from Groundwork Wirral, the zoo achieved the standard by working through a flexible five-step framework called BS8555.

“A zoo has a number of quite unique issues,” explains Groundwork Wirral’s Neil Earnshaw. “They are very high users of energy, in order to keep animal units at tropical temperatures. They also have issues of waste left by visitors, and large amounts of animal waste to dispose of.”

It was identified that animal dung could be filtered and used as a fertiliser on surrounding farmland belonging to the zoo, with the excess sold on for agricul-tural use. Around £400 a year in landfill charges has been saved through recycling packaging and providing bottle-bank facilities to visitors. Employees can now feel a sense of ownership and pride in the fact that their environmental efforts have been recognised through accreditation.

But to see how taking care of the environment can bring major commercial benefits, heat insulation manufacturer Armacell UK is a hard example to beat.

Working with researchers from Bradford University, rubber off-cuts from the manufacture of its core product have been transformed into state of the art sound insulation. Nine new jobs have been created, landfill bills are down by £6,300 per annum, and demand for the new product, Armafoam, is rocketing.

Having been on the market just a year, projected UK sales for 2005 are set to be worth £250,000. European sales could be ten times that. And China and India are both exploring the possibility of using the sound insulation in their public buses. That’s an awful lot of buses.

All proving that companies can enjoy substantial payback in terms of greater productivity and efficiency by making environmental practice profitable.www.enworks.com

The business parks of the future will be green, not grey

SuperCity goes on showAn exhibition that projects a vision of

the M62 corridor as a huge coast-to-coast SuperCity, 80 miles long and 15 miles wide, will be displayed at Manchester’s Urbis from January 20.

The provocative idea comes from architect Will Alsop, and imagines a world where city limits are blurred and its inhabitants live in Liverpool, shop in Leeds and go clubbing in Manchester. Using the latest forms of advanced transportation, SuperCity residents could wake up by the Mersey and commute to an office overlooking the Humber. Air travel from a central hub is envisaged for intra-su-percity hopping. It’s only to be hoped that a green fuel has been discovered to facilitate these aerial taxis. The exhibition runs until May 15 2005.

Behold the dingy skipper butterfly Flowers and wildlife not native to Cheshire

will continue to flourish as two years of site restoration work on Ashton’s and Neumann’s ‘Flashes’ nears completion.

Originally created by ICI in the 1940’s as a series of exterior walls to enable the storage of lime waste, the Flashes fell into disrepair, allowing nature to take over. Fragrant orchids, marsh helleborines, creeping willow and uncommon species such as the dingy skipper butterfly flit about in the mid-summer months. If left completely to natural forces, the valu-able grassland habitat on which these species need to survive would be lost.

Once the restoration programme, led by Cheshire County Council and the Northwest Regional Development Agency is complete, the aim is to work with minimum management intervention to retain these rare and fascinat-ing features.

Collect, create and revive A £750,000 intermediate labour market

project is being piloted by Halton Borough Council, which aims to reduce the borough’s unemployment figure to the regional average by 2006.

Up to 45 people will improve their skills through work in a variety of areas including training to collect household waste with Bulky Bobs, combined with study towards an LGV licence and IT skills.

A second group, called ‘Create’ will be trained in the refurbishment and recycling goods collected by Bulky Bobs for re-sale to the general public. They will work towards an NVQ in Mechanical Engineering. A third group, ‘Revive’, will sell on the refurbished goods and furniture to people on low incomes and will be trained in an NVQ in Retail and Customer Service.

Radical options for Oxford Road

Private sector leads growth of cities

News in brief

4 5

WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER masterplan still under wraps and with Terry Farrell’s work for the City Council still equally hush-hush, the next few months will see major announcements on the radical facelift expected for Oxford Road in Manchester.

The launching of the new University of Manchester, a fusion of the old Owens Uni-versity and UMIST, included a masterplan-ning exercise that will see new public spaces created along major stretches of what is claimed to be Europe’s busiest bus route. This masterplan has been rolled into a wider plan being created by the City Council with the help of Terry Farrell and Partners.

A further significant impact on Oxford Road will be the changing plans for the BBC; with 1,800 employees to be recolated and the wholesale shift of departments like Radio 5 Live, their Oxford Road site will have to be completely reinvented. A spokesper-son for the BBC said that initial plans would be released in the next two to three months.

One facelift that is going ahead on Oxford Road is the refurbishment of the Cornerhouse Arts Centre, the ever-popular film, gallery and cafe complex that, accord-ing to City Life, “brought the cappuccino back to Manchester”.

The initial works will include a new box office, toilets, floodlights and cleaning of the external facade. Further works will be carried out dependent upon the success of a £1 million Arts Council bid for a new education centre and additional exhibition space.

According to Cornerhouse Director Dave Moutrey, these works are the Centre’s contri-bution to a new look for Oxford Road.

“We’ve given this city twenty years of contemporary visual arts and cinema, including the first major exhibition of Damien Hirst’s work,” said Moutrey. “As work is set to begin on a real transformation of Oxford Road, it’s time for the Cornerhouse to play its part in the regeneration of this incredibly important route.”

The Cornerhouse is one of a number of partners in a scheme to promote Oxford Road as a premier ‘cultural corridor’, with other partners including the University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester City Council and the BBC.

The work by Terry Farrell and Partners is just one of a number of plans the practice has pulled together for the City, with other projects including the ‘Southern Gateway’ and a plan for the Macintosh Mill complex.www.cornerhouse.org


IN THE SHADOW of the B of The Bang, Thomas Heatherwick’s spiky and heavily symbolic sculpture at one corner of the City of Manchester stadium, sits a small, white temporary building.

Go inside and pick up a brochure, for this is the sales office of Countryside Homes, the private developer that has already completed two blocks of apartments overlooking the stadium, is well on the way to finishing a third and has started a fourth.

Prices range from about £100,000 to almost £200,000, figures which will astonish anyone who remembers this part of East Manchester as a classic region of post-industrial decline. Buyers include many Manchester City fans from far away.

Posh flats for outsiders may not be the best criterion of the success of urban renewal based on a major event such as the 2002 Commonwealth Games (for which the stadium was built). But there are signs of economic spin-offs for local residents. Terraced homes in Clayton which three years ago sold for £15,000 are now fetching around £45,000, with prices expected to rise faster than other parts of Manchester because of the amount of money being poured into the area over 15 years: the Games have generated £600m of public investment, which includes money to be spent on the modernisation of 3,000 former council houses in Bes-wick, Clayton and Openshaw.

Europe’s biggest Asda store has opened near the stadium, providing jobs for more than 200 local people. More work should be on offer as business parks and

industrial sites come on stream.Less measurable as a Games outcome is the per-

sonal development of the thousands of event volunteers (500 from around the games site) who donned official flat caps and won the hearts of visitors. Some say the experience changed their lives, giving them something more important than increased equity.

Geoffrey Piper, chief executive of the North West Business Leadership Team, raises three hard-headed cheers for the Games and their after-effect: one for the investment in new infra-structure which might otherwise never have happened; one for the bringing together of the sometimes bickering ten Greater Manchester bor-oughs; and a big one for the huge boost to Manchester’s confidence.

“Perceptions have soared,’’ he said. “Manchester is now taken very seriously indeed. That helps to attract top-quality people to the region – scientists, profession-als and others who see a career in Manchester as both reputable and profitable, with an attractive quality of life.”

A year after the Games, Manchester City Coun-cil estimated that the event had generated investment worth £22m and created 6,300 jobs; it predicted that 300,000 extra tourists would come to the city every year and spend £18m on entertainment.

Sir Bob Scott, the man who led Manchester’s cheeky bid for the 2000 Olympics, brought the Common-wealth Games to Manchester and fronted Liverpool’s triumphant bid to be European capital of culture in 2008, sees himself as a ”hunchist” rather than a strategist

The confidence trickDo multi-million pound bids for cultural and sporting events pay off in the longer term for the cities who decide to give it a whirl? David Ward reports.

The 2002 Games brought 18 million people to Manchester and in 2008 Liverpool hopes to attract people in their millions too, as it becomes Liverpool’s Capital of Culture. The desire to win: Manchester deliberately set out to use the Commonwealth Games as a catalyst for regeneration (right). A new look for Lime Street is just one of many projects kicked into gear by Liverpool ‘08 (below)

when it comes to assessing the impact of a major event, whether sporting or cultural. Which means he describes success in terms of a boost to local pride and a rise in national and international status. These things put plac-es on the map. “I tend to see measuring of legacy as an art form rather than a science,’’ he said. “But it would be a flinty accountant who would not say that Manchester had benefited from the Games. There has been a shift in perception of the city across the world.

“Manchester has risen. There are still pockets of major difficulty and deprivation. A big event is not a universal panacea but it is a boost to the local economy and local morale. I have an absolute faith that these things are good for the community and the people.”

And you don’t necessarily have to win to benefit: Manchester gained a velodrome and much more when it went after the Olympics.

Newcastle-Gateshead was the hot favourite to be capital of culture and the years running up to the final judging saw an extraordinary burst of cultural activity on the Gateshead side of the Tyne.

Similarly, Liverpool began to benefit just by bid-ding to be capital of culture. Sir Bob has no doubt that the benefits will be both deep, sustainable and long-lasting. Late last year, Liverpool finally sorted out what will rise on the prime riverside site at King’s Dock: an arena, conference centre, two hotels and homes. The conference space is desperately needed: if you raise the profile of a city, people want to convene there – and spend there. But they won’t come if the facilities are not good enough or big enough.

Many hope that the biggest benefit to Liverpool in the run-up to 2008 and the culture year itself will be confidence. The city took a bashing for 20 years, watch-ing Manchester grow and develop as its own fortunes stagnated. If, as in East Manchester, house prices are a reliable guide to changing fortunes, Liverpool is doing nicely.

But there is more to a legacy than money. Re-searchers at Glasgow University’s Centre for Cultural Policy Research say that analysis should not confine itself to economic impact but should look at potential long-term cultural and social legacies; grand projects should be judged by the sustainability of their cultural investment.

Manchester tried hard with the Games and the signs are that the investment is working, with 52% of residents of East Manchester saying in 2002 that they thought their neighbourhood was “getting better” com-pared to 17% in 1999. Liverpool is trying hard too but only time will tell if the efforts will pay off as they appar-ently did in Glasgow.

“Addressing the needs of the local community is fundamental to ensure sustainability,’’ said Glasgow’s Dr Beatriz Garcia in a paper on what Liverpool might learn from Glasgow’s year as city of culture in 1990. “The Glasgow example shows the importance of valuing the non-physical aspects of regeneration, such as renewed perceptions and the recovery of citizen confidence and satisfaction of the city as a place to live and work.” www.liverpool08.com

Ste

ve C

onno

r

SINCE THE SYDNEY OLYMPICS in 2000, an increasingly important emphasis has been placed on environmental impact, regeneration and the social legacy delivered by major sporting events and celebrations.

Sydney 2000Widely touted as the ‘Green Games’ the Sydney Olympics scored some real successes, not least the use of solar power throughout the Athletes Village, and cutting edge environmental building design. Less successful was the use of ozone-depleting chemicals and disappointment over the remediation of the polluted Homebush Bay. The event received a ‘mixed’ report card from Greenpeace but was given a slightly higher score from the United Nations Environment Programme.

The Games’ organisers worked closely throughout the run-up to the event with Greenpeace and other experts to draw up stringent environmental guidelines to work to, with the stated objective of setting a new high standard for games of this kind.

The then New South Wales government Minister Bruce Baird was pleased with the partnership: “Green-peace has played a very significant role in the develop-ment of the Guidelines and they are to be congratulated for their leadership on this issue,” he said. The Manchester 2002 Commonwealth Games was explicitly designed to act as a catalyst for the wider regeneration of Manchester and the Northwest.

In East Manchester the ‘workshop of the world’ which had been in decline for 30 years was selected as the primary focus for the Game’s plans, not least through the world-class ‘Sportcity’ development. In total it has been estimated that the Games will, over 15 years in total, have brought close to £2 billion into the area through a mixture of public and private sector funding.

Close to the Games’ site a new business park is now flourishing as a result, which will create over 6,000 jobs as well as a new retail centre, a four star hotel and a new housing programme.

A formal Legacy programme was established for the Games made up of partners from major organisations and groups from across the city, and a specific post-games project was launched to make the most of the very high level of volunteering seen during the event.

Melbourne 2006A key objective for the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in 2006 is to make them as environmentally-friendly as possible. The three major themes for the game are: waterwise, carbon neutral and low waste.

Under these themes the organisers will minimise the use of drinking water, and will recycle all wastewater across the games; they also plan to reduce energy use to a minimum and offset any energy they do use by planting native trees; finally they are going to put extensive efforts into recycling waste and discouraging

littering. At present they estimate for example that up to one million trees may be planted as a result of the games.

Also launched for the games is an ‘Equal First’ programme celebrating diversity and the involvement of those ‘who are often underrepresented’, including older and younger people, indigenous peoples and ethnic groups.

London 2012For the 2012 Olympic Bid Londoners are setting out a vision of the ‘sustainable games’, suggesting that the Olympics and Paralympics would be a catalyst for a ‘huge programme of urban and environmental regeneration’.

The blueprint for the games includes: a vision of a ‘low carbon’ games with good practice in design, construction and transport options; a zero-waste strat-egy to minimise landfill and resource use; a biodiversity plan including the largest new urban park in Europe; and a pioneering community partnership that brings together community groups, environmental experts and other stakeholders.

According to Chairman Sebastian Coe, the Olympics will leave a lasting and positive impact. “A London Games in 2012 would create a lasting legacy for sport, the environment, and for local, national and global communities,” he said.

Green games and great expectations

Ste

ve C

onno

r

6 7


Employment-based training and volume house building would seem, on the surface, to be two activities so commonplace that they should have passed the point of being classed as ‘innovation’ long ago. But two very different RENEW Exemplar Projects are proving that a novel approach can have impressive results.

Amanda Wood looks at how Lancashire County Developments’ Foundation Apprenticeship Scheme and a large-scale private housing development - Stamford Brook in Cheshire - have each highlighted important skills issues, not just for Northwest regeneration professionals, but in the case of Stamford Brook, for the whole of the UK construction industry.

RENEW exemplars

AS OSCAR WILDE SAID: “Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result”. Creating those conditions among Northwest regeneration practitioners is just one of RENEW’s objectives.

RENEW’s Exemplar Programme takes the best examples of regeneration practice from the region and ensures that learning points – both negative and positive – are spread throughout the industry’s network of professionals and practitioners. The outcome is an important step in the development of sustainable communities, namely the sharing of experience - and avoidance of mistakes - which can prove costly both in financial and human terms.

In 2004, 24 regeneration projects from across the region achieved Exemplar status, reflecting the widest range of regeneration activity, with built environment, small-scale community schemes and training and skills programmes all represented. From redevelopment projects priced in the tens of millions, to smaller locally-based greening programmes costing only a few thousand, each Exem-plar, regardless of size or cost, offers valuable learning points.

As a central part of RENEW’s forthcoming activ-ity, these initiatives will continue to inform regeneration practice and theory throughout the coming year and beyond, whilst the 2005 Exemplar programme will seek to identify yet more projects where experience can be extracted and shared amongst the region’s regeneration professionals.

A RENEW look at skills

WHEN I CAME TO MANCHESTER in 1979 to take up my first post in regeneration, it was in the wake of Peter Shore’s 1978 Inner Urban Areas Act. What strikes me now as I tackle the challenge of launching RENEW, the Northwest’s Centre for Regeneration Excel-lence, is how many of the key issues then are issues now – whether it’s delivering regenera-tion through effective partnerships, finding ways to effectively empower communities, or the need to ‘renew’ markets, be they industrial or housing.

The similarities end there. Much has changed for the better in Manchester and the Northwest over the past 25 years. In the early 1980s both Salford Quays and East Manches-ter were post-industrial wastelands. The flight from the city was still in full spate.

Then over a series of area based programmes – the Urban Programme, Inner City Task Forces, Enterprise Zones, City Chal-lenge, Education, Health & Employment Ac-tion Zones, SRB, New Deal for Communities – we steadily got better at delivering regenera-tion, despite the disruption to delivery caused by each policy change.

Two seminal reports brought about a quantum change in our approach – the Rogers Urban Task Force’s ‘Towards an Urban Renaissance’ and the Social Exclu-sion Unit’s ‘Bringing Britain Together’. The former led to the establishment of CABE and a recognition of the central role that design, urban management and the public realm play in the economic and cultural confidence of our towns and cities while the second, which led to the Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy, unequivocally showed why we had seen serial failures in turning round our most deprived communities.

Which brings us to the Sustainable Communities Summit, and the new National Skills Centre, which we expect John Prescott to announce to delegates, and the Regional Regeneration Centres of Excellence now up and running in many parts of the country. Here in the Northwest, RENEW has been set up by the Northwest Regional Development Agency and Government Office North West, with the enthusiastic backing of many organi-sations and practitioners – all of them wanting to bridge the skills gap highlighted by Sir John

Egan’s Task Force and Rogers and the NRU before him.

And that is perhaps the biggest and most noticeable change between my own regeneration debut in Manchester in 1979 and today’s Summit. Not only do we recog-nise that creating sustainable communities is difficult, complex and long term but we also realise that the skills to do so effectively are vital to all those involved. Whichever area of expertise you examine, skills can be taught, recognised and celebrated, not just picked up as you go along if you are lucky and have the right mindset and bosses.

Most public sector organisations spend almost nothing on skills and training. The pressure on regeneration practitioners to deliver all too often means they ‘cannot find the time’ for learning. Universities and col-leges still concentrate primarily on technical, professional skills rather than generalist re-generation skills. There are few, if any, ‘grow our own’ professional development schemes aimed at creating opportunities for careers in regeneration or at widening diversity in the professions.

Early work is underway to address the problem, however, through the RCEs, local government capacity building, CABE en-ablers, Renewal Academy and a new national centre for sustainable communities skills.

But there’s still much to do - and in fact for me, one real success at the Summit would be an announcement by the Chancellor and the Deputy Prime Minister that in future all partnerships and organisations in receipt of regeneration funding would be required to spend 3 per cent of it on generic skills for sustainable communities - such as continuing professional development, leadership skills or widening access - so that mainstream delivery becomes truly joined up to the benefit of local communities, economies and environments – and delivers real value for money.

It’d be another clear sign that we’ve come a long way in the last 25 years.

Phil Barton is Director of RENEW, the Regional Centre for Excellence in Regeneration for England’s Northwest.www.renew.co.uk

Situations vacant

ONE GLANCE at the job pages in Society Guardian or the regeneration trade press is enough to convince any recruitment consultant that the industry is a potential goldmine – if only they could find the candidates.

Recent research undertaken by RENEW reveals that as many as 60 per cent of organisations working within the sector were operating with at least one vacancy for a skilled regeneration practitioner. Demand for qualified staff is now outstripping supply.

“It’s an employees’ market,” says Prof. Peter Roberts of Liverpool University’s Department of Civic Design. “As the need for qualified regeneration staff increases, so does the need for education and training in the correct skills and obviously those needs are not being met.”

But regeneration is a sector that embraces many different disciplines, straddling both technical and non-technical abilities. Sir John Egan’s 2004 Review of Skills identified generic ‘skills, knowledge and behav-iours’ which should be demonstrated by a wide range of professions. In the public consultation which informed the report, feedback suggested that the current approach to education and training for the core professions is failing to deliver the correct skills, and that there was a need for a closer alignment of academic theory and industrial regeneration reality.

One way of providing this, the report suggests, is to move away from an over-emphasis on professional qualifications in favour of an approach that allows for a more fluid “fit for purpose” education. Other suggestions included the establishment of a virtual Sustainable Communities Institute together with part-time distance study opportunities through the Regional Centres of Excellence.

As well as fine-tuning existing education and training to take sustainable community develop-ment for core regeneration players into account, Pro-fessor Roberts believes that a concerted effort to raise awareness about regeneration would also prove useful.

“Because the skill set is so wide-ranging, there are many people who don’t realise the contribution they make to regeneration. It isn’t a straightforward industry where the different jobs and skills are clearly understood.”

So perhaps the industry’s first task is to ensure that those who are currently playing a part in regeneration are actually aware of the fact, and of the importance of their contribution to building successful sustainable communities. Without that fundamental step, developing existing skills will prove difficult and attracting transferable skills almost impossible.

NEET solutions“I WOULDN’T EXACTLY say that the project saved my life, but I don’t know what I’d be doing now if the opportunity hadn’t come up.” Luke Bennett, aged 18.

Excluded from school for dealing soft drugs, Luke Bennett from Lancashire is now an apprentice plumber for a small family firm, working towards NVQ qualifications at his local college. But last year, he was just one of 20,000 young people in Lancashire classified as ‘NEET’ – ‘not employed in education, employment or training’ – before becoming one of 60 young people taking part in Lancashire County Development’s Foundation Apprenticeship Scheme.

By offering tailored support such as training in self-esteem, together with assessment on the basis of ability rather than educational achievement, the scheme has successfully overcome many of the initial barriers to employment experienced by young people leaving school without qualifications. However, intensive one-to-one mentoring for both the apprentices and their line managers – who were often sole traders and inexperienced as employers – has helped to ensure that once a placement was secured, it was also retained.

But helping marginalised youngsters was only part of the scheme’s achievement. It also helped 17 year-old Laura Tiernan to swiftly rectify an unsuitable choice of college course and realise her dream of working in the fashion industry.

“I used to like history at school and decided to do it at college, but it really wasn’t what I expected. I didn’t know how to get into fashion or where to start, but when I saw the leaflets for the scheme, I decided to switch and learn on the job,” she says, now six months into a foundation apprentice-ship at Maggie Carol Fashions in Rawtenstall, Lancashire.

“I love the fact that I’m involved in making clothes that people like and I’m really happy here, it’s a great place to work,” she adds.

Building greener homesWHILST THE LANCASHIRE RENEW initiative is addressing the issue of developing new skills, the Stamford Brook housing development at Dunham Massey in Cheshire is focusing on changing skills and habits which have become deeply rooted in one of the UK’s biggest industries – construction.

“House builders will build according to building regulations – which are currently pretty poor from the point of view of reducing carbon emissions – so there’s little incentive to try anything new. But on the Stamford Brook development, they have been keen to raise the standard,” says Dr Dave Roberts of Leeds Metropolitan University’s Built Environment Department, and currently monitoring the project on behalf of the ODPM to inform future building regulations.

Stamford Brook was formerly part of the Dunham Massey estate, which was left to the National Trust in 1976 by the last Earl of Stamford on the understanding that some land could be sold to provide income to preserve the country estate for future generations. But with its sale to homebuilders Taylor Woodrow and Redrow Homes, came a stipulation from the Trust that the houses should be sustainable and built to high environmental specifications. The challenge was to prove that large developments by volume builders could achieve sus-tainability. The new construction practices developed to meet that challenge will, according to Dr Roberts, form the basis of more stringent environmental building regulations over the next five years.

“The main output of the study will be to find out what changes the construction and building materials industries need to make in order to gear up for the new regulations,” said Dr Roberts, “because more environmentally friendly ways of building are definitely going to move out of the realm of the single unit self-build by an architect and into the mainstream.”

One of the major ways that the Stamford Brook development is reducing household carbon emissions is

by making each home airtight, reducing heat loss and consequently, energy usage. Dr Roberts estimates that energy consumption per home will be cut by a minimum of 30 per cent compared to a standard new build.

Another standard feature of the homes has been the use of timber framed windows from sustainable sources.

“Advances in microporous paint technology now mean that timber windows can be treated to enable moisture to escape, whilst preventing its ingress - which used to make timber frames appear higher maintenance than PVCu. In truth, timber is much better at coping with temperature extremes and PVCu isn’t indestructible,” explains Dr Roberts.

As well as eschewing PVCu for windows, the build has also opted for greener material in other areas of each house, including wiring and ducting.

But new standards mean new skills, and the partners involved in Stamford Brook have been keen not only to introduce training sessions for operatives, sub-contractors and site managers, but to combine this theoretical knowledge with people’s practical experience of ways in which each objective can be achieved. And whilst a partnership including a charity, academic institution and commercial organisations may seem fated to lock horns over wildly varying objectives, the Stamford Brook team seemed also to have achieved Exemplar status in this respect.

“The partnership has worked really well and we’ve bonded as a team which has made things much easier. Stating our individual objectives at the outset and developing ways of working together to ensure they were all met has really proved successful,” says Dr Roberts.

But, at the end of the day, improving the minimum environmental standards expected by law has to have a price attached. Or does it? “Some things have cost less, ike recycled aggregates, and others have cost slightly more – like the ventilation systems needed in airtight homes,” says Dr Roberts, “ but on balance, the cost is working out between one and two thousand pounds extra per house.”

In other words, the equivalent of about three day’s wages for Luke Bennett, once he qualifies as a plumber!

Laura Tiernan’s dream of a career in fashion is starting to become a reality through Lancashire’s Foundation Apprenticeship Scheme

Jan

Chl

ebik

RINGING THE CHANGES REGENERATION HAS BROUGHT SOME MIRACULOUS CHANGES TO THE NORTHWEST, BUT A SKILLS GAP STILL POSES A BIG CHALLENGE, ARGUES PHIL BARTON.

8 9


IS SUSTAINABILITY THE MANTRA that we will live by, or are we just paying it lip service? It’s fashionable to spray the S-word over projects and official documents, but that doesn’t make them sustainable.

So is your community sustainable? Who says so? How do you know?

It’s a challenge, and one that’s easy to lose on the “too difficult” pile. So all credit to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for seizing the moment and moving on from “urban summit” to this year’s Delivering Sustainable Communities summit. And there is no better location for a forward looking summit than Manchester, the world’s first modern city.

This city once known as Cottonopolis has had its triumphs and its tragedies since its pre-eminent position at the height of the industrial revolution. The astonishing growth in its population and economy had its downsides too, with Manchester’s River Irwell memorably described in 1847 as “a flood of liquid manure in which all life dies.”

Fast forward. One of Manchester’s wittier promotional campaigns recently featured the city’s many canals and the strapline: “this is not Venice this is Manchester.” Now the River Irwell, like almost the entire Mersey river catchment, is cleaner than at any time since the industrial revolution.

In the city centre, the river forms the demilitarised zone between the cities of Salford and Manchester. The two cities are working together as never before, in part through the Mersey Basin Campaign’s Action Irwell partnership. And there is a strategic framework, the pioneering Manchester Waterways Strategy, to bring some coherence into the efforts to use the city centre waterways as triggers of regeneration.

But it’s not just local authorities getting their acts sorted out. Sparkling new developments now face the river and there are hugely ambitious plans for the re-generation of the “Irwell Corridor”. Developers such as Manchester’s own Urban Splash are on the case. Ever imaginative, it has proposed “Salford Plage”, an artificial beach on the Irwell.

Huge investment by United Utilities, the region’s water company, has created economic benefits by increasing the value of previously derelict brownfield sites, leading to jobs and development. The environment also benefits in the form of cleaner water and improved biodiversity. There are social benefits as well - everybody who lives, works in or visits the area is a winner.

What were problems are now opportunities. Waterside regeneration is the new rock and roll.

So we can heave a huge collective sigh of relief. Job done, mission accomplished.

Well, not really. The complex process of water price regulation

involving Defra, the economic regulator OFWAT, and envi-ronmental regulator the Environment Agency has not been designed to produce sustainable solutions.

The system has succeeded in keeping the water companies viable and allowing massive investment in infrastructure improvements.

But it takes no real account of regional or local regeneration needs. And it results in a “lose – lose” situation for many poor people. Every low-income household that pays its water rates is subsidising the debt of those who can’t pay or won’t pay - to the tune of around twenty pounds a year here in the Northwest. ‘Water poverty’ is now beginning to be recognised as inequitable.

However, regulation for lower water prices over the next five years will result in longer-term pain as we desperately struggle to meet the higher standards of the European Water Framework Directive. So we have to recognise that false economies now will cost all of us more in the end.

That leaves a gaping financial hole that is not being addressed.

Added to which, no serious attempt has yet been made to face up to the challenge of climate change. Despite scenarios that paint an increasingly desperate picture of what we can expect, the prospect of rising sea levels and dramatic floods has not yet embedded itself into the understanding of developers or regenerators or their clients. It may seem obvious that new infrastructure and buildings with a life of 100 years or more should take climate change into account, but where are the examples?

On top of that there is the challenge of managing urban rivers and the vast quantities of waterborne debris and litter that end up in them: everything from deliberate fly-tipping to the thousands of empty beer bottles hurled in the water by drunken revellers every single weekend. Nobody is responsible for dealing with this and it is a gap that needs to be filled as part of the government’s liveabil-ity agenda. Liveability means quality of waterspace too – clean, green, safe - and blue!

Enjoy the summit. Remember the rivers. Blue is the new green. Walter Menzies is Chief Executive of the Mersey Basin Campaign (www.merseybasin.org.uk) a UK Sustainable Development Commissioner (www.sd-commission.org.uk) and a member of the ODPM’s Steering Group for the Code for Sustainable Buildings.

WIN SOME, LOSE SOME: in 2004, the Mersey waterfront at Liverpool was declared a world heritage site, putting it on a par with the Taj Mahal. Liverpool’s pride soared.

The same year, it became clear that Will Alsop’s Cloud, the iconic building destined to become the fourth grace at the Pier Head, had floated off into oblivion.

Though not one of their initiatives, the Cloud had featured prominently and alluringly in a glossy brochure produced by Mersey Waterfront, a project whose role is to “develop the waterfront to elevate and distinguish Merseyside from competing international locations”. Alsop’s dream has gone; but Mersey Waterfront (MW), funded with almost £9m from the Northwest Develop-ment Agency, is still with us.

Its remit covers not just that bit of river frontage where the Liver birds perch (the fifth most recognisable waterfront in the world) but 135km from the Wirral round to Southport, embracing parts of the Dee and the Ribble on the way.

MW is a cornerstone project of the Mersey Partnership’s action plan for the Liverpool city region 2002-2005. But the results of its work should extend beyond that date and the ‘capital of culture’ year in 2008 as Merseyside, waking from its long sleep of industrial decline, takes a fresh look at itself and proclaims its assets to the world.

Fortunately the world is very keen on water at present and the MW project is all about making the most of water and its edges. “Our waterfront sets the Liverpool city region apart from any other,’’ says Louise Hopkins, MW’s director. “(It) makes Liverpool an exceptional place to live, work, invest and visit.”

They call MW a regional park but it is much more than a run-of-the-river scheme to introduce heritage

A lot of frontWith a discontinuous 120km of waterfront to pull together for the benefit of local people, Mersey Waterfront has its work cut out – and a lot of public toilets to order. David Ward reports.

Mersey Waterfront is pulling together the waterfront’s diverse assets and stimulating major new programmes. From red squirrels at Formby (below right) to the Mersey River Festival and the King’s Dock development (below left), the end result is world-class waterfront in transformation

Jan

Chl

iebi

k

THIS IS NOT VENICE.

ACCORDING TO WALTER MENZIES, RIVERS ARE THE NEW ‘ROCK AND ROLL’ AND BLUE IS THE NEW GREEN

lamp-posts and litter bins. Its ambitions are huge, its self-proclaimed mission to “transform, energise and connect”. This passion for verbs continues in that glossy brochure which echoes on its cover Hopkins’s key words: live, work, invest, visit.

These are shorthand for a commitment to improve everyday living and job opportunities for local people, boost economic activity and develop tourism. Hopkins describes this as partly a journey into the unknown. “Our waterfront should be a major factor in further raising the positive profile of Merseyside, encouraging investment and improving the quality of life,’’ she says. “Mersey Waterfront seeks to bring together and enhance our diverse and disconnected assets via a coherent framework.’’

The assets are obvious. The Mersey estuary covers an area of about 10,000ha (or 20,000 football pitches), with 100km of its 120km coastline accessible to the public and 90 per cent of it internationally important in terms of nature conservation. And, thanks to the work of the Mersey Basin Campaign, water quality has improved immeasurably, with the occasional seal now seen basking on sandbanks up river.

Around the coastline are more than 100 sailing clubs, seven championship golf courses and many attractions to lure tourists.

“However, much still needs to be done to ensure we are fully harnessing our waterfront assets as well as making sensible, sustainable decisions about its long-term development,’’ adds Ms Hopkins. “Many of our sites and assets require improvement or modernisation. They are of varying scale and quality. They are often disconnected and not promoted or developed as part of a collective whole.”

MW’s job is to connect both the bits of geography

and the environmental, social, economic and tourism factors within one coherent framework. Ms Hopkins is also concerned to bring management and maintenance up the regeneration agenda through pilot projects demonstrating best practice, such as the Halton Waterfront Maintenance Team. No small task.

“The whole of the Mersey Waterfront area is greater than the sum of the parts,’’ says Hopkins. “Individually, sections of waterfront within each local authority area have charm, character and potential. However, without [MW’s ability] to pull it all together into a unique and cohesive product, they cannot in isolation maximise their assets and opportunities on the wider regional, national and international stage.”

Work along the waterfront involves grand projects; the King’s Dock, having failed to become the new home for Everton FC, will be the site for a badly-needed conference venue, an arena and some apartments. MW has provided £150,000 for preliminary drilling for the planned £12m terminal at Princess Dock which will enable big cruise ships to berth in the Mersey, bringing with them thousands of visitors eager to soak up both world heritage and the Beatles.

Up in Southport, the new Marine Way bridge is in place and a tram should soon be running along the newly restored pier.

Those are the big projects. At the same time, MW will nudge people to think differently - and so value more - the region’s environment, including, for example, the internationally important sand dunes at Formby. At the same time, MW regularly makes a sizeable cash

contribution to ensure that the Mersey River Festival, now attracting half a million visitors a year, gets bigger and better. It has also given £65,000 to fund the master plan for the River of Light, a plan to use lighting “to transform, energise and connect the waterfront in an unprecedented, highly visual way”. Much will be made of golf, and other future projects could include visitor centres, cycle hire schemes, public art – and the enhancement of the simple pleasure of strolling at such places as the promenades at Otterspool and Egremont on the Wirral.

To counter any charge of top-down imposition of ideas and strategies, MW has made efforts to consult the people who live near the waterfront. Last year, it recruited “people’s panels’’ in Wirral, Halton and Sefton before moving into Liverpool. Each group, usually made up of 16 people, is trained and encouraged, with the support of independent consultants, to come up with ideas and react to current and future proposals.

Their demands so far have not been extravagant: improved nature reserves, cleaner public spaces, more footpaths, more facilities for young people.

And - of course - more toilets on those promenades.

www.merseywaterfront.com

‘Our waterfront sets the Liverpool city region apart from any other’

10 11


OVER THE YEARS much has been written about the Northwest’s great industrial legacy to the nation, yet far less has been said of the legacy bequeathed to the region itself.

With around a quarter of all the derelict land in the UK within its boundaries, and woodland cover well below the national average, the Northwest suffers from a severe environmental deficit, and tackling it has never been easy. But over the last few years a new approach to regenera-tion has begun to have a dramatic effect on the greening of this post industrial landscape.

According to Professor John Handley, a director at the Centre for Urban and Regional Ecology (CURE) at the University of Manchester, the key change is the way in which the initiatives are now delivered. “We are trying to combine environmental, social and economic benefits and looking for multi-functional solutions,” he explains, “and I think that is a new way of thinking.”

In 1999, Handley co-authored a key document in this discussion, ‘Reclaim the Northwest!’ which pulled no punches in revealing the true extent of the region’s prob-lem with derelict and contaminated land. The Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA) responded with a strategy for land reclamation, which acknowledged the problem and highlighted the effect this derelict, unused and neglected (DUN) land was having on inward invest-ment into the region.

It also identified several barriers to reclamation, including a dearth of sufficiently accurate information, a duplication of effort, and a lack of capacity resulting in the inefficient use of resources.

But while the NWDA was committed to increasing its annual investment in land reclamation, the amount of damaged land in the Northwest far exceeded the money available, so action needed to be prioritised.

“I think in a sense it (the Northwest) has always been at the forefront of land regeneration,” continues Handley. “Initially it was in terms of the technical approaches to land reclamation, then it was about engaging with people,

then how effectively it all related to the economy, and now, most recently, it’s about pulling it all together.”

The job of pulling it all together, and encouraging agencies to work more closely towards common goals, has been largely taken on by the NWDA, in conjunction with key strategic partners like the Forestry Commission. As Helen France, the NWDA’s director of partnerships and development explains: “We’re trying to be as com-prehensive as possible rather than fragmented into a lot of different programmes that don’t have any cumulative benefit.”

Along with its partners, the NWDA has developed a series of regeneration programmes for each of the Northwest’s five sub-regions, as well as funding several projects that operate across the whole of the Northwest. But rather than simply focusing on cleaning up derelic-tion, the projects have been designed to ensure a much broader impact on the environment and the Northwest economy as a whole.

They include REMADE in Lancashire, which is restor-ing 334 hectares of DUN land for a variety of durable soft end uses, while in Cumbria £6m of NWDA funding will help rejuvenate 136 hectares of derelict land, creating wildlife areas, community parks and 18 hectares of wood-land, as well as new cycleways and footpaths.

Other projects include Northwich Vision, with seven organisations working together to regenerate the Cheshire market town. A key step in the town’s renais-sance has been the £33m spent on stabilising aban-doned rock salt mines under the town centre. Allied to this, 19,000 trees have been planted at the derelict Ash-ton’s and Neumann’s Flashes, part of Northwich Commu-nity Woodland, with £2m of funding from the NWDA.

Elsewhere the Coalfield Communities Regeneration Programme is tackling the economic, environmental and social issues affecting 48 wards in Wigan, with £5m from the NWDA.

A £14m grant from the Government’s Capital Moderni-sation Fund (CMF) to the Forestry Commission, working with the region’s two Community Forests, has also come to fruition. It has helped both the Red Rose and Mersey Forests to regenerate brownfield land close to deprived communities and convert it into community woodlands, while delivering a range of public benefits.

In the Mersey Forest over 50 hectares at Sefton Mead-ows has now become the first sealed landfill forestry site in the Northwest, while in the Red Rose Forest, access has been improved to Barlows’ Farm, another site with large areas of housing nearby.

Forestry and community woodlands have played a key role in much of this regeneration, and nowhere is this better highlighted than Newlands, a 20 year programme that is reclaiming over 435 hectares of DUN land across Greater Manchester and Merseyside.

Newlands has been developed with help from the Public Benefit Recording System. This is a unique meth-od that aids strategic targeting and investment by helping to identify where a project can have the greatest impact.

Once a site has been identified and mapped, it is given a public benefit score, achieved across a range of social, economic and environmental factors, such as its proximity to schools, health action zones, and transport corridors. The sites that scored highest were then selected for regeneration.

Keith Jones, regional conservator at the Forestry Commission, believes that Newlands has also brought a greater emphasis on sustainability to the region’s re-generation. “Sustainable communities, whether they be urban or rural, need quality environments,” he says. “Inner city areas desperately need quality environments close to hand, if not on their doorsteps. And therefore a key element of any sustainable communities programme is providing them with a quality green infrastructure.”

Martin Reynolds, senior land reclamation manager at the NWDA, believes that the involvement of these commu-nities is fundamental to the success of any regeneration scheme. “If you can work with communities in the right way, and other initiatives going on in the area, you may be able to help the communities grow in a way they can then build on,” he says. “Then you will have left something behind, not just a woodland but a community better able to have a voice and respond and look after itself.

“Newlands is an environmental initiative to help deal with physical problems but which is trying to spend the money in a way that will also address other issues. It’s the quality of your approach that makes it sustainable.”

To this end, of the £23m the NWDA has committed to Newlands, over £7m will be used to provide on-going maintenance and management over the next 15 years or, as Jones puts it, to enshrine the original vision and lay a very deep, sustainable foundation.

“Capital works with no kind of revenue funding aren’t sustainable,” he adds.

Helen France is keen to emphasise that sustainability is central to the NWDA’s philosophy. “A lot our partners, like the Forestry Commission, look very carefully at the sustainability of these individual projects that are part of the overall programme. It is a lot more strategic than it was before and the investment is taking place within a much broader context of other funding and other priori-ties.”

Professor Handley agrees. “We were arguing [in Reclaim the Northwest!] that sustainability needed to be central to all these projects and I think it has become the case, which is quite a breakthrough.

“It’s absolutely critical that one doesn’t just keep work-ing over these areas, investing capital but with no after management. They then fall into disuse, become neglect-ed and the whole thing has to start again. We need to get away from that.”

It may just be that in the Northwest the penny has finally dropped.

www.nwda.co.ukwww.forestry.gov.uk/newlands

Land valuesWith more derelict and neglected land than any other region, the Northwest faced some tough challenges on land reclamation as it launched its regional economic strategy in the late nineties. Mark Hillsdon reports on the role that soft-end land uses and community forestry has played in delivering a cleaner and greener Northwest.

Cabot Carbon’s land (main picture) is set to be landscaped as part of the NWDA-funded Newlands scheme, which has attracted the interest of Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott (top, below). The land will join other areas of community woodland being developed across the region. (top, middle below)

And

rew

Will

iam

s

Kar

en W

right

Jan

Chl

ebik

Mer

sey

Fore

st

12 13

Jan

Chl

ebik


IT’S A RAINY BREAK-TIME at the Kingsmead primary school in Northwich, Cheshire, and the pupils are watching water drip through a transparent tube in the entrance hall.

On first impressions, this seems to be one of those time-honoured ways of whiling away time until next lesson when it is too wet to be playing outside. But this is no ordinary pipe - and no ordinary school.

It is carrying the rainwater that is lashing down on the roof and the children are following its progress through the building via a network of tubes, towards an underground tank where it will be filtered and re-used for toilets. Then, through an LED panel, they can monitor how much has been collected and needed per flush.

The device is one of many remarkable features at Kingsmead, which opened in September and was built as a model of sustainability to meet the educational needs of a new housing estate in the town. Others include large windows positioned to take in optimal levels of sunlight and cut down on electricity; solar panels that power the school and a biomass boiler, fuelled by pellets of recycled waste.

Around 100 other local education authorities have visited to observe the school - the only completely new primary to represent a ‘teaching environment of the future’, according to the Department for Education and Skills (DfeS).

The £2.4m cost (much of it spent in the Northwest with all materials sourced locally to minimise transport costs and pollution) exceeds the amounts spent on similar sized primary schools elsewhere. But Cheshire county council, which has also commissioned ‘sustainably builds’ for schools at Wistaston, near Crewe, and Hoole, in Chester, expects to offset the capital cost by reducing utility and maintenance bills by up to 50 per cent.

“It’s not just about saving money though,” said Ray Baker, the county council’s school development manager. “We want pupils to understand the implica-tions of renewable and sustainable construction for the future.”

Cheshire’s sustainable approach to its municipal building work is mirrored by Oldham, which aspires to have all new council buildings generating 10 per cent of the energy they use.

The borough switched on to sustainability last year when it bid for £12m of European money to introduce energy–efficient technologies to 15,000 of its council house stock. With 73 areas bidding for eight tranches of funding, Oldham missed out. Nevertheless, the borough is now busy progressing plans for 170 ‘green’ social housing units - with urban wind turbine, solar powered water heating, photovoltaic cells (PVCs) and more - at its St Mary’s development.

This and other social housing projects – includ-ing a 22-unit development at Childwall where Liverpool’s Housing Action Trust has installed PVCs, solar water heating and waste water recycling – is helping to nurture renewable energy businesses at the supply end.

Pilkington Glass in St Helens is at the forefront, with its range of energy efficient windows that provide solar control in summer and thermal insulation in winter. But smaller companies include Sundog, currently re-cruiting extra staff at Kendal and a familiar name to householders who have considered fitting PVCs. Genesis, at Barrow in Cumbria has developed a business installing PVCs and small wind turbines on buildings, while Second Nature, at Penrith, secured one

of last year’s Country Living ‘enterprising rural women’ awards for Christine Armstrong, who has developed a revolutionary roof insulation made from the wool of her family’s large herd of sheep.

“It’s still a fledgling industry,” says Chris Shearlock, renewable energy business development manager at Envirolink Northwest. “But as demand for sustainable technologies has increased, we have a number of small companies that have been growing over the last few years.”www.envirolinknorthwest.co.uk

MANCHESTER MAY be a city that is blossoming in many ways, but it is not currently renowned for its bright skies. By the end of 2005 however, it will be the home of Europe’s largest vertical array of solar panels, designed to convert daylight into electricity.

Work has just started on the £5.5 million project, of which £885,000 is being paid by the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA), and £175,000 by the Depart-ment of Trade and Industry. Three sides of the landmark CIS service tower, the city’s tallest building, will be clad with photovoltaic panels, which will work regardless of the weather, and generate enough energy annually to make nine million cups of tea.

Not that tea breaks are top priority at Co-operative Financial Services (CFS), which was formed to bring the CIS and the Co-operative Bank together. It is more concerned with combating the effects of climate change, and this project, “demonstrates that solar panels are viable almost anywhere. The Grade II listed building is already a landmark, being the tallest office building outside London, but it is now more than 40 years old and the small mosaic tiles that clad the service tower need replacing. These solar panels are the ideal solu-tion. They will protect the tower from the elements, enhance its appearance and generate significant amounts of renewable energy,” said a spokesperson

The project ties in closely with regional targets on renewables as Bryan Gray, chair of the NWDA explains, “40 percent of Europe’s energy use is associated with buildings. Therefore, renewable energy and energy efficient solutions for existing buildings will be key to delivering national and regional targets in this area.

“As climate change moves up the political agenda, the Northwest is yet again a shining example, leading the way for the rest of the UK.”

SPECIAL REPORT CLIMATE FRIENDLY CONSTRUCTION

Tower powerEurope’s largest vertical installation of photo-voltaics is set to transform Manchester’s CIS tower.

An artist’s impression of how the tower will look once transformed into a solar power station.

Sustainability was the central ethos behind the designof the Kingsmead School

Walk into a lot of old village halls, and im-mediately there is a faint smell of damp mixed with dust, peeling gloss paint, dilapidated chairs scattered about and the odd chipped table. Stay a while and you’ll almost invariably start shivering with the chill that results from feeble boilers stuttering and choking in the bowels of the building to supply clogged up radiators, or even worse, inefficient 70’s storage heaters that barely warm the air within a two centimetre radius.

Not, however, in the east Cumbrian village of Gamblesby. Hop along to any event at the vil-lage’s Victorian stone-built community hall, and you’ll be enticed into its toasty warm interior thanks to a state-of-the-art – and eco-friendly – ground source heating system.

It wasn’t always like this. Buffeted hard by the foot and mouth outbreak, the closure of its pub and finally the loss of the local shop, Gamblesby’s village hall committee knew that something had be done to create a welcoming space where the 300-odd residents could come together as a community and renew the social network that had been so severely tested over

the past few years. The village hall was in a sad state of disrepair, but it turned out that competi-tion for funding to refurbish this type of facility was intense.

The breakthrough came when one commit-tee member suggested looking at renewable energy to heat the building. Research was done into who might help, and the committee dis-covered Cumbria and Lancashire Renewables (CLAREN). Project manager Elizabeth Bruce, who is employed by Sustainability Northwest (SNW), explains what kind of support was need-ed to get the project off the ground.

“I came out to see the site and look at the energy options, and then made recommenda-tions. CLAREN provided information on renew-able energy options, funding opportunities and consultants and continued to be there for the committee when a helping hand was needed.

“CLAREN can provide the whole package of help needed to get a project off the ground, though in the case of Gamblesby, the commit-tee was fortunate to include people with the right level of skills and enthusiasm to be able to do a large part of it themselves.”

Committee secretary Bill Mitchell explains that encouragement from CLAREN was key to getting the ball rolling – and once it was off, there was virtually nobody in the village who didn’t get involved. “We’re about 50:50 tradi-tional Cumbrian residents and incomers like myself. One of the outcomes of that was that there’s nothing like working together to bring you together. We believe that what we’re doing is the future, particularly in rural communities”.

When it came to digging up the car park to lay the ground heating coils, local farmers had the practical skills and machinery required. A local contractor did the building work and a local electrician did the rewiring. Being com-mitted to high levels of insulation, the group was delighted to discover a nearby supplier of Herdwick sheep’s wool insulation that was promptly installed.

It’s an approach that seems to be work-ing across the region. Over the last two years CLAREN has responded to around 200 com-munity groups and helped initiate over 100 projects that are at varying stages of develop-ment. Schemes range from solar photovoltaics

on community buildings to wood heating and small-scale wind-turbines at schools.

SNW, which administers CLAREN, together with a range of regional partners, are now planning to roll out the initiative throughout the whole of the Northwest, encouraging more communities to realise that renewable energy can form part of the regeneration of their local-ity.

Gamblesby’s success is a testament to how local people can galvanise change to sustain their own communities, says SNW’s partner-ship development director, Kenny Boyd. “We want to mainstream sustainable development in regeneration, but that comes down to practi-cal actions taken by real people dealing with issues they want to resolve in the places where they live. Gamblesby is a lovely example of a community making a tremendous effort to do exactly that.”

www.snw.org.ukwww.claren.org.uk

Going underground

SPECIAL REPORT CLIMATE FRIENDLY CONSTRUCTION

Batteries not includedIan Herbert discovers that new green technologies are proving a winner with kids escaping a playground downpour, and are opening up new possibilities for public sector housing renewal.

‘demand for sustainable technologies has increased... a number of small companies are growing’

14 15


PUBLIC SPACES – parks, promenades and streetscapes – are an integral component of our urban fabric. Public spaces are meeting places; they provide a backdrop to our daily lives; and for many they serve as our only access to recreational space.

The role of public space is both overt and covert and its impact can be direct and subliminal. The quality of our public space plays a huge role in the way we interact with or use our surroundings.

High quality, well maintained public spaces project confidence in an area and contribute to our sense of wellbeing. Poorly maintained public spaces leave a lasting im-pression of neglect, leading to a vicious circle of decline and disenchantment.

I live in an area that has the ingredients to be an incredibly attractive area to live and visit. Yet it suffers from fly-tipping, vandalism and poor maintenance. From first-hand experience, poor quality public space has a significant detri-mental effect on your sense of well-being. You feel ashamed of where you live, develop deep-seated feelings of despair and have a heightened fear of crime.

Personally, my family is so fed up with the situation that we are considering leaving the area for good, and we are not alone. Those who care – and can - will continue to leave, house prices will stagnate and local businesses will suffer. The remaining residents who don’t care will continue to let the rot set in, reinforcing the depressing cycle of deterioration.

This set of circumstances is not unique to my neigh-bourhood - it is a problem replicated across the country. It is, in fact, a national disgrace.

The cause and effect is multi-dimensional and intercon-nected. Although local authorities are crucial, the resolution of this problem is our collective responsibility.

Fly-tipping, litter, and vandalism are often considered behavioural reactions to adverse social and economic fac-tors - a selfish attitude that impacts on the health, wealth and overall wellbeing of the wider community. I absolutely believe that you cannot disconnect social, economic and environmental activities, and that the quality of our environ-ment contributes significantly to the social and economic health of a community.

Through our People’s Panels, Mersey Waterfront has found that people here do want to see a change. Indeed we are repeatedly being told that we must redress the decline in the quality of our public space as a first priority. In response to this, Mersey Waterfront is using funding from the North-west Regional Development Agency to support a crucial Waterfront Maintenance Team pilot in the Halton area – a project that is already delivering clear benefits and gathering support.

THE MINISTER FOR HEALTH in post-World War I Government was a certain doctor named Christopher Addison. He believed that it would be cheaper to improve housing conditions as a preventative step than to deal with the range of illnesses obviously related to poor housing conditions.

Addison asked the Registrar General of the day to calculate the annual cost of treating a number of conditions including tuberculosis and mental illness. The Registrar came up with £42.4 million at 1922 prices (around £1.5 billion today).

Addison argued the case for greater housing investment with Treasury and was promptly sacked by Lloyd George.

Setting sail for a better future

BIRDS AND BOATS on the Mersey estuary will soon be sitting pretty as the Mersey Basin Campaign and EU-funded Artery Project start work to create a healthy water environment where estuary biodiversity can flour-ish alongside a prestigious regional and national sailing centre.

The Speke and Garston Coastal Reserve has been established to breathe new life into this neglected area, with formerly derelict land beside John Lennon airport in Merseyside being transformed from a barren urban wasteland into a valuable community resource. The land, owned by Peel Holdings, had fallen into disrepair following the relocation of the airport, and was subject to fly tipping and unauthorised quad biking, with burnt out vehicles littering the view.

Liverpool Sailing Club has been housed on the site for nearly fifty years, but in 2000 suffered two arson attacks. With the assistance of The Sports Council and Artery Project funding, plans are now underway to build a new clubhouse.

The new facilities and adjoining nature reserve will provide valuable opportunities for local people to make use of their surrounding environment in ways

A prime location next to Liverpool’s Airport is set to become a centre for wildlife and recreation, writes Sue Dunn

OPEN SPACE OPPORTUNITIES IT’S TIME FOR A RADICAL SHIFT IN ATTITUDES TOWARDS OPEN SPACE, ARGUES LOUISE HOPKINS.

THE HEALTH DIVIDEND BETTER HEALTH HAS TO BE A CENTRAL TENET OF SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES,

Ste

ve C

onno

r

16 17

many have never tried before. The broad range of activities that will be on offer at the sailing club will give school children, disabled people and disadvantaged groups an enjoyable way to learn about sailing in a safe and stimulating environment.

Iain Taylor, who leads the project for the Mersey Basin Campaign says, “While the surrounding communities are amongst the most deprived in the UK, the people of Merseyside have a deep affinity with the Mersey and are proud of their links with it. “FEEDBACK on the proposals from local people has been tremendous. The Mersey Basin Campaign has been consulting with local groups such as Mersey Waterfront Young People’s Panel. This is all part of a strategy to make Liverpool Sailing Club and the nature reserve a totally inclusive facility, involving a diverse range of community groups.”

Conceived by architects, Cass Associates, the new £1 million development will become a landmark site locally. Designed to mirror the shape of a sailing boat with two sails, the rebuild programme is due to be completed by December 2005.

Mr Tom Workman from The Liverpool Sailing Club is proud of the green design elements incorporated into the plans. “The new club will utilise sustainable energy sources through solar energy and geothermal heat, making it as environmentally sensitive as possible.”

Land-based sailing skills activities are already up and running. The sailing club members and partners including the Speke Garston Education Action Zone have invested in a small fleet of land yachts known as ‘Blokarts’. The karts are made available to schools to give children an insight into how fun and rewarding sailing can be. They can also be modified so that partially sighted and disabled members of the community are able to enjoy the experience.

Tom Workman, who has been involved with Liverpool Sailing Club for forty years, explains why he is so passionate about the rebirth of the clubhouse. “Historically, Liverpool’s culture and heritage has been closely linked with shipping and the water. When the water became polluted, people turned their back on the river. Now that the river and the surrounding area is much cleaner, it is heartening to see renewed interest that has trebled membership of the club.”

New member, Nick Williams explains the benefits of the new facilities. “To have first class sailing facilities on my doorstep is tremendous. The sailing club will provide me with sheltered moorings and access to the open sea. It is wonderful that the club and the surrounding area will be enjoyed by local people again.”

In 2005 the sailing club has lined up a plethora of events, including a cricket match on the sand dunes

Rolling this model out to the wider waterfront area will however, without any doubt, prove difficult to fund in the long term.

But change is possible. Take Singapore as an extreme example. Its unique selling point is its cleanliness, and it is considered an international exemplar in public space management and cleanliness. But this is no accident. Through joint working and legislative change the govern-ment and residents of Singapore have achieved a common goal of high quality public spaces, and have demonstrated that the necessary cultural changes can be made.

Although management and maintenance is a funda-mental foundation block in regeneration, it is often not con-sidered ‘sexy’ enough by many funding bodies. Indeed some, such as EU grant funding, consider it ineligible expenditure!

Regeneration professionals need to take a step back and look at the fundamentals. Without high quality open space many areas will continue on their downward spiral; businesses will struggle, residents will suffer and visitors will go elsewhere.

The Government has started to recognise the problem through its Cleaner, Greener agenda, but progress has been slow. A radical change in our collective cultural attitude to public space, and the way local authorities and funding agen-cies look at management and maintenance, is now urgently required. Louise Hopkins is Director of Mersey Waterfrontwww.merseywaterfront.com

How times have changed...Prior to the 2002 Spending Review, Derek Wanless,

former Head of the NatWest Bank was asked by Gordon Brown to assess “the financial and other resources required to ensure that the NHS can provide a publicly funded, comprehensive, high quality service on the basis of clinical need and not ability to pay”.

The review looked at three different scenarios including a “fully engaged” scenario, in which the level of public engage-ment in relation to health is high, life expectancy goes beyond current forecasts, health status improves dramatically, use of resources is more efficient and the health service is responsive with high rates of technology uptake. The fully engaged scenario was the least expensive scenario modelled and delivered better health outcomes. In absolute expenditure terms the gap be-tween the best and worst scenarios is large – around £30 billion by 2022/23, or fully half of current NHS expenditure. ...or have they?

In the early 1970s death rates amongst men of working age were almost twice as high for unskilled groups as they were for professional groups. By the early 1990s, death rates were almost three times higher among unskilled groups. This is a trend in the wrong direction. There are regional differences too. In 1999/2001, the difference between areas with the highest (North Dorset) and lowest (Manchester) life expectancy at birth was 9.5 years for boys and 6.9 years for girls. In smaller com-munities within these areas, the differences can be even greater.

And there are parallels in regeneration. Today in central Manchester a cool penthouse flat can set you back an equally cool, if eye-watering, £1 million. Less than a mile away, and in Lower Broughton lie some of the most deprived areas, and poor-est housing stock, to be found anywhere in the country.

It is accepted that in general, the more affluent people are, the better will be their health: conversely, the poorer people are the worse will be their health.

We have long known that the more affluent and better-educated members of a society tend to live longer and healthier lives. Recent research suggests that the correlations between income and health do not end there. We now know, for example, that countries with a greater degree of socioeconomic inequal-ity show greater inequality in health status; also, that middle-income groups in relatively unequal societies have worse health than comparable, or even poorer, groups in more equal societies. Inequality, in short, seems to be bad for our health.

And now? So, armed with this knowledge, how are we addressing

these issues today as we work to create more ‘sustainable com-munities’? The Government’s White Paper ‘Choosing Health’ is the latest attempt to create a healthier country but in general it serves up doses in single spoonfuls, focusing on the individual’s rights and responsibilities to live their lives in a healthier way.

What in fact is needed now is a mass programme of action tackling the epidemic of poor and deprived environments that people are being forced to live in, environments that leave families with no chance to lead the healthy lifestyles they are so vociferously being encouraged to take up.

The health benefits of community-led regeneration need to be more widely recognised and effectively resourced to help develop the fully engaged scenario, ultimately saving £30 billion a year – not to mention improving the quality of countless peoples’ lives.

I’m pretty certain that Addison would have approved.

Ian McArthur is regional director of Groundwork Northwestwww.groundwork.org.uk

in June, and a mass sailing event from the Sailing Club down to Fiddlers Ferry, in Warrington. All types of watercraft are being encouraged to participate from canoes and small dinghies, through to speedboats and fishing vessels.

The next stage of the development will be to re-introduce wildflower meadows and wetlands, enabling local wildlife to re-establish itself. This in turn will create a pleasant environment for local people to enjoy walk-ing, running or simply provide a natural resource for them to appreciate as they take in the view across their renowned estuary.

www.merseybasin.org.uk

Tom Workman of Liverpool Sailing Club is looking forward to his new, eco-friendly clubhouse

Walkers alongside Speke Hall and Liverpool Airport - the area is due to get a multi-million pound injection (top). Iain Taylor of the Mersey Basin Campaign on one of the Merey Waterfront Young People’s panels (bottom)


19

Don’t settle for sub-standard performance in the search for sustainable communities, says Erik Bichard

From waste stream to live action revenue stream When every effort has been made by a company to reduce its industrial waste, what can be done to recycle the seemingly worthless – though often high volume – fag ends of an industrial process that can’t be eliminated, but have to dealt with? Sue Dunn

IN A PAPER RELEASED just a few weeks ago, the UK Sustainable Development Commission helpfully laid out a few pointers for John Prescott’s Sustainable Communities Summit. The Commission’s draft of the measures of a sustainable community fall neatly into four main areas:

Planning for density, layout and design: We should be aiming for around 50 homes per hectare, with easy access to schools, shops and transport. There should be green, open space within 15 minutes walk of every home and trees and other plants should be within sight of every home, too. There should be an emphasis on pedestrian and cycle-friendly streets, with limited traffic speeds and car-parking leading to higher levels of social interaction and safety. We should enhance and remodel existing areas, wherever possible conserving local character and creating a sense of space, security and innovative design.

Minimising energy use and environmental impact: New building projects should have low energy and resource use as a goal. Both new and existing homes should be brought up to the eco-homes ‘excellent’ standard. We should encourage the use of reclaimed aggregates in construction. Remodelling and re-using buildings should be encouraged as an excellent low en-ergy option, and there should incentives and tax breaks to help refurbish, upgrade and even ‘wrap’ existing buildings to make them warmer. Every neighbourhood should have green areas to encourage wildlife, improve drainage, and to improve the ‘feel’ of the locality.

Measures to foster economic prosperity: Mixed use neighbourhoods should be created, encouraging local jobs and smaller businesses. Shops, workspaces and service centres at ground level with living areas above, again bringing a sense of street life back to our local communities. Accessibility should be a priority, with uni-versal access to transport, and by extension to wider job and skills development opportunities. We should encourage future proofing in building design which allows for variable change of use. Density should be encouraged, with a concerted effort to prevent employ-ment ‘sprawl’ alongside urban ‘sprawl’.

Measures of social wellbeing: Neighbourhoods should be self-managing to as great a degree as possible, with locally-based teams repairing, maintaining and supervising local services and helping to prevent damage, decay and disrepair. Local stewardship should be promoted in the name of safer, more attractive com-munities and there should be better local democracy, with residents having a primary role in making decision about neighbourhood plans and initiatives. Local leadership development is key.

What strikes me about this list is how sustainable regeneration, which is the focus of this newspaper, is actually just simple common sense. ‘Mainstreaming’

sustainability, placing sustainable development centre stage, is literally a ‘no-brainer’.

Look again at the list above and this time don’t see it as a series of ‘green’ add-ons, the end-result of years of lobbying by environmentalists; this time look at it as a common-sense bond or security payment, a warranty on our investment, a way of stopping the rot from returning.

I’m pleased to report that one agency - my own - is taking these issues evermore seriously, not least through RENEW, our new regional Centre of Excellence in regeneration. The Northwest Regional Development Agency has active programmes on high quality design, constructing excellence, smart resource use, environ-mental management and neighbourhood renewal.

The values and measures outlined above drive our spending and our strategies as we seek to deliver a more prosperous future for the people of the region.

We know what makes sense, and we know the value of a more holistic approach to regeneration; we’re beginning to understand precisely what a sustainable community actually looks like.Mark Atherton is Head of Sustainable Developmentat the Northwest Regional Development Agencywww.nwda.co.uk

CENTRE STAGE: SUSTAINABILITY

What does a sustainable community actually look like? If we peel back the impenetrable layers of policy-speak, what kind of neighbourhoods - what kind of future - are we trying to create? Comment by Mark Atherton

WHEN EVERY EFFORT has been made by a company to reduce its industrial waste, what can be done to recycle the seemingly worthless – though often high volume – fag ends of an industrial process that can’t be eliminated, but have to be dealt with?

With their combined waste accounting for up to 50% of the Northwest’s industrial waste, it’s a problem that has had many in the chemical, paper, and food sectors scratching their heads.

Now a scheme to develop technologies that will transform waste into a viable commercial product is sparking interest amongst companies in these sectors. With funding from the Northwest Regional Development Agency and Envirolink Northwest, which exists to support busi-nesses as they explore environmental technologies and ser-vices, the last 12 months have seen three companies from

the chemicals, paper and food sectors examining ways to convert waste material into value-added products.

Scientists from University of Manchester Chemical Engineering Department have been brought on board to develop a method of identifying and evaluating cost- effective options for transforming and recycling waste; consultants in environmentally-friendly waste management, ADAS, ENVIROS, and ENTEC are advising the companies taking part.

Ewan McDonald from ENVIROS highlights the need to raise awareness of the initiative. “We must ensure companies are aware of the true cost of waste. There is still a belief that some waste is inevitable. We hope to challenge that, and show through innovative solutions that it should be possible to find outlets for much of the waste that is currently sent to landfill.”

It is true that to date product derived from recycling initiatives has often had low economic value. And the Landfill Directive due to come into force by the end of this year forbids untreated biodegradable waste to be disposed of in landfill sites. As a result, the food sector now faces a considerable challenge. It’s a challenge that this initiative aims to meet head on, demonstrating that by transforming waste into product, businesses can accrue hard commercial benefits.

Brian Sanders, an expert in food waste management at ADAS, is supporting food company Cavaghan & Gray to explore ways of minimising its landfill liability. Working through the waste stream, it was discovered that the company produced a large volume of mixed organic matter. If meat and vegetables could be separated from plastics and paper, then by using an anaerobic digestive system

on the organic waste, energy could be extracted to produce heat and power in the form of methane gas. Studies are ongoing to develop the viability of this project.

The paper industry might appear to have an easier job of recycling its leftovers, but paper waste specialist David Bowker from ENTEC explains, “an incredible one million tonnes of paper sludge is generated annually across the UK, much of which ends up in landfill sites. There are only four and half years of landfill void left, if we continue at our current rate of usage.”

Paper sludge – the redundant mush left over from the paper recycling process - is the target of his work with paper companies Bridgewater Paper, Kimberly-Clark and St Regis Paper. The project is exploring ways to either create a new product from the sludge or to extract valuable components from it, which can then be sold on.

The companies are remaining tight-lipped about progress on the development of specific products – there is clearly ferocious competition hotting up in the world of paper-sludge. However, it appears that extracted components can be used as a soil enhancer, or for animal bedding. In Spain paper sludge is used in the manufacture of bricks, and in America a by-product of the process is being used as a chemical additive in fuels.

Within the chemicals industry, depending on their area of manufacture, individual companies will face a differ-ent set of challenges to reduce their waste. Finding good environmental solutions therefore means tailoring expertise to each company’s specific products and processes. As a result of the project, one of the participating chemical companies, Brunner Mond, is now sending contaminated inorganic chemical to be used in the manufacture of

cement. This has resulted in significant cost savings for the company as well as enhancing their environmental performance.

Roy Clare, Brunner Mond’s ‘War on Waste’ champion says: “Grease-contaminated soda ash is a waste product we generate, costing a lot of money in disposal and landfill tax. As part of our ‘War on Waste’ programme, we have transformed this into somebody else’s raw material – halving our waste disposal bill and significantly improving our bottom line. We are now keen to explore how to utilise the remainder of our waste stream products.”

As the saying goes, waste not, want not.

www.envirolinknorthwest.co.uk

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO there was a bandstand in virtually every park or promenade in the land. People used to congregate in these places to listen to the music and meet with friends and relations. We lived perfectly happily without 24-hour news or the Playstations and Gameboys which have replaced much of the family entertainment that provided pastimes for our grandparents. Our sense of place has collapsed inwards from the square kilometre around our houses to a far smaller area that barely extends beyond our own four walls. And while we are many times wealthier than we were at the turn of the last century, somehow we have failed to enrich the environment in which we prosper.

We yearn for the sustainable communi-ties that the Government has entreated us to re-create, but are becoming frustrated by the slow pace of change, particularly in our Northern towns and cities. Here in the Northwest we have some of the highest concentrations of inner-city deprivation in the country. Men born in Northwest conurbations can (on average) expect to live up to a decade less than their counterparts in the South.

So why can’t we change things faster and for the better? Many, including Sustain-ability Northwest, have sought to analyse the issues that block the path to truly sustainable communities that balance social, economic

and environmental issues. Some difficulties can be overcome by changes in policy, but most require attitudinal change – together with the realisation by politicians and professionals that the ways we have sought to regenerate areas in the past have not worked well, and are not going to benefit needy communities in the future.

So here is a list of the obstacles I encounter on a daily basis:• A competitive funding process that is debilitating, wasteful, divisive and pits one deserving community against the other.• Short-term time-horizons leading to hasty investment without community consensus or any appreciation of long-term effects of the resulting development.• Narrow consultation of a section of directly affected residents rather than the wider community, businesses or service sector.• An aversion to invest larger sums up front in order to reap the benefits in years to come.• The absence of ethical procurement strate-gies and funding criteria, which prevents the purchase of goods that damage environments and livelihoods in other parts of the world.• Failure to mix professional disciplines at the conceptual stage, thus missing valuable cross-over ideas and transferable learning opportunities.• Reluctance to challenge inherent conserva-

tism in the building trade, married with a failure to build in sustainable innovation before the preferred bidder stage - after which new ideas can easily be rejected by the chosen developer.

Sustainability Northwest believes that sustainable regeneration can and should be the mechanism for positive and progres-sive change. But instead, we are efficiently delivering environmental problems on a massive scale. Building and transport produce close to three-quarters of the greenhouse gases that threaten all of the advances we have made over the past few centuries. A large amount of inert and toxic waste comes from the by-products of con-struction and demolition. Gentrification of areas that displace the poor are storing up social problems for future generations.

WE SHOULD START thinking about our multi-discipline regeneration teams as if they were members of the bands that fulfilled such a valuable community cohesion service in the past. The ideas that a number of players can produce a harmonious piece for the fulfilment of the wider and diverse community is as

good a metaphor for our times as any and is not such a radical concept.

The elements of a harmonious ensemble will include funding bodies and developers who are not afraid to invest in the future, professionals trained and personally enlightened by the potential for sustainable living. Other sections would include an accountability system that listens early and keeps on listening to the community, supported by policy-makers who understand that laws and guidance should reach further than the election cycle.

We should not settle for sub-stan-dard performance when the heart and soul of our communities are at stake. But it is up to all of us that share a common vision of a sustainable future to insist that, when we gather around the modern incarnation of our expensive new bandstand to hear what the band wants to play, that their choice is in harmony with our environmental and social expectations as well as our need for econom-ic prosperity.

Erik Bichard is Chief Executive of Sustainability Northwestwww.snw.org.uk

‘‘why can’t we change things faster and for the better?’’

‘We should be aiming for around 50 homes per hectare, with easy access to schools,

shops and transport.’

‘What strikes me about this list is how sustainable regeneration is actually just

simple common sense.’

TIME FOR THE REGENERATION BAND TO PLAY IN HARMONY

18

Delivering Sustainable Communities, February 2005

Look again at England's Northwest. It may not be quite as you remembered it.

In the last five years a true transformation has taken place across our region:

• more than 8,000 new businesses have been created;

• 3,000 hectares of brownfield land have been reclaimed, an area the size of Blackpool;

• £1.8 billion of private investment has been attracted into regeneration programmes.

Industrial revelationOur region is still a heart of industry, but we're leaving the legacy of the industrial revolution way behind us.

We're delivering sustainable communities,and driving a new kind of regeneration.

Look again at England's Northwest,It's an industrial revelation.

www.nwda.co.uk

PHILIPS PARK in East Manchester will display more than 200 flags designed by community groups and local schools in the area in an event to judge which creations will be chosen to represent each district.

The flag competition is the second event in a series of initiatives that it is hoped will culminate in greater local participation and ownership of East Manchester’s annual summer carnival extravaganza, known as East Feast.

East Manchester Community Forum arts co- ordinator, Julian Tait, explains how creating friendly rivalry between communities can cultivate greater community ownership and pride in the environment.

“Great carnivals celebrate the individuality of an area by bringing together all the local communities to rejoice in the place that they call home.

“Through art-based activities, such as the flag competition, the area’s character, warmth and humour is recognised and with fun activities like this and the carnival, local people come together to make such events self-sustaining.”

The eight flags chosen will be made into individual A4 aluminium screens to be displayed on lamp posts along the boundaries of each flag’s own district.www.eastserve.com

Flying the flag for East ManchesterEaster festivities in East Manchester will be awash with a family of flags following a community competition to design neighbourhood symbols for the area. Story by Claire Martin.

Peddy Herbert, Manchester’s King of Carnivals, prepares for East Fest 2005 at his home in East Ancoats, East Manchester

Len

Gra

nt

20

document

Documents

new green

new plan

new school

new rolling bridge

new pv cladding

resurgence of east manchester

lancashire housing scheme

links newcastle