So it needs to be said that a final decision has been made yet inclusding on the 'case-study' below, and may not be for years but how can we trust, in the current climate especially, that a good decision can be made?
Search 'david cameron layout for estates' and you get interesting results. 'corbusier housing' too.
'What do Theresa May and Le Corbusier have in common. Sadly the same discredited Modernist philosophy on urban planning and how to solve the housing crisis.' says https://andrewlainton.wordpress.com/2017/02/01/theresa-may-goes-all-le-corbusier-its-the-wrong-choice/
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/mar/28/beautiful-place-hull-residents-bransholme-estate-50
The stereotypes are very wrong. Everyone knows they only get bad when they're allowed to by the very people who are supposed to ensure the opposite, to benefit the community and the people.
I'm sure this is the sort of thing that means Michael Gove can get away with saying we've all had enough of experts, and we are where we are. When you have something at least approaching what could be a successful example of housing build, a local council build, a council estate no less, in the heart of London, you'd think it would be held up as a source of some pride by...well, everyone. The very people who should be most supportive of it seem to be doing their best to ruin it, you can only assume for self-gain. Treating homes as a personal property portfolio, a nice 'project' for you to get a contract of some sort for, a way to take away an area from the very people who have built it into somewhere desirable is wrong on so many levels. There should not be repairs left too long until they cause distress to tenants or residents – in fact the terms of a lease mean repairs should of course be seen to by the landlord (council) but whether councils are more than just revenue collectors is another debate. You would, you'd imagine, take pride in maintaining the housing and ensure (again, as should be the case) that tenants and residents do the same. You would not overburden locals, who do appreciate what they've got, with bills while pressurising them by ignoring reports of anything that needs doing for months on end. You would appreciate a low-rise, spacious, green, open, community and realise you can have all this. You do not need high-rise, small-scale, concrete-covered, closed-off, deliberately run-down and looked-down on deliberately ghettoized areas.. You can solve a housing crisis with good planning and fair contracts that deliver on promises to help people from the area - rather than just a few millionaires. You'd realise you're dealing with lives rather than play a game. You would make the most of this green oasis in a probably most unexpected place, rather than planning to destroy it.
Here's a list of birds (wildlife sometimes more of a concern than humans) seen in the many trees (also probably going) and green environment of this estate just off the Old Kent Road, taken a case-study/example:
Green woodpecker
Lesser spotted woodpecker (yes, definitely, really)
Parakeets
Songthrush
Wrens
Starlings
European Goldfinches
Pied wagtails
Kestrels
Swallows or swifts, not sure
also dunnocks, magpies...the ones we take for granted.
There is plenty of green there, environmentally healthy areas front and back. The trees are magnificent, still very much alive – full green in summer, pink blossom in spring. They've survived the hurricane, served as play areas, sheltered when needed. If the likes of the Southwark Woods campaign didn't already, destroying here shows he council is not really concerned with the environment, unless it pays to pretend to be for regeneration purposes.
There's a community – playgrounds including a pitch, used by generations. There is even a Facebook page just for people who enjoyed growing up on the estate. However, too many are allowed to divide and conquer, grabbing for short-sighted self-interest, most not living here. And before it is mentioned - there is no NIMBY-ism from people there; this is a community of 200 homes not stacked in swaying skyscrapers, without a natural reserve. Again, would you lock the gates to the pitch so the pitch cannot be fully used? Would you plan to knock down one of the playgrounds for another small block?
Green woodpecker
Lesser spotted woodpecker (yes, definitely, really)
Parakeets
Songthrush
Wrens
Starlings
European Goldfinches
Pied wagtails
Kestrels
Swallows or swifts, not sure
also dunnocks, magpies...the ones we take for granted.
There is plenty of green there, environmentally healthy areas front and back. The trees are magnificent, still very much alive – full green in summer, pink blossom in spring. They've survived the hurricane, served as play areas, sheltered when needed. If the likes of the Southwark Woods campaign didn't already, destroying here shows he council is not really concerned with the environment, unless it pays to pretend to be for regeneration purposes.
There's a community – playgrounds including a pitch, used by generations. There is even a Facebook page just for people who enjoyed growing up on the estate. However, too many are allowed to divide and conquer, grabbing for short-sighted self-interest, most not living here. And before it is mentioned - there is no NIMBY-ism from people there; this is a community of 200 homes not stacked in swaying skyscrapers, without a natural reserve. Again, would you lock the gates to the pitch so the pitch cannot be fully used? Would you plan to knock down one of the playgrounds for another small block?
The tower blocks are staying, which may give you some idea of where this is going – as noted in an earlier post. It's quantity over quality, at least where they can force it through and, they think, get away with it. The school on and very much part of, the estate, Pilgrim's Way, is to be expanded and moved – it was apparently news to planners when this was suggested that there's Ilderton Primary already not far away, and no real need to move Pilgrim's Way even closer – and in the process closer to Veolia's already rather unlovely enough recycling facility. More importantly maybe it's better to have Surestart and the school smaller but part of the community, rather than another anonymous generic building on top of the recycling plant and away from green areas.
If your home and everything you've invested in financially and emotionally is destroyed for no real good reason, you may be 'lucky' and get a new place as promised here and now elsewhere. There are now to be ownership and shared-ownership schemes, long leases and terms and fair prices paid. But will your new build home, so often complained about, be an improvement? Will the estate be an improvement? If you do have a flat in the tower blocks and can afford to try and put down some roots, get on the ladder by becoming a leaseholder, you'll probably be forced out by massive charges which the council attempt to justify by saying they need to do extensive repairs – which are mostly only extensive because they did not do ongoing small and proper work when needed and reported. Leaseholders, often targeted, put so much into supporting where they live financially and by caring for their homes but if you are one and can afford to stay, your life may be completely changed, and probably not for the better. A cap of their charges is badly needed (there are already plenty of questions about where local council money is actually going). Now the promises are that leaseholders who have their homes demolished, while of course just having to deal with the emotional and mental loss of what they have invested in and a forced move, will be given ways to stay in the area – described again as a very desirable one - and in the new builds, and tenants won't just be shipped out. Will the promises of nice shiny new modern properties come to pass, and if they do will they actually be an improvement of the more spacious current low-rise homes? It's just seemingly leading to destroying communities and lives for a few generous pay days for developers and council decision-makers. The real problem is that unless the mentality of those making decisions changes, or it is forced to by holding them to account rather than ignoring or rewarding them, what is seen as success now will just be left to run down again with more avoidable misery. All this can't help but apparently point to where the real desire to regenerate comes from, and it's not for any claims of improvement or helping an area, and certainly not about putting the people first. Listening and helping locals helps the community, not all this stress. This is how previous problems (found everywhere, not just here because it is an estate) have been sorted - and they have been sorted - now many wonder was it worth it? The community and the estate here - when looked after as it should be and so is allowed to be - is a good one, one of the best. Let's hope we're wrong, but where then is the good in these any of these plans apart from to a very rich few standing to benefit from the deals? There's still time for this estate and others with many realising what's going on – also not just in these communities but even in new builds, which are often not up to standard or maintained as they should be. We shall see and hopefully it's not the case, but at the moment it seems like in another generation or two all parts of these plans will unfortunately be able to again be looked at as another expert mistake.
If your home and everything you've invested in financially and emotionally is destroyed for no real good reason, you may be 'lucky' and get a new place as promised here and now elsewhere. There are now to be ownership and shared-ownership schemes, long leases and terms and fair prices paid. But will your new build home, so often complained about, be an improvement? Will the estate be an improvement? If you do have a flat in the tower blocks and can afford to try and put down some roots, get on the ladder by becoming a leaseholder, you'll probably be forced out by massive charges which the council attempt to justify by saying they need to do extensive repairs – which are mostly only extensive because they did not do ongoing small and proper work when needed and reported. Leaseholders, often targeted, put so much into supporting where they live financially and by caring for their homes but if you are one and can afford to stay, your life may be completely changed, and probably not for the better. A cap of their charges is badly needed (there are already plenty of questions about where local council money is actually going). Now the promises are that leaseholders who have their homes demolished, while of course just having to deal with the emotional and mental loss of what they have invested in and a forced move, will be given ways to stay in the area – described again as a very desirable one - and in the new builds, and tenants won't just be shipped out. Will the promises of nice shiny new modern properties come to pass, and if they do will they actually be an improvement of the more spacious current low-rise homes? It's just seemingly leading to destroying communities and lives for a few generous pay days for developers and council decision-makers. The real problem is that unless the mentality of those making decisions changes, or it is forced to by holding them to account rather than ignoring or rewarding them, what is seen as success now will just be left to run down again with more avoidable misery. All this can't help but apparently point to where the real desire to regenerate comes from, and it's not for any claims of improvement or helping an area, and certainly not about putting the people first. Listening and helping locals helps the community, not all this stress. This is how previous problems (found everywhere, not just here because it is an estate) have been sorted - and they have been sorted - now many wonder was it worth it? The community and the estate here - when looked after as it should be and so is allowed to be - is a good one, one of the best. Let's hope we're wrong, but where then is the good in these any of these plans apart from to a very rich few standing to benefit from the deals? There's still time for this estate and others with many realising what's going on – also not just in these communities but even in new builds, which are often not up to standard or maintained as they should be. We shall see and hopefully it's not the case, but at the moment it seems like in another generation or two all parts of these plans will unfortunately be able to again be looked at as another expert mistake.
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