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CONTENTS
NewStartContents
THE MAGAZINE FOR MAKING BETTER PLACES
ON THE COVER
New
research
reveals equality
is being
damaged by
government
reforms – yet
this could be
an ideal time to
drive forward
social justice
6
IN PROFILE
Clare Goff
meets Alison
Seabrooke and
finds out how
the Community
Development
Foundation
has fared since
becoming a charity
16
LOCAL WORK
Initiatives
in the
midlands and
Manchester
highlight
the added
value gained
from joined
up working
22
CONTACT US: 0161 236 7036
!
IN THIS ISSUE...
4 Editorial
A year on from the relaunch of
New Start plenty has changed
but one critical thing remains the
same: we all need to collaborate
more
5 The big picture
Pickles’ newly launched
community integration strategy
reveals big hopes for The Big
Lunch
12-15 ANALYSIS
! A century of anti-poverty
policy tells us that government
must play a leading role.
Despite what the coalition
thinks – state intervention
isn’t the problem, argues Paul
Hackett
! By bringing together
the best of old and new
technologies we can ensure
the digital revolution benefits
everyone in society, says Ivan
Tennant
20-21 Best of the blogs
Why we should mind our
language when talking about
places and their attributes;
how it’s time to look at our
high streets differently; why
we need fresh thinking on
the working week; and will
Bristol’s new currency suffer
from limited value?
26-28 International work
Have we lost sight of what
our planning system is actually
for? Sarah Longlands visits
south-east Asia and South
America and discovers it’s being
used as a catalyst for positive
change
30-31 Reviews
The Temporary City by Peter
Bishop and Lesley Williams and
Small, Gritty and Green: The
Promise of America’s Smaller
Industrial Cities in a Low-Carbon
World by Catherine Tumber
STAY INFORMED AT WWW.NEWSTARTMAG.CO.UK
New Start | February 2012 | 3
EDITORIAL
NewStart
THE MAGAZINE FOR
MAKING BETTER PLACES
New Start
c/o the Centre for Local
Economic Strategies (CLES)
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4 | New Start | February 2012
It’s been any eventful year at
New Start but the message
remains the same
One of the unexpected bonuses of
How time flies.
having a greater presence on the web is
It’s now a year
the international links we’ve gained.
since New
Perhaps it shouldn’t come as a
Start officially
surprise, there are practitioners across
relaunched as
the globe striving to create better
an online and
digital magazine. places and searching for new ideas and
the opportunity to share knowledge.
It was a bold
New Start contributors and contacts
move but one that
now cover six continents. If you know
we felt was right
anyone in Antarctica please point them
at the time – and
continue to believe in our direction, it’d be great to have
the full set.
in now more than
But with the many advantages of
ever. Aside from
increasingly prohibitive online publishing come the dangers.
To a certain extent it’s become a free
print and distribution costs, old-style
for all – publishing has never been
publishing simply doesn’t stack up
more accessible
today, both
and while in
editorially and ‘With the many advantages of
many ways
financially.
online publishing come the dangers.
that’s a positive
It just
Publishing has never been more
thing, the end
doesn’t allow
accessible and while in many ways
result is things
the flexibility
are becoming
and openness
that’s a positive thing, the end result
more and more
that’s possible
is things are becoming more and more fragmented.
via online and
fragmented.’
In our world,
social media.
that can’t be a
I said in
good thing. Promoting progressive and
this very space last February that we
wanted to build on a growing desire to socially just policy and practice is an
uphill struggle at present, particularly
collaborate that’s evident across many
in the face of increasing inequality, and
different types of organisations in the
we need to find ways to create a more
UK by offering a place where fresh
cohesive movement and voice.
thinking, ideas and innovation can
Naturally, I want New Start to play
be shared and promoted. And that’s
a role in that process, but it will do so
precisely how things have unfolded
alongside many other organisations.
since then.
Long-standing New Start contributors The task hasn’t changed since we
relaunched a year ago – with limited
have stayed with us and we’ve made
resources and a fight to get our
many new friends in the last 12
messages out there, we need to work
months who thanks to our unique set
up (ok, name another magazine owned together.
by a charitable think tank…) we can
Austin Macauley is editor of New Start.
work with in so many more ways.
Inspired? Disagree? Send your views to: austin@newstartmag.co.uk
THE BIG PICTURE
Communities secretary Eric Pickles’ long-awaited strategy for community
integration was launched this month. The new ‘localist’ agenda to greater
cohesion moves away from a ‘Whitehall-dictated approach’ to one that
encourages collective action such as the Big Lunch. Big Lunch get-togethers, like
this one in Hulme, Manchester, have involved millions and the government hopes
this year’s Big Jubilee Lunch, on 3 June, will be even bigger.
Creating the conditions for integration, http://tiny.cc/0qvb4
New Start | February 2012 | 5
IN FOCUS
IN FOCUS: EQUALITY IN PUBLIC SERVICE REFORM
An open goal
for equality
A new report suggests the shake up in public services should
be putting equality at the heart of everything we do. We can’t
afford to miss it, say Neil McInroy and Richard Caulfield
For a decade, we have seen the development of an equality
and human rights framework across the UK that has been
concerned with delivering equality of opportunity, fair and
equal services, and anti-discrimination.
Although the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition
government has given its support to this agenda through its
equality strategy, there are growing concerns that the policy
framework currently being pursued by the government
represents, at best, a weakened commitment and, at worst, a
retreat from equality as a central aim of government policy.
Yet equality is the means by which we can draw together
a responsible and radical reform of public services with
empowered communities and citizens; and which will
improve efficiency, effectiveness and performance.
With that in mind, the Centre for Local Economic
Strategies and Voluntary Sector North West have been
carrying out extensive research to gauge the impact of current
policy at the grassroots.
The conclusions of that study, published this month,
should be read as a wake-up call for government, local
government and all with an interested in public service
reform and how it relates to equalities.
At the heart of a range of government ideas and policy
developments relating to localism, Big Society, welfare, health
and economic growth is an overarching reform of public
services and how they are designed and delivered.
The research report, Responsible reform, found that this
reform agenda lacks a consideration of equality, equality
groups, equality of opportunity and most importantly an aura
of responsibility.
The history of the equalities agenda, culminating
6 | New Start | February 2012
most recently in the Equality Act 2010, is one of necessary
progressive improvements, protection and ensuring there is
the legal and procedural basis to equality within our public
services. This is something to be proud of and one we should
cherish.
However, in the maelstrom of reform, ongoing public
sector cuts and in the tangible shift in tone from equalities to
‘fairness’ we are seeing equalities dropping down the agenda.
This is reflected on the ground with a weakening of equal
opportunities.
The government has laid out its public sector reform
principles: choice, decentralisation, diversity, fairness and in
accountability. However, this publication shows that across
this range of principles there are growing set of negative
impacts on equalities.
Choice is being eroded as specialist focused services are
being removed. Decentralisation is undermining equalities
infrastructure groups. Diversity is being eroded through cuts,
which are fettering the ability of voluntary and community
groups to influence service provision.
Fairness and access to services is questionable, where
equalities groups are experiencing cuts. Accountability
is being eroded as many equalities networks and
consultative groups are in decline.
There is a pressing need to consider and support
communities who do not have access to mainstream
services and ensure their voice is heard and woven into
OPEN GO
AL
ongoing reform. We must not see decades of progress
in equalities be squandered or eroded through hasty
or ill thought through reform.
Therefore our report asks key questions of
NewSta
rt
THE MA
GAZIN
E FOR
MAKIN
G BET
TER PLA
CES
WWW.
NEWSTARTM
AG.CO.
UK
WHY WE
CHANCE CAN’T AFFORD
TO MIS
TO PUT
S
HEART
OF PUBLI EQUALITY AT TH THE
C SERVIC
E
E REFOR
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FEBRUARY
2012
IN FOCUSL
Warren Escadale explores the conclusions of
Responsible reform and the implications for
central government on page 10
Download the report at http://tiny.cc/69nie
New Start | February 2012 | 7
Photos: Dreamstime
government which it must answer. It also sets down, in broad
terms, what the bare minimum for equalities should be, as regards
local service commissioning. And it advances aspirations of what
the stretch conditions for greater equalities should be, moving
forward.
The report sets out our manifesto for a reform of public
services which is driven by responsibility. In this reform there
are key roles for central government, service commissioners, the
voluntary and community sector, and communities. Our aspiration
is to wed equality of opportunity firmly to responsible public
service reform. If this aspiration is not met the economic and
societal costs will be significant.
IN FOCUS
UK government is absolutely right to strive for localism. But it’s out of touch
with the way its reforms are playing out on the ground, says David Boyle
Open public services was a strange
business. The rhetoric was spot on:
choice, decentralisation, fairness,
diversity, accountability – not so much
the Five Giants that Beveridge warned us
about, but the Five Mirages that never
quite appear.
They have been mirages ever since
Whitehall started to gargle with the
words. In practice, choice meant handing
over choices about our schools and
hospital appointments to professionals,
and a hideous run around for anyone who wanted anything different.
Diversity meant, as so often, a multiplicity of identical choices.
In practice, decentralisation meant almost the precise opposite.
Accountability meant targets and standards and the vast edifice
that was constructed to collect and enforce them, which was about
accountability – not to us – but to Whitehall, and via them to
McKinsey, the ubiquitous management consultants who played the
tune.
Whatever the politicians believe now, there is little evidence that
Whitehall has learned from their mistakes over the past generation, so
I fear these objectives may well remain mirages for the time being. In
other words, I do not distrust the coalition because it is the coalition.
Quite the reverse, I believe their efforts to loosen the sheer inflexibility
of public services under New Labour is absolutely sincere.
But I worry about their grasp of the problem on the ground,
and the whether the structures being created will create the diverse
network of cohesive mutuals and social enterprises around public
services that ministers say they want.
This is particularly important when it comes to procurement, as the
CLES report Responsible reform so rightly says. The new social value bill
will improve the chances of imaginative and effective services on the
ground, but there is little in Open public services that suggests this is
likely to be the direction of travel. We shall see.
8 | New Start | February 2012
That is the problem as matters stand, not localism. Anyone who
believes that centralisation is the path to equality needs only to look at
the NHS in the poorer neighbourhoods of Britain. The most centralised
mechanism in Western Europe, and still the standard of services are
frontline services seemed determined by socio-economic geography.
Quite apart from anything else, localism allows the possibility of
experiment. Which is why the final recommendation of Responsible
Reform, about responding to the opportunity of co-production in
service design and delivery, is so important.
There is an opportunity there, because the NHS is committed to
something it calls ‘co-production’ and many other public services are
beginning to look sniff around similar ideas. I’m not yet convinced that
senior NHS managers understand the meaning of the concept – but
they will.
There are already patients delivering broad, informal services
alongside doctors, just as there are parents working alongside teachers
in schools. This is not just volunteering: it can mean broadening
and deepening what services are possible, and it means turning
our understanding of public services around – so that they become
catalysts for knitting society together again around them. This is
possible only if we use the resources that local people represent.
What seems to happen when services become two-way – when
people are giving something back in this way – is that the power
dynamic begins to change. They own the services they are using in
whole new ways. They defend them effectively. They become equal
partners with the professionals.
They are not drains on an overstretched system, as they are seen
now. They are partners and resources, humanising the service around
them. That won’t solve the problem of equality overnight, but it is an
important contribution. Because co-production is about shifting the
power dynamic in services.
If it doesn’t do that, it isn’t co-production.
! David Boyle is a fellow of New Economics Foundation and author of
The Human Element: Ten new rules to kickstart our failing organisations.
IN FOCUSL
The ability of VCS organisations to represent and support
marginalised groups has been seriously damaged. Equality
must return to the top of the agenda, says Debra Allcock Tyler
Did you know that the phrase
‘Big Society’ topped the
Oxford University Press’s word
of the year in 2010, beating
‘vuvuzela’ (remember those?)
and ‘Boris bikes’?
Yes, the brave new world
promised us greater freedom to
serve our communities, run our
own public services, and shrink
the state (great!). However, look
a little more closely and the
And it’s not just people ‘with protected characteristics’,
but other marginalised and disadvantaged, socially and
financially excluded groups too. Equality of opportunity to
participate must be taken into account.
Overcoming the barriers which some people from
more marginalised groups face involves making sure that
there are bespoke and holistic services tailored towards
specific needs – not just some vague notion of ‘fairness’ of
opportunity.
As a recent discussion organised by the Centre for Local
Economic Strategies (CLES) concluded: ‘Government says it
wants people to have more of a say, but if they haven’t got
shine starts to rub off.
a voice already, they won’t be able to take part.’
Let’s take equalities as an example. Surely the Big
And this is why Directory of Social Change (DSC) wanted
Society champions equality for all? Everyone equal under
to get involved in a unique research project analysing the
the sun? No. The reality is that the new legislation is all
potential effect of the (un)fair legislation on both equalitiesgeared towards concepts of ‘fairness’ rather than equality.
focused voluntary and community sector organisations and
Nowhere in the localism bill, or the local growth white
individuals, and individuals with protected characteristics.
paper are the words ‘equality’, ‘equalities’ or ‘diversity’ to be
As a steering group member, DSC has been privileged
found.
to help shape the research project: Equality, Localism and
Now you might think this is just splitting hairs over
Big Society commissioned by the North West Infrastructure
semantics, but this move away from equality has potentially Partnership, funded by Voluntary Sector North West
wide-sweeping implications for anyone identifying in one
(through the lottery) and carried out by the Centre for Local
or more of the current
Policy Studies and
‘Overcoming the barriers which some
equalities strands.
CLES. The CLES/NWIP
In practice,
report Responsible
people from more marginalised groups
downgrading of equalities
Reform is drawn from
as a policy priority means:
this research.
face involves making sure there are
•
No funding for
The overriding
bespoke and holistic services tailored
equalities organisations
conclusion is
under the OCS strategic
that equalities
towards specific needs – not just some
partners scheme (although
considerations
after a public outcry,
vague notion of ‘fairness’ of opportunity.’ have been woefully
Voice4Change, Community
overlooked in the
Matters and the Women’s
thinking up and
Resource Centre have been given consolation advisory roles implementation of Big Society policies, potentially and
with some project funding to provide advice to government actually causing considerable damage to individuals and
on the challenges that inequalities present to the Big
groups with protected characteristics and equalities specific
Society agenda and how to address them)
voluntary and community sector organisations.
•
A 60% cut in funding to the Equalities and Human
Recommendations include developing a social justice
Rights Commission
framework for ensuring accountability for equalities during
•
Local authority equality impact assessments no
the implementation of Big Society policies, clearer strategies
longer being a requirement
for mitigation measures associated with negative equality
•
Potential discrimination against marginalised
impact, and support from the Office of Civil Society in
people and organisations who don’t have the same access
sustaining the infrastructure for supporting equalitiesto opportunities, or the funding required, to design and run focused voluntary and community sector organisations.
the public services under the localism idea
So, be warned: the Big Society is coming to a
•
Competition for service providers to do more with
community near you and we all need to be ready to stand
less meaning access for more marginalised people might be up for equality and the marginalised. No we don’t want
the first thing to be axed
ghettoisation but we do want real equality.
•
The devolving of responsibility for health services
Until that’s sorted Big Society can get on its Boris bike,
to consortiums of GPs will likely lead to huge disparities
and I never thought I’d say this, but... I’d rather have a
in good/bad/indifferent relationships between GPs and
vuvuzela!
marginalised communities
•
And the general exacerbation of established
! Debra Allcock Tyler is chief executive of the Directory of
inequalities.
Social Change.
New Start | February 2012 | 9
CLES
Train
in
CLES training
CLES offers a wide range of training and events
including the annual training programme, policy
events on topical subjects, tailored bespoke training
and the annual CLES Summit.
For more information about CLES events visit our
website www.cles.org.uk or contact us on
0161 236 7036 or events@cles.org.uk
g Pro
gram
me 2
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Booking and fees for training
courses
One day: £200 plus VAT: £105 plus VAT for
charity, voluntary sector organisations
Booking form and booking conditions online:
www.cles.org.uk
Member discount - CLES members with event
days in their membership can use them to book
places on any courses. All members and subscribers
of CLES and New Start receive 20% discount on
course fees; this is in addition to the early bird
discount described above.
CLES courses 2012
March
6th
20th
27th
Local multiplier 3
Understanding, assessing & measuring well-being
Towards new local economic development
Manchester
Manchester
London
Making places resilient
Understanding, assessing & measuring well-being
Manchester
London
Measuring social & economic impact
Cost benefit analysis
Towards new local economic development
Manchester
London
Manchester
Local multiplier 3
Manchester
CLES Summit 2012 - localism for positive change
Manchester
April
17th
24th
May
1st
15th
22nd
June
12th
July
4th
IN FOCUSL
The UK’s great equalities inheritance needs to be reframed in the
context of a smaller state, says Warren Escadale, as he reveals
the findings of Responsible reform: open public services for all
Picking up on the implications of the findings of our research
Open for all, and wanting to find an answer that could move
us forward, Voluntary Services North West, CLES and our North
West Infrastructure Partnership partners launched Responsible
reform: open public services for all.
The premise, based on the current political and economic
reality (‘austerity is the new normal’) and on the findings
of Open for all is this: ‘The Big State failed to create resilient
communities, the Small State is destroying what remains.’
The key context, as we see it, are the government’s five
principles of open public service reform as outlined last year
in their white paper and the implications of the modernising
commissioning green paper. The government is now expected to
publish further details on this work in the spring.
Our proposals for central government focus on the following.
1. That the government develops a vision of community
empowerment that reflects different communities (not just
geographic communities), linked to each of the five principles:
• Choice should be linked to handing over control to more
than the few and having a vibrant, set of choices available
aligned to people’s needs
• Decentralisation should be about empowering
communities of interest and identity as well as communities of
place
• Diversity of provider (that combines a sense of localism,
Big Society and local empowerment) should include local
specialist niche provision. These groups can ensure public
money is used to kick-start community economies and avoid
public funding being taken out of localities.
• Fairness should be linked to an understanding of local
need
• Better accountability should be built into include
outsourced public service provision.
2. That the government develops and implements a
strategy to build and modernise the capacity of equalities
communities to deliver public services. Key to this will be
assessing local needs (it must be needs driven) and promoting
new models of commissioning that can properly and cost
effectively engage such a market of specialist niche provision.
3. That the government encourages local public agencies
to work together and build in ‘joint equalities needs
assessments’ into commissioning cycles and processes
with the aim of making critical interventions that address
inequality and promote social mobility.
Essential to this new world of commissioning will be local
public sector agencies and local commissioning practice. There
are some exciting possibilities that stem from thinking about
open public service principles in this new light:
• The possibility of developing local procurement
frameworks (not necessarily local supplier frameworks)
• The extension of the local joint strategic needs analysis
process (with its focus on health inequality).
• The possibility of developing local inequality interventions
(possibly piloted through a new type of community budget or
written into the operational planning process of whole-place
community budgets).
These opportunities offer hope that we can reframe Britain’s
great equalities inheritance into a newer, more strategic, smaller
state with a future-proofed instinct for social justice.
! Warren Escadale is policy and research manager at Voluntary
Sector North West.
New Start | February 2012 | 11
ANALYSIS
A century of tackling poverty tells
us government must play a key role
New Labour’s strategy to eradicate poverty was undoubtedly flawed. But the coalition government’s
belief that state intervention was the problem could be catastrophic, warns Paul Hackett
The coalition government has repeatedly pledged to combat
poverty and improve relative social mobility. Straight after the
election David Cameron told parliament that he ‘absolutely
accepts that we have got to do more to help people to get from
the very bottom to the very top’. Such promises may come back
to haunt him.
While few would dispute that the backdrop of fiscal
uncertainty and low growth makes it harder for government,
all the evidence suggests that the policies adopted by the
coalition risk taking the country back to the 1980s which
witnessed a sharp rise in both poverty and inequality.
At the heart of the coalition’s anti-poverty policies is a
belief that the state is more part of the problem than the
solution. The new Conservative-inspired orthodoxy is rooted
in the argument that New Labour failed those in poverty
because it made people too reliant on the public sector and
state transfers, such as housing and family benefits.
12 | New Start | February 2012
The system was labelled too generous and the ensuing
debate on welfare reform has quickly became a moral
crusade around the need to actively discriminate between
the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving poor’. The experience that
Whitehall has built up over decades of tackling the structural
causes of poverty have been largely overlooked in favour of
rolling back the state and promoting an under-resourced Big
Society.
Leaving aside the populism of ‘bashing benefit cheats’
in hard times and arcane arguments by Nick Clegg over
definitions of relative poverty, is there any truth in the
coalition’s claim that reducing the ‘nanny state’ will help
combat poverty and improve social mobility? Did New Labour
really create a more impoverished and divided society?
The Smith Institute’s recent study on the lessons of past
anti-poverty policies – From the Poor Law to Welfare to Work
– shows that without state interventions poverty would have
ANALYSIS
Below: anti-cuts
protestors at a rally in
London last year. Public
spending cuts have
limited the ability of
voluntary and
community sector
organisations to
support low income
families in the face of
increasing demand
certainly been much worse. Indeed, few would dispute
the positive impact of Beveridge’s welfare reforms or
the benefits of sustained public investment in housing,
health and education. However, post-war experience
shows that non-state institutions and arrangements (e.g.
trade unions, collective bargaining, fair wage regulations,
and the voluntary sector) also played a significant role in
combating poverty.
These agencies and policies of so-called ‘predistribution’ (the way in which the market – notably
the labour market – distributes its rewards before the
government gets involved) were particularly effective in
reducing poverty and income inequality in the post-war
period.
It is of course much easier for the state to implement
effective anti-poverty policies if action has already
been taken by others to achieve a more equitable initial
distribution of market incomes. If real wages, for example,
are depressed and employers are encouraged to rely more
on low pay, then the state carries a heavier burden. As we
have seen recently, real wages go down and the in-work
benefit bill rises.
inequality worsened. The fall in the value of real benefits
and high unemployment were partly responsible, but the
evidence suggests that the deliberate dismantling of the
institutions of pre-distribution (notably attacks on trade
unions and revocation of fair wage and employment
protection) had a major effect. The cake got bigger, but the
rewards were more unevenly distributed.
The emergence of ‘un-regulated capitalism’ and
the growing imbalance between ever-stronger forces of
capital and ever-weaker forces of labour led to a steady
and seemingly unchallengeable rise in in-work poverty.
Not only did the wage gap between the top and the
bottom get inexorably wider, but real wage growth began
to consistently lag behind productivity. This imbalance
remains a drag on our economic prospects and undermines
efforts to create a fairer society.
The New Labour era saw a reassertion of the public
commitment to the welfare state, with new anti-poverty
policies built around increases in social transfers, such as
tax credits. Child and pensioner poverty were reduced back
to levels in the mid-1980s and unemployment fell sharply
as the economy improved, until the recent financial crisis.
The impressive reduction in poverty and inequality
in the period between 1945 and 1979 was a result of
mutually reinforcing policies: redistributive actions by the
state (a comprehensive welfare system, improved systems
of social security etc.); policies for full employment; and
pre-distribution arrangements (e.g. strong labour-market
institutions which ensured decent levels of pay). These
three policy pillars, which were held together by a political
consensus and a publicly endorsed ‘social contract’, were
critical to reducing poverty and inequality.
The emergence of Thatcherism in the late 1970s
marked the end of this ‘golden era’ of social progress.
After 35 years of steady improvement both poverty and
‘International comparisons show that
conscious policy choices can make a
real difference. The UK’s performance
in reducing poverty is by no means
appalling, but other comparable
countries have done significantly
better (and did so especially during
the 1980s and 1990s). Countries with
less inequality have less poverty,
and countries with less poverty and
inequality have stronger welfare
states and stronger labour-market
institutions. International experience
also shows that getting people back
into work is the single most effective
policy for poverty reduction.’
The claim that poverty rates worsened is unfounded, and it
is likely that both poverty and inequality would have been
very much worse without Labour’s reforms.
However, the delivery of Labour’s anti-poverty
ambitions was hampered by a reluctance to intervene in
the labour market or support collectivism in the workplace
to reduce employers’ reliance on low pay. The national
minimum wage helped improve the incomes of the very
low paid, but income inequality still worsened and in-work
poverty continued to place a heavy strain on public
resources (half the people on housing benefit, for example,
are now in work or pensioners).
New Labour had a political blind spot on the influence
of ‘pre-distribution’ policies, which in part reflects its
ambiguous relationship with the trade union movement
and its reluctance to confront corporate power. The furore
over high pay and the surge in in-work poverty due to
low pay and employment casualisation has led to shift in
Labour’s thinking, with Ed Miliband backing the Living
Wage and promising to tackle ‘irresponsible capitalism’.
Whether this amounts to a return of an updated ‘social
contract’ centred on the three policy pillars that proved so
successful in the post-war period remains to be seen.
As the Smith Institute report concludes, other
comparable countries with less poverty and inequality
have both stronger welfare states and stronger labourmarket-institutions.
Poverty not only shames modern Britain, but
undermines social mobility and makes our economy and
civic society weaker. Government has its part to play and
state interventions – as history shows – can make all the
difference. But evidence from a century of social policy
shows that non-state agencies and arrangements also play
a major role in reducing poverty.
From the poor law to welfare to work,
The Smith Institute
! Paul
Tackling poverty
Hackett is director of The Smith Institute. From the
poor law to welfare to work can be downloaded at
http://tiny.cc/y51kk
New Start | February 2012 | 13
ANALYSIS
Smart thinking can help
bridge the digital divide
Symbiosis between old and new technologies offers the best way to ensure the digital
revolution benefits all sections of society, says Ivan Tennant
The digital revolution creates
innumerable opportunities to reverse
the fortunes of places in decline. It has
the capacity to transform the economic
environment in which places find
themselves, destroying and creating new
models for how can be taken forward.
It reduces locational advantages
giving places that have been on the
margins of economic development a
chance to gain access to global markets,
it places more power in the hands of
ordinary people giving real substance to
the vision, set out in the Localism Act, of
developers collaborating with people in
the way their communities are built.
However, among the dividing lines
in British society one that is particularly
worrying is the digital separation
between those with and those without
access to broadband connectivity.
As non-digital forms of
communication are increasingly
replaced by digital in the provision
of public services, so the argument
becomes more compelling that
connectivity is a right, like access to
decent housing and basic healthcare.
For Clive Grinyer at Cisco, the
benefits of cloud computing offer a
means by which digital connectivity
can not only be extended to as many
people as possible, but can be delivered
affordably. He sees a natural alliance
between governments and those
companies, such as Google and Amazon,
that have built up massive digital
capacity to facilitate cheap ‘smart’
connectivity.
Through the cloud, mobile devices
could become more simple and more
affordable, creating a scenario in which
governments could issue free mobile
devices to those on low incomes and
‘cloud vouchers’ that would enable
them to access key services.
After a few years in development,
we are now seeing widespread smart
14 | New Start | February 2012
phone take up across the world.
Architect Indy Johar of strategy and
design practice 00 notes that, in some
parts of rural India, smart phone
ownership has already reached 36% and
community workers are helping people
use these devices to make better use of
their resources.
Likewise in Africa, farmers use
smart phones to manage their banking
and business affairs. This creates a
scenario in which the egalitarian vision
of the ‘digital citizen’ starts to become
a reality.
While this says much for the
natural aptitudes of ordinary people,
it is important to acknowledge the
importance of design in making the
mobile phone such a potent economic
and social tool; for Grinyer this has
been a slow process of advocacy and
success has resulted from meticulous
co-creation with user groups following
years of disappointing levels of user
adoption.
THE ROLE OF OLD-STYLE REGENERATION
However, despite these grounds for
optimism, the digital divide will not
be bridged solely through ‘universal
broadband’ and smart phones, it needs
old fashioned regeneration practice
too, ensuring people have the skills and
the support to take advantage of the
opportunities it presents.
Jim Coleman, head of economics
at engineering consultancy Buro
Happold, is quick to point out that while
digital infrastructure has become as
fundamental as roads, it is a supply side
phenomenon.
For people to use it to find jobs,
create businesses and strengthen
their communities, people first need
to have the ability to access digital
channels and, second, to possess the
skills to compete in the labour market,
develop goods and services or create a
viable social enterprise. Within those
communities where such capacity is in
short supply, it is vital to provide both
capacity building measures in parallel
with digital infrastructure, otherwise
universal broadband may promote
further inequality.
Should these two key ingredients
be in place however, the prospective
benefits are attractive. In a recent study
by Regeneris into the forecast impact of
provision of superfast broadband on the
part of local authorities in Cheshire, the
consultants found the councils could
expect to generate £400m over 15 years
and see the creation of 4,000 jobs. But
the study emphasises that this is only
possible on account of a highly skilled
workforce and strong entrepreneurial
base already in place.
The fact that digital technology is a
learning tool, and yet skills are needed
before it can offer up its full benefits,
is of course a catch 22 situation. It is
one that asserts the importance of nondigital infrastructure to bring digital
platforms to life. Alan Bennett said
recently in an article in The Sunday
Telegraph that, if the libraries go, ‘it will
be the children who will suffer’.
While many libraries have been
closed, some have survived by massively
diversifying their range of services and
in effect becoming large covered forums
in which a medley of civic activity takes
place.
The new library in Birmingham
is an example, promising a
‘transformational model of service’
designed to provide a multifaceted
facility that offers both an extraordinary
knowledge resource and a full range
of other services designed to place the
library firmly at the centre of civic life.
This new generation of libraries
recognises their survival depends on a
radical shift in the services they offer
and have, in effect, moved ahead of the
Above: an artist’s
impression of how
the central rotunda
at Birmingham’s new
library will look
ANALYSIS
that use digital technology to deliver
public services more efficiently and
intelligently. But the insights offered
by the digital revolution must also
be about devising sound approaches
to economic development based on a
proper understanding of a place’s ‘path
dependencies’.
In his book, The Triumph of the
curve and are positioning themselves as
the very entities that are delivering the
benefits of digital technology in their
communities.
BRINGING OLD AND NEW TOGETHER
The symbiosis between old and new
technologies should not surprise us.
After all, wild predictions made about
the death of the city as a result of remote
forms of communication proved hollow.
For Drew Hemmett, director of Future
Everything in Manchester, mobile
technology can enable people to ‘connect
in a new way’ that can draw people into
specific physical locations.
As well as the much publicised role of
Blackberry Messenger in the August riots,
it can deliver constructive activity too.
For example, Hemmett is developing the
Digital Village Green in central Manchester
in collaboration with Cornerhouse, one of
the city’s cultural hubs.
People will be able to access digital
experiences by borrowing devices and
being able to plug their devices into
power sockets. Such projects demonstrate
digital technology is as much as source of
opportunity to city centres as a threat and
the digitisation of public space should be
seen as a means of delivering high streets
revival.
This notion of hybridity extends
into the use of digital platforms to allow
residents to influence change in their
neighbourhoods. Where web-based
collaborative design methods have been
used, for example Betaville – ‘an opensource multiplayer environment for real
cities’ – their limitation as only offering a
detached, dispassionate relationship with
the city has been noted.
More valuable responses can be
achieved if, in combination with digital
approaches, residents conduct tours of
their neighbourhood so to take in the
messy reality of life at street level.
Indeed, double meaning is captured
in the very term ‘smart.’ The ‘smart
city’ has come to mean those places
City, Edward Gleaser calls on cities like
Detroit and Liverpool to reach back into
their past and rediscover the talents that
allowed them to flourish in the first place,
before a reliance developed on key staple
industries.
Digital technology enables us to
exploit the human tendency over time
to record by creating efficient means
by which we can recall archives and
historical material to access values,
traditions and knowledge that have been
lost or are out of reach.
While there is great optimism among
digital leaders that the smart city will be
a true revolution in the way cities are run,
progress is likely to be ‘bitty’ as designers,
such as Drew Hemmett and Clive Grinyer,
work with people to develop user friendly
ways that the vast resources of data stored
within public bodies may be accessed to
enable cities to work better.
In the short run, private individuals
working with such designers at a local
level are producing some of the most
inspiring examples of the regenerative
effects of the digital age. For example,
Wisdom Bank in Torfaen developed by
Grinyer, which explores how superfast
broadband can facilitate mutual help
among communities going through
economic hardship.
This combination of human
endeavour and digital infrastructure is
key in discovering the balanced approach
required if the manifold benefits of the
digital revolution are to be realised.
! Ivan Tennant
is principal of Plan Projects.
New Start | February 2012 | 15
IN PROFILE
COMING
OUT OF THE
SHADOWS
The switch from public body to charity
has been a challenging transition for the
Community Development Foundation. But
boss Alison Seabrooke tells Clare Goff it’s
given the organisation a new lease of life
‘I’m not the sort of person who likes to be a victim. I believe that you
should deal with the circumstances that arise and just get on with it.’
Alison Seabrooke, chief executive of the Community
Development Foundation (CDF), has, in the last two years, had
plenty of practice in dealing with challenging circumstances. The
organisation she heads up discovered it was to lose its public body
status in the ‘bonfire of the quangos’ in October 2010.
In the space of five months she had to close down offices, make
redundancies and change the constitution of CDF. At the same time
many of the organisation’s programmes were coming to an end and
new ones – including national programmes the Big Local Trust and
16 | New Start | February 2012
Community First – were setting up. ‘We were shutting down one
thing, starting up something else and trying to deliver work while
reducing staff and keeping an eye on the future to ensure CDF could
continue to work in a very different environment,’ she says.
Seabrooke was not totally unprepared for the changes, having
taken CDF through a series of scenario planning exercises during
2009. But in reality it was the most extreme scenario – the loss of
the organisation’s public grant as well as the loss of many of its
programmes – that happened.
‘Even if you’ve planned for it nothing prepares you for it when it
actually happens, but psychologically we had gone there.’
IN PROFILE
‘looking over its shoulder’, and can lobby and campaign on issues.
Seabrooke says that the changes – shifting from a public body
to charitable status – have allowed CDF to lift its head above the
parapet.
‘If we hadn’t changed, we would have stayed below the radar.
It’s exciting to have a voice and to be able to say what you think.’
So now that she has the chance to be more outspoken,
what does she have to say about the government’s approach to
community development?
CDF has been one of the winners under the new government,
being awarded the contract for the Community First programme,
an £80m programme to fund community groups through a
mixture of small grants and an endowment match challenge, in
which £100m of local and national philanthropy will be matched
with £50m of government investment.
While Seabrooke believes that many of the initiatives, ideas
and innovation coming from central government are ‘spot on’,
she fears that their delivery mechanisms are, in some cases,
problematic. ‘The issue for me is that there is an expectation that
CARVING OUT A FRESH APPROACH
With possibly one of the most difficult 18 months in CDF’s history
behind her, she can now reflect on the benefits of those changes in
the context of the now 45 year old organisation.
She is excited that CDF can now work with a much wider range
of people and organisations than it was able to as a public body.
Recently it has begun partnering with corporate organisations,
including Asda, which is supporting the Community First programme
through its local branches across the country.
Being relieved of its public body status means CDF is now able
to make decisions about its future without asking permission or
A LISTENING GOVERNMENT?
Her views about the commissioning and procurement process are
echoed across the sector and she is confident that the government
is listening and taking on board the criticism.
When I meet Seabrooke she has just returned from one of
the minister for civil society Nick Hurd’s regular roundtable
events, in which he invites people from the sector to talk about
their experience of working in communities. She says that while
the coalition government made mistakes during its early days,
particularly its idea that it was ‘taking us back to year zero, as if
nothing ever happened in communities’, now it is listening and
adapting.
That day the topic for Nick Hurd’s roundtable was about
developing and stimulating local social entrepreneurship.
Representatives spoke of the difficulties for local authorities
wanting to procure from the social enterprise sector and for third
sector providers to show their worth in a culture that is focused on
the bottom line. Seabrooke is worried about the number of private
New Start | February 2012 | 17
!
you can deliver these programmes, programmes that require
a multi-faceted approach and lots of support, as if they are
something you deliver transactionally,’ she says.
‘Working with communities is about relationships, it’s about
trust and it’s about support. It may sound woolly but it’s the way
that we all know works. But unfortunately the costing and the
way everything is now forced down a procurement route makes it
very difficult for programmes to change and adapt to local needs.’
CDF has delivered more than 20 grassroots programmes in the
last five years and knows the dangers of trying to impose a onesize-fits-all approach.
‘To do something prescriptive that says you will be able to do
this within a certain amount of time and this is what its going to
look like is naïve and counterproductive,’ she says.
CDF designed the Big Local Trust programme itself based on its
knowledge and understanding of how community development
works and the type of support it needs, and was given a lot of time
to ensure it got all the elements right. Bidding for the Community
First programme however, it went through a rushed tendering
process.
IN PROFILE
sector partners now moving into the delivery of social projects
and undercutting organisations with years of community
development behind them.
As the right to bid policy rolls out she wants to see some
assurances that private sector organisations coming into an area
will have to prove their local connections and credentials.
‘It sounds negative about the private sector but it’s also
terribly naïve to think that all they do is good and that they
know how to do it,’ she says. ‘You have to question the integrity
of certain private sector organisations bidding for market share
when they are in it for profit.’
Seabrooke, who began working in the sector as what would
now be called a social entrepreneur, wants to ensure that all
local communities have the resources in place to help people –
like her – who want to change things locally. Through her own
experience, she knows that people become social entrepreneurs
without realising that is what they are doing.
‘I just got involved in my community. I feel strongly from my
own experience you just have an idea that things could be better
and go through progression points to make things happen.’
Thus her route began when she started taking her daughter
to the local toddler group, held in a village institute building
that was ‘falling to bits’. She became chair of the local committee
and began talking to local partners to help raise funds and
donate items to refurbish the building. The lessons she learned
along the way and the local help and small grants she was able
to tap into helped her get her first project off the ground.
‘We wanted to apply for a community grants scheme,
someone helped us fill in the form and I learned that you had to
make income and expenditure match. That was the first bit of
advice I’d had. I had no idea about those sorts of things.’
GETTING DOWN TO THE GRASSROOTS
It is this low level community activity that needs to continue to
be supported and which often leads, as in Seabrooke’s case, to
much greater involvement.
‘Social enterprise begins with people coming together in a
local community and starting to get excited around a local issue.
Then you realise you need a room, and need to get constituted
and to learn about public performance rights in order to hold
an event and often you don’t know where to go for all that,
especially if you’re in a deprived or rural area.
‘Quite often those people might have a good business idea
and could become a social entrepreneur but often they do it
without realising they’re doing it.’
Support is, she says, vital for anyone wanting to do
something locally and she is passionate about the need to
‘If you’re at the grassroots level you’re constantly trying to
protect it. But the type of support needed may vary from
signpost people on but some programmes are so marginal in terms
community to community and she worries that in some of
of costs that they don’t allow us to provide the level of support
the programmes now
needed.’
being rolled out by
The Grassroots Grants
‘Our communities are complex and it’s not about this
central government,
programme, which CDF ran
or that type of community approach. There’s room
this vital support
for three years until March
element is missing.
for all approaches and there are lots of organisations 2011, was similar to that of
‘If you’re
Community First in terms
doing it in different ways and using different models.’ of its mix of grants and
looking for
innovation
endowment match funding.
or entrepreneurship they are very subjective facets of a
A recent evaluation of the programme found it was a ‘winning
programme. You can’t identify innovation because what’s
formula’ for funding grassroots activity by providing immediate
innovative will differ locally. If an application comes through
support with long-term investment.
and a person looks entrepreneurial we don’t have capacity to
Seabrooke is excited about the potential for endowment
support that now.
funding and other new forms of social investment. She believes in
18 | New Start | February 2012
IN PROFILE
the need for a cultural shift in terms of financing social and
community work but does not advocate the end of all grantfunding.
‘A grant is a social investment. The sorts of work people
did with Grassroots Grants was providing a service in that
community – local groups helping elderly convalescents stay
at home clearly support pathways to hospital policy aims –
who’s to say that’s a grant or a user-led approach to service
delivery?’
A NEW FUTURE FOR COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
As we move into a new era of social funding and investment
Seabrooke is confident about the future of community
development. ‘My own personal view is that we’re all moving
towards a much more shared goal,’ she says. ‘Community
development as a way of working has pretty much been
absorbed across the political spectrum.’
‘Our communities are complex and it’s not about this
or that type of community approach. There is room for all
approaches and there are lots of organisations out there doing
it in different ways and using different models.’
Seabrooke moved on from refurbishing her local village
institute to project-managing the launch of The Regen Centre,
a multi-purpose community facility in a former coalfields
village in North Yorkshire, which, when it opened in 2000, was
one of the most innovative buildings in terms of energy use.
She benefited from small pots of ‘free money’ that helped
her learn and get through those ‘progression points’ that every
social entrepreneur and community developer needs.
And she has guided the CDF through a huge period
of change and now wants to ensure that community
development in all of its guises continues to grow and thrive.
New Start | February 2012 | 19
BLOGS
FEEDBACK
New Start welcomes your letters
and contributions to debate.
Have your say – email:
austin@newstartmag.co.uk
Best of this month’s blogs: why we
should mind our language when talking
about places, how it’s time to look at our
high streets differently and will Bristol’s
new currency suffer from limited value?
LET’S MAKE IT PERSONAL
You see for the right people, who do the right
thing; social entrepreneurship is never for
personal profit. You know that because of the choice
they have made to ignore more lucrative corporate
work to focus on doing what they do. You don’t need a
spreadsheet to work out the sacrifice they are making.
So let’s stop trying to tie people like Bev down with
structures, kite-marks and procurement rules.
Robert Ashton
BRISTOL POUND WON’T SAVE OUR TOWN CENTRE
If enough niche traders decide to pay
business rates in £B what will the council do
with it all if it can only be spent on posh coffee and
trinkets? As trading it back into sterling will cost 5%
commission I’m wondering if the Bristol council tax
payer might be being conned here.
Keren Suchecki
Bristol
Social entrepreneur and business author
RE-IMAGINING THE HIGH STREET
High streets remain massively important to
the notion of place. They are a hub for social
interaction, explicitly creating a constant dynamic
of place: a confluence of the known and the
unknown, of friends and strangers, of the planned
and unplanned. The high street is an opportunity
for us to check our identity and redefine both the
personal self and civic self.
Garry Haywood
So-Mo
RECONCILING COMMUNITIES THROUGH REGENERATION
Groundwork NI has been working closely with
the steering group and with local residents and
groups from both sides of the communities surrounding
Alexandra Park to move regeneration plans forward.
The group is leading the way towards bringing both
communities together through a recreational space and
we hope this will have a direct and positive impact on
the daily lives of people who live near the park.
Sylvia Gordon
Groundwork Northern Ireland
KEEP TWEETING!
Follow us on Twitter at
http://twitter.com/NewStartMag
and tweet your
news and views.
Keep up with tweets
from major events.
A BAD MARRIAGE
We cannot have a strong nation if we do not
have resilient local places. And if we want local
places that are resilient we need to sort out some big
international problems too. Identifying the key leverage
points and then making the smartest interventions
requires an understanding of this complex system.
Philip Monaghan
Infrangilis
WITH OR WITHOUT AN ELECTED MAYOR THE
CHALLENGES REMAIN THE SAME
I do not believe that a vote where only 18%
turned out, 10% below our local election
turnout should be treated as an authoritative
precedent for anything. We now need to move into
a phase where we explain what local government
achieves and what we would lose should power be
placed in the wrong hands.
John Merry
Salford Council
THE POWER OF LANGUAGE TO TELL THE STORY OF PLACE
Can a place be good, even if it doesn’t have
economic growth? We can start to answer that
question by taking a look at the type of language we
use to describe places where growth is difficult: lags
behind; weak labour pools; uncompetitive; peripheral;
undynamic; vulnerable; weak. In contrast, look at the
language we use to describe the places we think are
growing: driving forward; innovative; competitive;
central and core; dynamic; dominant; strong.
RETWEET FOR TOWNS DAY: 8 MARCH 2012
Social media contains much discussion
around aspects of our town centres. Twitter is
also the portal for disheartened residents to
complain that their town doesn’t meet their needs
while proactive town centre managers, councils
and tourism boards tell a story about the how
fantastic their town is. Retweet For Towns Day will
bring all parties together to allow a free and honest
debate.
Sarah Longlands
Research fellow, CLES
Mark Barnes
Retweet for Towns Day
READ ALL THE BLOGS IN FULL, RESPOND TO THEM AND SUBMIT YOUR OWN BLOGS AT
20 | New Start | February 2012
BLOGS
BLOG OF THE MONTH
TIME TO THINK DIFFERENTLY ABOUT WORK?
JUST FINANCE CAN REACH OUT TO THE EXCLUDED
Now is the time to offer a new opportunity to
all communities, businesses and civil society
organisations that are denied access to financial
services, services which we know are the foundation
for local economic development, social equality, and
the basis for economic recovery. The community
finance sector is the unsung hero of the financial
services industry. Community development finance
institutions have been quietly providing community
finance to some of the most disadvantaged
communities in the UK for more than ten years..
Ben Hughes
Community Development Finance Association
KNOW YOUR PLACE
How to combat the continued threat from out
of town developments?; at what point does a
place become unviable – and what do you do about
it?; having a big name supermarket move into town
may not be the most sustainable solution – but is it a
price worth paying if that’s your only chance of
boosting employment?; if relationships are the key to
successful places, where’s the starting point for
building those ties?; to what extent are towns
considering their relationship with those around
them?
Austin Macauley
New Start
CAN LOCALISM GIVE A HELPING HAND TO POOREST?
Many places do not have growth and it is
probable that many places will not get growth
in the near future or in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years or
maybe ever. How does localism help address poverty
and inequality when there is no growth? We will
need to face the economic realities head on, and use
greater local powers to build an alternative economic
vision, which is freed from economic growth
orthodoxies.
Neil McInroy
CLES
HOW DO YOU CREATE HEALTH?
Harry Burns suggests that often the definition
of health is based on a deficits model: fixing
problems. Burns argues that this is not enough. He
suggests that ‘a relevant environmental health
agenda for the 21st century is as much about the
creation of places which engender good physical and
mental health, as it is about protection from
hazards’. To really fix the problem, start thinking
about the conditions necessary for that problem not
to exist. Think ‘create health’.
Diarmaid Lawlor
Architecture and Design Scotland
What should you do when the economy is in recession, when unemployment is on
the increase, and when there is little sign of recovery on the horizon? Work longer and
more productively, right? As an individual, this makes intuitive sense. When the cost of living
is spiralling upwards, future labour market conditions are uncertain, and job security is under
threat, putting your head down and working harder would seem to be the natural thing to do.
Likewise when it comes to spending less and saving more.
This may be so, but the same logic does not necessarily apply at the national level. If
people work longer hours, the market in which they are offering their labour requires less of it
from elsewhere with the likely result of an increase in unemployment.
Similarly, conventional economic thinking suggests that in times of stagnation saving
more will lower interest rates, spur investment and create more jobs and growth. Yet as both
Keynes argued, and evidence from current practice illustrates, higher saving in the absence
of sufficient demand can actually lead to weak aggregate demand, undermine investment,
and result in an overall contraction in output. Even more so when the overriding political and
economic imperative is to take money out of the economy to reduce budget deficits.
Rather than simply focus on driving up productivity and encouraging everyone to work
longer hours now is the time to examine the case for a shorter and more flexible working
week, where paid work is redistributed as part of a wider drive towards tackling inequalities.
This would not only offer us advantages in the short term, by helping to kick-start a recovery
from economic recession, but would also arguably support a much needed transition towards
a less carbon intensive, fairer and higher wellbeing economy over the longer term.
There would be big hurdles to overcome. Most of us don’t have a choice about the hours
of paid work we do. The Labour Force Survey shows a gap exists between hours people want to
work and those they actually work. Millions are under-employed – they want to work more but
can’t. This accounted for 9.1 % of the employed population in quarter 2 of 2011. But a similar
number of people are over-employed; they want to work less (for a corresponding reduction
in pay) but struggle to do so. Substituting and transferring hours from one group to the other
is not an option. This is not a policy area where the solutions are simple or the transition
pathways straightforward. However, it does raise interesting questions about how any
redistribution of paid work and movement towards a shorter working week might take place.
Firstly, this agenda should not be about penalising those already feeling the pinch but
should be about tackling inequalities to achieve a fairer society. Why not first start with those
who want to work reduced hours but struggle to do so (i.e. the over-employed)?
Secondly, to support any form of transition we have to make it feasible to achieve in
practice. A leading academic thinker on the issue of working time, Juliet Schor, argues there
is a lack of a free market in working hours, with limited choice in hours worked across many
organisations. Ensuring reforms to employment law make shorter and more flexible hours
more, not less, feasible for those who choose to do so is an area in need of action.
Finally, examples from elsewhere are a useful starting point for transition. We might
look to the Netherlands, which has successfully moved towards a shorter working week by
focusing on new entrants to the labour market. Establishing a three or four day working
week as ‘normal’ for school and university leavers was rightly deemed to be a more realistic
intervention than asking existing employees to make a potentially difficult adjustment.
It may seem counter-intuitive to be encouraging people to work less rather than more
given the state of the economy. However, you do not have to look far to identify the fallacies
which are littered throughout much of our conventional economic thinking to realise this is
another example of ‘economic logic’ which is starting to come undone. When it comes to hours
of work, perhaps the logic we now ought to be adhering to is less equals more.
Nicola Steuer, New Economics Foundation
YOUR RIGHT TO REPLY
New Start welcomes readers’ letters and responses to articles in the magazine
and online. We endeavour to correct any mistakes or inaccuracies at the earliest
opportunity. Complaints should be made in writing to the editor, Austin Macauley.
WWW.NEWSTARTMAG.CO.UK
New Start | February 2012 | 21
LOCAL WORK
MAKING THE LINKS
The latest article in our series on Britain’s ageing population sees Simon Hobbs and
Alan Hatton-Yeo examine three initiatives underlining the value of joined-up working
Challenging times necessitate innovative solutions and the
pressure is on to get better outcomes from less resources.
Yet most of the really challenging issues require
systemic change to occur, they do not fall in the remit
of any one organisation. So how can we gain traction to
move forward?
Effective joined-up working is a crucial enabler to
change and this requires new ways of thinking and
new behaviours. The EU’s Year of Active Ageing 2012
encourages policymakers and stakeholders to define
specific commitments related to active ageing and to take
action to meet these goals.
Three different perspectives of this agenda can help us
explore the challenges involved in joined-up working.
PARTICIPATION IN SOCIETY: IMPROVING THE OPPORTUNITIES AND CONDITIONS FOR OLDER PEOPLE TO CONTRIBUTE TO SOCIETY AS VOLUNTEERS OR FAMILY
CARERS AND TO PARTICIPATE IN SOCIETY, THUS AVOIDING SOCIAL ISOLATION AND MANY OF THE ASSOCIATED PROBLEMS AND RISKS.
CASE STUDY: VALUING OLDER PEOPLE, MANCHESTER COUNCIL
The Valuing Older People (VOP) programme was established in
2003 to improve the quality of life of older Manchester residents.
The programme places older people at its heart and has developed
extensive engagement mechanisms to ensure the older Mancunian
voice is reflected in the development of the programmes.
One approach that has attracted significant national attention
is the VOP locality approach. The basic idea behind the VOP locality
networks is that by working together in a defined geographical
area, agencies can improve services and opportunities for older
residents.
It brings together all services and community organisations in
a locality in order to identify local concerns, take collective action,
share ideas and, in effect, find local solutions to local issues. Each
network develops a local action plan based on officer feedback,
consultation events, questionnaires and their contact with local
older people’s groups.
There are currently more than 103 different services,
departments and organisations working together on the frontline
22 | New Start | February 2012
to make Manchester a great place to grow older and to create
more age-friendly neighbourhoods. Following a review in 2011,
there is compelling evidence that networks are making a difference
and are helping to combat isolation and keep people socially
engaged and networked. Achievements include:
• Better cross-referral between services
• Pooling of resources and sharing of venues
• Drawing down resources through collaborative funding bids
• Finding local solutions to gaps in opportunities – e.g. Front Row
film clubs in three areas of the city that lost the local cinema
• Improved access to quality information
• Older people having a direct conversation with a wide range of
services
• Better support for community groups.
! Details: http://tiny.cc/wclbz
! Contact: vop@manchester.gov.uk
LOCAL WORK
INDEPENDENT LIVING: HEALTH PROMOTION AND PREVENTIVE HEALTH CARE THROUGH MEASURES THAT MAXIMISE HEALTHY LIFE AND PREVENT
DEPENDENCY AS WELL AS MAKING THE ENVIRONMENT MORE AGE-FRIENDLY ALLOWING OLDER PEOPLE TO STAY AS INDEPENDENT AS POSSIBLE
CASE STUDY: SOUTH STAFFORDSHIRE RURAL TRANSPORT PARTNERSHIP
According to the Audit Commission, South
Staffordshire Council has one of the most
rapidly ageing populations in the UK.
This provides challenges across a wide
range of policy areas including health and
wellbeing, transport, community safety and
housing.
By looking at the synergy between the
health and wellbeing and transport issues,
the council has brokered an arrangement
whereby Staffordshire County Council will
commission a new dial-a-ride service called
South Staffordshire Connect. This will be
open to anyone who has no bus service
or who, due to infirmity, cannot access a
traditional bus.
The alignment of such a substantial
budget is a real success, but the real
power of the approach lies in the
joined-up thinking which has linked the
reprovision of social care transport with the
development of new social and wellbeing
hubs within key villages.
Residents will be able to access a wider
range of facilities closer to home and they
will benefit from free transport if they have
concessionary travel passes. This approach
will also allow people who are not
currently social care users to engage with
the wellbeing hubs – helping to prevent
rural and social isolation.
Investments of this size are not easy to
come by, so why do it?
Dave Heywood, deputy chief executive
at South Staffordshire Council, explains:
‘It is unusual for a district council to
take a leadership role on local transport,
but it is a key priority for our residents. By
working very closely with partners such
as Staffordshire County Council and the
clinical commissioning groups we have
been able to broker a radical redesign of
both transport and social care services. The
money available has been invested in a
smarter way.
‘By taking a joined up approach partners
have been able to think through how to
design better services which also cost less
money.
Moreover, a wider range of people will
benefit from the health and wellbeing
opportunities this opens up. Finally, people
will be able to get out and about more
easily so this will help sustain communities,
support the local economy and strengthen
personal networks.’
! Details: http://tiny.cc/db6gh
! Contact: Mark Jenkinson at
m.jenkinson@sstaffs.gov.uk
KEY LESSONS
Show leadership and make the space for
innovators
A crucial senior leadership role, both politically
and managerially, is to articulate the need for
change, to charge key people with delivery and
to provide the legitimacy and remit for them
to engage the right people. Build the capacity
of those managers, staff and politicians who
are reluctant to engage. Help them understand
what’s in it for them and encourage them to
think about outcomes in a different way
Support the change-makers
Support and cherish your enthusiasts – this work
can be tough and a bit scary. Encourage them
to broker new relationships and deepen their
understanding of the issues and the levers each
agency has to help tackle the problem. Support
change-makers within the community.
Focus on outcomes, not process
Too much emphasis has been placed on
governance and process within partnership
working. Commissioners have been often much
more comfortable specifying contracts, assessing
inputs and assessing value for money than really
tackling the thorny problem of how to define the
outcomes which are being sought.
Spend time understanding the issues
Don’t rush off with ready-made solutions.
Data will be helpful but is not the whole story.
Good practice may work in one context but not
New Start | February 2012 | 23
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LOCAL WORK
ACTIVE AGEING IN EMPLOYMENT: IF WE WANT TO ENCOURAGE OLDER WORKERS
TO STAY IN EMPLOYMENT THERE ARE CHALLENGES AROUND WORKING CONDITIONS,
THE WAY WE ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO UPDATE THEIR SKILLS AND THE MANY
BARRIERS OLDER PEOPLE FIND IN RE-ENTERING THE WORKFORCE
CASE STUDY: AGE UNLIMITED PILOT, BETH JOHNSON FOUNDATION
Mid-life is a pivotal time in an individual’s experience of ageing; choices and
changes made during this period can have a significant impact on the quality
of their older age. Funded as one of the 11 national Age Unlimited pilots, the
Beth Johnson Foundation developed and piloted a co-produced model of peer
to peer coaching as a way to prepare for ageing and to build resilience among
users.
The project targeted people aged 50 and over and in particular those who
were hard to reach including unemployed men and women experiencing
depression, anxiety and stress. Users were matched with a peer coach who
supported them through a self-assessment process to help them identify their
needs and goals for the future.
The coach supplied information about the opportunities available and
supported them to pursue some of these options. They included learning and
skills programmes, volunteering, resilience training to develop coping skills
and one-to-one counselling where appropriate. This enabled people to take
a more active role in their community and to prepare for events that happen
throughout life, in particular the transitions relating to mid-life, and to develop
the coping skills to deal with them.
There were a range of unforeseen opportunities and challenges but by the
end of the pilot phase the project had developed:
• A co-design group to develop the future shape and marketing of the project
• Training around age awareness
• Age readiness workshops co-designed and tested with a range of community
groups including with adults with learning difficulties
• ‘Coping positively with change’ training
• Peer coaching training, currently being piloted with Midland Heart Housing
Association
• A business model proposed to a number of housing providers to deliver
training for staff and age-readiness workshops for tenants.
Outcomes have included raised awareness around ageing and people
identifying themselves as potential peer coaches. Currently work is being
undertaken on a sustainability strategy to promote the learning in workplaces,
with housing providers and other organisations.
! Details: http://tiny.cc/9v58t and http://tiny.cc/2f9ei
! Contact: Lynne Wealleans, lynne@bjf.org.uk
another. Invest the time to really understand what the issues are and
the options to do something about it. Develop the evidence base and
resist the temptation to push for immediate action.
Seek new insights, consider opportunities for co-production
Take time to ask people with a different perspective –people trying
to navigate the system or dealing with the issues day to day in the
community. Find out what frustrates them and what they really need.
What kinds of action will work best on the ground?
Let the appropriate agency lead, but be inclusive
Many organisations will naturally have the remit and the right skills
to take the lead Sometimes they will try to do this on their own, but
they may only have part of the toolbox needed. Joint working needs
engagement with people and organisations who have the other skills
and insight necessary. What works best if the community takes the
lead?
Build relationships, confidence and trust
Senior sponsors within organisations should meet regularly to review
progress. Success breeds success and develops confidence and trust.
Work closely with service providers on the ground and community
groups to develop a shared understanding.
Learn what works and what doesn’t
Evaluation is often left to the last minute, if it is done at all. If you
really want to know what difference you are making then design the
evaluation as part of the original design and ensure partners are clear
what data needs to be captured. Finally, take the time to see if your
solution is working.
! Simon
Hobbs is director of JoinedUpConsulting and is currently
working as South Staffordshire rural transport co-ordinator. Alan HattonYeo is chief executive of the Beth Johnson Foundation.
New Start | February 2012 | 25
INTERNATIONAL WORK
What is planning, what is it for and what role does it play in supporting
and shaping places both in a time of austerity and potentially in the
future? Coming from an economic development perspective, I’ve long
been interested in the sometimes fractious relationship between local
economics and planning.
One way to get a new perspective is to take a look at some high
profile exemplars from other parts of the world. Some fresh thinking on
the subject is definitely required while we await the publication of the
final National Planning Policy Framework.
Planning in the UK has been characterised by two main roles
which can be described as spatial planning and regulatory planning.
Spatially, it considers how a place will respond to change both now and
in the future taking into account social, economic and environmental
challenges. This is the development planning process which is
encapsulated in the production of the local development framework
(LDF). As a regulatory function, planning through the development
management process ensures the smooth implementation of the LDF
and the regulation of land use, building standards and urban design.
Current government rhetoric has chosen to characterise planning
primarily as a regulatory function which in the coalition’s eyes, acts as
a ‘drag anchor’ on growth (as Eric Pickles described). At a time when
economic growth is conspicuously lacking, it appears that we can’t
afford the luxury of planning; the role of planning in austerity is to
deliver growth. A simple linear relationship is implied by government,
that less planning control equals greater levels of economic growth.
So how do we differ from other countries and what can we learn?
PLANNING GAINS
Government sees planning as a drag on the economy – but have we lost sight of its true potential?
Sarah Longlands visited cities in south-east Asia and South America in search of a fresh perspective
26 | New Start | February 2012
INTERNATIONAL WORK
Below: skyscrapers in
the South Korean city
of Songdo. Overleaf:
Curitiba’s bus transit
system is a key part
of its approach to
urban planning
SOUTH KOREA – USING PLANNING TO MAXIMISE GROWTH
South Korea stands out as an Asian tiger economy,
relentlessly pursuing a neoliberal approach to planning
with the express intention of freeing up resources to
sustain their rapid economic growth. Developments such
as the six free economic zones springing up around the
country are testament to this.
I visited the Incheon Economic Zone, 30km west of
Seoul, which is a vast development stretching for more
than 100km and boasting the latest in ‘ubiquitous’
technology, environmental design features and transport
infrastructure, including South Korea’s primary
international airport, Incheon.
Incheon is zoned into three main areas: Songdo, the
best of global business; Yeongjong, the best of global
logistics and Cheongna; and the best of global leisure
(which includes Robot Land, ‘a mecca for high tech
industries’!).
The appetite for investment and growth is also
intensifying demand for land in Seoul itself with the
government embarking on vast ‘reconstruction’ projects
in the centre of the city. The Hang River is at the centre
and health/school services, but within the existing slum.
The slum is not replaced but retrofitted and improved
from within.
What is really important about this approach is that
it challenges the traditional approach to urban planning
which views informal or illegal settlements negatively as
undesirable and dangerous. These areas are perceived as
a threat to the formal planning process in a city. However,
in Sao Paulo, we see the opposite view, whereby the
informal city actually provides an alternative forum for
planning and designing a city which works with what is
already present in the informal structure.
of many of these initiatives and while it may seem more
efficient in the mind of Seoul’s planners to reconstruct
the city’s existing architectural design in the name of
efficiency, of being able to cram more residential blocks
into a ever decreasing space, this ‘pork barrelling’ may be
in danger of jeopardising the city’s distinctiveness.
What is striking about the approach to planning
in South Korea is the use of land as a commodity to be
maximised for the greater economic good and most
importantly to ensure it’s perceived internationally as the
latest place in which to do business.
informal housing – the barrios – he wants to rehouse
these citizens in new free-standing cities.
The officials we spoke to in Venezuela were highly
sceptical about the likelihood of the project ever being
delivered because of the lack of resources such as water to
support the new settlements and employment. But other
schemes in the capital city of Caracas seem much more
likely and illustrate the desire of the local planners to
wrest back control from the vagaries of the free market.
One of the fundamental ironies of Chavez’s socialism
is that Caracas is the perfect example of a city where an
active planning system does not exist. The city’s planners
want to change this with a series of high profile public
design projects including a massive new civic square
surrounded by housing.
What is very clear in Venezuela is the role of planning
is not necessarily about its role in supporting or halting
growth, but as a vehicle to promote the government’s
ideologies about how the country should be run. The
projects being proposed were symbolic construction
projects, high modernism, Chavez style!
SAO PAULO – MANAGING RAPID ECONOMIC GROWTH
The informal settlements that surround the periphery of
Sao Paulo speak volumes about the city’s rate of growth.
These vast settlements house up to 30% of the city’s
residents. In contrast with Seoul, planners have to adopt
a different planning approach in order to address the
challenge of informal housing.
Rapid urbanisation in the post-war period has
made Sao Paulo the fifth largest city in the world, the
consequence of which is that demand for housing and
services has not been able to keep pace with this rate
of growth, resulting in the development of informal
settlements within the city itself in corticos (slum
tenements) and on the periphery in favelas (illegal
occupation of public or private land).
Once upon a time, Sao Paulo had a similar approach
to Seoul, whereby land was viewed purely as a
commodity. People living in the favelas did not exist.
They were not part of the city but an inconvenience to be
moved on.
However, as time went on the approach changed.
Planning in Sao Paulo is now much more about a
collaborative or transactional exercise whereby the city’s
planners work with residents of informal settlements to
redevelop these areas and integrate their communities
and economy into the ‘formal’ city. This includes the
development of basic infrastructure such as roads, sewage
VENEZUELA – SOCIALIST CITIES
President Hugo Chavez’s take on Marxist planning
involves a radically different approach to informal
housing which he’s hoping to take forward in partnership
with the Republic of Belarus.
Chavez is embarking on a programme of centrally
planned cities, or ‘socialist cities’ as they are called, which
will be built ‘for the workers’ in the Venezuelan jungle.
Concerned about the plight of those living in the city’s
CURITIBA – AN INTEGRATED APPROACH
Of all the areas we visited, Curitiba gave us an example
of a place where it appears the priorities of planning and
growth have been, to some extent, integrated in public
policy.
Like other Brazilian cities, it experienced rapid
growth in the post-war period and used this challenge to
develop a new approach to planning by setting out a bold
masterplan which integrated economic development,
land use and transport planning. Taken forward by the
Instituo de Pesquisa e Planejamento Urbano de Curitiba
(IPPUC), this planning authority has led the way for the
last 40 years.
Curitiba’s vision for integrating growth and planning
is characterised by a rapid bus transit system which
ensures the city’s main thoroughfares are dominated, not
by the private car, but by dedicated bus-only lanes which
New Start | February 2012 | 27
INTERNATIONAL WORK
operate in much the same way as an underground rapid transit
system. To facilitate this system and maximise its usefulness,
planners developed the city in a linear way, that is, instead of
concentrating development in and around the physical centre
of the city, development is concentrated along the same linear
routes taken by the transit.
This has the effect of reducing the pressure on the city
centre as the focus for every day transport, helping to minimise
congestion and ensuring public transport has priority over cars.
Innovation in Curitiba is not confined to transport and
planning and the city has also encouraged the development of
green space resulting in it having almost 51 square metres per
head of population. It has also used its image as a ‘sustainable’
city to encourage new investment and economic growth from
low carbon businesses.
The IPPUC’s latest initiative, the Linha Verde or ‘green line’
is a massive project to turn an existing interstate highway into
a new rapid transit express bus way. It’s a difficult thing for
someone in the UK to imagine as it’s the equivalent of taking
the M6 and converting two lanes to bus only lanes with car
transport either side.
The route is known as ‘the green way’ because it will
literally be green with linear parks along one side comprising
native plants and trees to support biodiversity along with bike
lanes to encourage alternative forms of transport.
28 | New Start | February 2012
RE-EXAMINING THE PURPOSE OF PLANNING
My experiences in these countries challenged me to reflect on
the purpose of planning in the UK and the role that it can play
now and in the future. What was clear to me as an economic
development professional was the sense that in the UK, despite
having one of the best planning systems in the world, we’d
forgotten the purpose of that system.
We’d started think of it simply as a dry regulatory burden
which was in place to constrain rather than release ideas. While
we might not agree with all of the approaches outlined in
these projects, they remind us of the transformative power of
planning and how it can act as a vital and energising force for
places, people and their local economies.
FIND OUT MORE
This article is based on an international research project
supported by the Norfolk Trust and undertaken by Sarah
Longlands, research fellow at the Centre for Local Economic
Strategies (CLES) and PhD student at the Department of
Urban Studies, Glasgow University and Patsy Dell, head
of planning at Cambridge Council. A report outlining the
findings of this work is due later in 2012, published by CLES.
Norfolk Trust, www.norfolkcharitabletrust.com
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REVIEWS
THE TEMPORARY CITY
By Peter Bishop and Lesley
Williams
Published by Routledge, £29.99
The Temporary City is a welcome
addition to the literature on
planning and regeneration. While
written independently of the recent
Mary Portas review on the success
of Britain’s high streets, the book
deals, from a different direction,
with many similar issues affecting
our cities.
Coming from authors with a
practical grounding in the issues of
design, planning and delivery it is a
particularly valuable and informed
contribution to the debate on the
future of our cities.
The book questions the need
SMALL GRITTY AND GREEN: THE
PROMISE OF AMERICA’S SMALLER
INDUSTRIAL CITIES IN A LOWCARBON WORLD
By Catherine Tumber
Published by MIT Press, £17.95
Catherine Tumber, a historian
and journalist at MIT, has penned
a short, polemical defence of the
economic opportunity faced by
‘smaller industrial cities’ based on
her travels across the American
rust belt (the north east and mid
west).
This is a book for regeneration
practitioners in smaller towns
and cities who are looking
for inspiration. Her distaste
for municipal defeatism and
community apathy in these cities
spurs a short, energetic text which
argues for their role as critical to
the future economic success of the US,
particularly in relation to the emerging
green economy, with lessons aplenty for
places in the UK:
for permanent uses and solutions for sites
and argues that we need to increasingly
look for short and medium-term uses,
rather than obsess about the long term.
Realistically it will take a long time
for the economy to achieve stable and
meaningful growth and for sites to
become viable again – especially with
what was paid for many sites at the
market peak – and in the meantime these
same sites will lie vacant for many years
without an effective framework for their
interim use.
So if ‘temporary is the new
permanent’ then we need to share
experience on what makes these ad hoc
uses work.
As well as the views and opinions
expressed in the book, the choice of case
studies are well selected and informative
and demonstrate what can be achieved
‘I spent most of my life in the
so-called rust belt… I know what it’s like
to watch downtown die and to see city
leaders try to revive it with stadiums
and riverfront development while
predominantly poor neighbourhoods
and their schools languish. I know what
it’s like to see malls steal retail from the
city, leaving the old shopping districts to
wither. I know what it’s like to be asked
over and over, ‘why do you want to live
there?’
For a UK reviewer, what gripped
me was the strong argument for
economic opportunity that pervades
this book, and the direct parallel
between Tumber’s ‘small city’ and what
we would call in the UK a ‘big town’
– typically places of 50,000-150,000
people, struggling to recover from the
combined effects of post-industrial
collapse, globalisation and massive
population change, and the new
challenge of the carbon economy.
The book’s flaws include some
dense US planning jargon, a strange
but notable lack of maps, a rather late
Got a publication for review or want to become a reviewer? Email: clare@newstartmag.co.uk
30 | New Start | February 2012
REVIEWS
with foresight and pragmatism. They show
that we can learn much from overseas,
where temporary uses are more often
celebrated.
While in the UK we have many famous
(and infamous) examples of temporary
artwork and installations, from the annual
Serpentine Gallery to Banksy’s street art,
the notion of temporary uses is sadly still
not mainstream.
The book aims to raise the profile of
shorter term solutions by exploring these
issues in more detail – seeking to attract
a wider audience among landowners,
developers and planners in the UK, rather
than simply the pioneering few.
It is also keen to argue that temporary
uses are not just about one-off initiatives
but importantly about embedding
important principles of temporary use
into placemaking and regeneration at
the city level. It begins to draw links
between successful cities and instances of
effective use of temporary regeneration
programmes.
Inevitably with limited research in this
field the book can only go so far and is a
reminder that we need to start collecting
data now so that we can measure
improvements in the years to come.
Another area where the book could
perhaps go further is exploring the links
between grassroots organisations and
temporary uses. It is accepted that the
government’s Big Society is a relatively
new concept, but community-based
organisations and activists have been
engaged in temporary use creation for
many years.
This is arguably the genesis of the
concepts explored in the book and
these links could be drawn out further –
essentially to ensure that decision-makers
understand that these groups need to be
worked with and empowered or else we
may simply see sterile and unsuccessful
attempts at temporary uses which lack the
dynamism the authors are so passionate
about.
These ingredients are extremely
difficult to replicate, particularly at the city
level, and this book does a huge amount
to explain the importance of why this is
important to do, if it does not entirely
explain how it can be achieved.
final chapter appearance for a discussion
of the role of public education in economic
regeneration, and in places an over-reliance
on a small number of personal case studies.
But what shines in her text is a sense that
for these places, a battle with pessimists
can and must be won.
American regional and federal planning
structures are lambasted for mitigating
against ‘ecological regionalism’, US high
speed rail is seen as only a partial solution
to infrastructure problems that risk further
marginalising small cities, and the perils of
historic interstate (motorway) development
decimating rather than creating economic
opportunity for smaller cities is robustly
criticised.
Tumber is no friend of large corporates
or the rabid expansion of the free market,
and in places her text combines polemic
and politics with dramatic effect.
Tumber’s solutions lie in the merits of
urban farming and sustainable agricultural
development, the massive and, in this text,
remarkably well-documented opportunity
of renewable energy development for
smaller cities, and a national strategy
recognising appropriate ‘urban scale’,
ending the marginalisation of smaller, but
nonetheless critical places in the economic
food chain.
The distinct assets of smaller cities –
peripheral agricultural development, their
smaller scale, and their manufacturing
heritage – make them ripe for low carbon
industrial development. Her account of
the tragedy of Detroit’s decline as a lesson
in the ills of ‘mega region’ development
and single industry dependency is both
heartfelt and captivating.
UK practitioners will be energised
by the stories of personal endeavour by
Tumber’s heroes fighting for the future of
small to medium sized towns and cities as
not subservient to these ‘mega-regions’,
but as fundamental to their survival and
sustainability.
They will recognise her argument for
reversing ‘identity crisis’ in smaller cities,
with civic, political and community leaders
firmly in the driving seat.
There is plenty that our much-lauded
regional and localism policy agendas in
the UK can learn here, and a compelling
vision of opportunity for smaller places that
sometimes feel lost in the current drift of
endless austerity and lumbering national
regeneration policy.
Civil servants working with British
local government on the next phase of
the recent city-region growth agenda in
England would be better informed having
spent a few hours in the company of
Tumber’s text.
Whether Tumber’s localist heroes will
survive and prosper against the many
challenges of globalisation remains to
be seen. But she concludes that for the
economic and cultural betterment of
places, ‘shapeless giantism’ need not rule
the roost in an optimistic future, rather:
‘Smaller urban scale can be a strength
in a truly democratic, environmentally
sustainable national culture – not in
competition with global cities but with
a fair claim to respect in the eyes of the
world.’
Jon Sawyer is managing director of
development managers Eye. He is also
a board member of Empty Homes, an
organisation pioneering the reuse of
empty buildings and spaces. Eye advised
Nottingham Council on its temporary use
strategy in 2011.
Tom Stannard is director of policy and
communications, Blackburn with Darwen
Borough Council.
New Start | February 2012 | 31