Michael Edwards

Comment on: Riots updated: Sennett, Rykwert, Till, de Botton, Tavernor and more on why Britain is burning

Michael Edwards's comment 11-Aug-2011 2:47 pm

Mostly constructive, these comments. Thankyou. Architects etc may be encouraged or discouraged by the battles with Boris over his new London Plan: observations: (i) unless we can retain low- and middle-income residence in gentrifying areas none of the potential understanding or interaction, none of the discovery of common class interests, is even POSSIBLE. (ii) action groups did fight against the “social mix policy” (never applied in rich areas and often causing displacement) in Boris’s new London Plan, and persuaded the expert panel to recommend deletion of the policy 2.10B. Boris however just softened it a bit to read “A more balanced mix of tenures should be sought in all parts of London, particularly in some neighbourhoods where social renting predominates and there are concentrations of deprivation”. (iii) in the same arena we persuaded the panel to recommend that, in ‘regeneration areas’ there should be no loss of social rented housing. Here again Boris resisted, writing in Policy 2.14 “These plans should resist loss of housing, including affordable housing, in individual regeneration areas unless it is replaced by better quality accommodation, providing at least an equivalent floorspace.” So displacement could get rapidly worse. (iv) There is research on these issues: universities are not totally complicit in what is happening. More on all this at http://justspace2010.wordpress.com