Do Naval and Civilian Waterfront Renewals Have Lessons to Teach Each Other?
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Do naval and civilian waterfront renewals have lessons to teach each other? C. Clark University of Portsmouth, UK Abstract Naval and civilian waterfronts were once sharply differentiated, but there are signs of convergence in the process of their successor owners' search for new activities and in the eventual outcomes. Continued dock use may lead to the clearance of previous infrastructure in both types, for the vast acreages required for container handling. Location directly affects outcomes: container ports need close access to deep water and the sea, leaving inland ports vacant for the generation of new non-port uses. Proximity to water has important potential for the revitalisation of both naval and civilian waterfronts. It adds value to the adjoining land in two ways: as an amenity attraction for water-related leisure activities, and also from its ability to create value for developers and investors in abandoned waterfronts. But there are many ways in which naval waterfront renewals differ from the parallel process in commercial dock areas. In contrast to most of their civilian counterparts, naval waterfronts frequently have important historic architectural ensembles. These were built by national governments to reflect state power, constructed without reference from the operation of market forces which fuelled the development of civilian docks. This highly specialised townscape, when no longer required by the navy, has potential for development as heritage. However, extra layers of planning control may inhibit or delay reuse of historic naval docks, and inward investment may be hard to find. The surrounding communities are often excluded from decision-making about future uses for both kinds of site, but there are instances where they are creatively engaged in planning for their future. This paper examines whether the paradigms of commercial waterfront regeneration are appropriate models for naval waterfronts in different parts of the world, and the extent to which they have been applied to finding new roles for former navy bases. Brownfield Sites II, A. Donati, C. Rossi & C. A. Brebbia (Editors) © 2004 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISBN 1-85312-719-1 172 Brownfield Sites II 1 Introduction Waterfront research has long focussed on the regeneration of commercial waterfronts, rather than on the future of dockyards associated with national defence. Three explanations are advanced for this imbalance: because there are fewer naval ports; because the secrecy that has traditionally surrounded dockyards can make them more difficult to research than their civilian counterparts; or because of an assumption that naval waterfront decline poses opportunities and challenges essentially similar to those arising from the abandonment of commercial docks. However, in Pinder and Smith’s view [9] the regeneration of naval waterfronts is qualitatively different from those normally associated with the run-down of commercial docks, because naval sites have considerable resources offering scope for heritage exploitation. The challenge of their reuse may have far-reaching consequences for urban and coastal zone planning and management. This paper argues, however, that in a number of cases, there is a convergence between the futures of the two types of port. “This scepter'd isle, … This precious stone set in a silver sea…” Despite Shakespeare’s peerless words ... “psychologically, the British have been in retreat from the sea for generations…” (Meek [6]). They may have lost their connection with the sea, but they still like to live near water. “because water is a source of life, power, comfort, and delight - a symbol of purification and renewal” (Quartermaine [11]). Riley and Shurmer Smith [10] noted the channelling of leisure time into maritime activities and the emergence of considerable social cachet attaching to maritime living. Waterfront apartments - a lucrative new land use for former industrial maritime sites - are highly prized, and in many instances public access to the waterfront- often for the first time- is a condition of planning permission. In contrast, modern port use may preclude public access- to what were publicly owned naval dockyards, except for areas exploited as ‘heritage’. This paper examines whether the paradigms of renewal of civilian and naval docks have anything to learn from each other, or whether the course of their renewal is too different for common currents. “The oceans which once were our highways to the world, doors to adventure and wealth, have come to be associated with economic decline and restriction. The Royal Navy couldn’t stop the empire dissolving.”; Britain might soon have fewer surface ships than the French navy, according to James Meek [6]. Naval bases, too, once symbols of national pride, are being declared obsolete. In many countries defence cuts, new technologies of war and political change have combined to leave them redundant, as navies are reduced and defence funds diverted to smaller, rapid response teams with less need of large complex dockyards. Redundancy has also come to civilian ports, as the technology of goods handling has changed, and merchant ships have grown in size. Older dock Brownfield Sites II, A. Donati, C. Rossi & C. A. Brebbia (Editors) © 2004 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISBN 1-85312-719-1 Brownfield Sites II 173 infrastructures such as multi-storey warehouses have been demolished and dry docks and basins filled in, to create large flat areas suitable for the assembly, despatch and unloading of containers, often down river, nearer deep-water access to the sea. Docks upstream were abandoned. As a result of these pressures, both types of port are in need of new, sustainable futures. 2 Rundown and redundancy The process of redundancy and closure of government facilities has been going on for a long time. Sheerness Dockyard closed in 1960; Pembroke Dock at about the same time; Chatham naval base closed in 1984; Portsmouth was downgraded to a Fleet Maintenance and Repair base in 1982; victualling bases such as Stumholmen in Karlskrona, Sweden, Royal Clarence Yard in Gosport and Royal William Yard in Plymouth have been sold on to new uses; US forces are leaving Rota in south west Spain; the Turkish base on the Golden Horn is closing; rusting naval vessels lie tied up in Kronstadt and Vladivostok naval yards. Civilian ports, including very large complexes such as London docks, have contracted or closed since the 1970s, driven by technological change arising from economic imperatives: cost reduction and increased market share. Modernisation has also affected naval ports: in the late 1940s Den Helder’s Napoleonic Rijkswerf was abandoned in favour of a completely new dockyard nearby; FML's vast Submarine complex was added to Plymouth's North Yard in the 1970s; the top of the cast iron caisson to No. 2 Steam Basin opened by Queen Victoria in Portsmouth dockyard was cut off and docks filled in to provide extra car parking. The tallest structure in Portsmouth Dockyard is now Vosper Thornycroft’s 39m high ship assembly shed built in 2002–4 over several late nineteenth century docks. It symbolises a new fusion between the government and civilian dock enterprise. 3 Built infrastructure and conservation controls These specialised waterfronts have characteristics in common – for example, enclosing walls – in the interests of national security for naval bases, and for commercial security in civilian ones. But there has been convergence between the fortunes of two categories: as Quartermaine points out, ports were until the 1960s only one aspect of a complex urban transport and trading scene; but they are now often closed sites operating internationally according to priorities and methods that have no immediate connection with any centre of population; “indeed, they are typically privately operated, high-security areas with no public access”. Civilian ports, in this respect and in several others, resemble their military counterparts, whose orders came from national governments in reaction to events far over the horizon. In both cases, continued port use may value the utility of security provided by port walls, while leisure/shopping may demand breaches for greater accessibility. Traditional ports were places of human activity, where skilful crane operators, aided by innumerable dockers, swung bales and boxes and other large Brownfield Sites II, A. Donati, C. Rossi & C. A. Brebbia (Editors) © 2004 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISBN 1-85312-719-1 174 Brownfield Sites II objects between ship and shore. In modern ports, typical nineteenth century port architecture - covered dockside storage fireproof iron and brick warehouses, becomes unnecessary, since each container functions as a dedicated warehouse, with its separate owner, cargo and destination. A container port requires easy deep water access to the quayside from the sea, large areas of space rather than buildings to sort and stack the offloaded containers, and good road and rail links to the hinterland (Quartermaine [11]). Commercial docks sometimes also have substantial architectural legacies. As a result of technological change, historic ports, such as Liverpool, have a legacy of very large and impressive Victorian warehouses, protected as historic buildings, which may wait many years for new uses. A stagnant local economy has meant that they are only slowly being brought back to use. The giant warehouses at Stanley Dock still stand empty, while Albert Dock, the neoclassical complex has had mixed fortunes as an arts, residential, museum, leisure and retail complex. An inhibiting factor may be the extra controls on historic structures and buildings which may impose a kind of paralysis on regeneration initiative. Institutional inertia seems to hang over the historic Arsenale in Venice, though state funds are slowly restoring a few of the marvellous surviving buildings, such as the Gaggiandre, the wide covered wet dock (1568-73); the Biennale makes intermittent use of the magnificent Corderie de lla Tana (1577-83). Venice Arsenale is still in the hands of the Italian navy, though there has bee n little activity for about a hundred years.