Do Naval and Civilian Waterfront Renewals Have Lessons to Teach Each Other?

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.

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. There has even been some return of naval activity: the Italian Institute of Strategic Studies has been inserted into the Squadratori of 1750, the mould loft. There have been many proposals for the future of the Arsenale, some of which one is glad did not happen. An example was Expo 2000, a vast exhibition which might have done irreparable damage to fragile historic fabric. Italian conservation laws are extremely strict. For example in the Arsenale at the insistence of the Soprintendente al Beni Architettonici e Ambientale di Venezia the Thetis Institute built a completely free-standing new structure of workshops, offices and laboratory inside the foundry of 1911, which could be removed. These were allowed only on condition that they did not impinge on the original walls; but the initiators, the Thetis institute, represent a welcome marriage between university research and maritime enterprise. Other docks, both civilian and naval, may be cleared of buildings to serve as civilian ports. Before the advent of conservation legislation, large parts of Sheerness dockyard at the mouth of the River Medway to the Thames were cleared, the basins and docks filled in, and much of what remains is vulnerable to deterioration or demolition. Chatham naval base further up the Medway was divided into three parts: the most down river section became a Freeport, with large cleared areas to store and manoeuvre goods. Pembroke Dock in Wales became a ferry port for Ireland, but services have fluctuated and have not always survived. Rosyth dockyard has developed a ferry port alongside the base. Par t of Gibraltar dockyard, which had very large drydocks, has become a small civilian repair base, carrying the famous name: Cammell Laird, originally founded in Liverpool.

Where civilian firms are operating within naval bases, there may be local benefits and repair services for local heritage. The Venice passenger transport authority is repairing its ferries within the Arsenale, and as well as assembling naval ships within Vosper Thorneycroft’s giant ship shed in Portsmouth, the other civilian firm operating there, FSL, plan to drydock HMS Warrior 1860 in early 2004 to strip back its iron hull to check its integrity before its is completely repainted (Hall [7]).

4 Roles for government and local people

In the face of the undoubted weight of government influence, Riley and Shurmer Smith [10] identified a neglect of economic and political 'bottom-up' interests at the local or port level. While top-down forces dominate dock redevelopment, local people and institutions may also to a varying extent influence outcomes. The London docks and other civilian docks were, like dockyards, government owned. The ideology of the government determines whether local people are likely to gain from the physical process of renewal. The surrounding civilian communities are identified with the sites - as workforces - but on rundown or closure local people often excluded from decision-making about their future. Tight security means that few civilians except those who work in naval bases know what they contain, and its potential for regeneration; military sites are the ‘white holes’ on maps. This may also be true of civilian dock renewal. The London docklands communities were deliberately excluded from decision- making by the London Docklands Development Corporation set up by the government to attract private investment on the market model. Many existing jobs were lost and few new ones or social housing were created (Hodge and Walls [5]). Defence ministries are notorious for changing their minds over release of unused facilities. An example is Portland in Dorset in southern England, where the local authority lost hundreds of thousands of pounds in preparing plans for the closure of the dockyard, which was then postponed. The state, in the form of the Home Office, retains a hold on the site, mooring a prison ship, Her Majesty's Prison Weare, purchased from New York, in the harbour. Yet there are both naval and civilian ports where local people have been partners in urban renewal. The Mount Wise community in Plymouth, one of the poorest in Britain, have an on-going dialogue with the navy about the future of the adjoining South Yard, over the possible return of their main commercial shopping street, which was taken over in the 1960s. Sweden shows good practice here, in both naval and civilian ports. When the victualling island of Stumholmen in Karlskrona was sold to the municapality, a design competition was held, and extensive local consultation achieved widely acceptable results when plots and buildings were sold on for development. In Gothenburg, both civilian shipyards and the dockyard on the river have become substantial assets for local people: residential, recreational, educational and employment. Local people may lead efforts to conserve and reuse historic structures, as the Portsmouth Society attempted to do at Gunwharf, Portsmouth. In Deptford,

Henry VIII’s dockyard on the river Thames, a campaign: ‘the Seven Wonders of the Waterfront’ aims to weave the old wharfs, warehouses and dry docks into the fabric of redevelopment to enrich the urban landscape which might otherwise be overwhelmed by bland Docklands-style housing on the Isle of Docks on the north bank (Hughes [8]). State bodies may be inflexible or refuse to fund necessary infrastructure - or innovative and creative in funding enabling development. Much depends on systems of disposal of state assets, which vary enormously, from free transfer of housing, schools, hospitals to local people and government (the United States); sale at military use value to local authorities (Sweden); to sale at the highest price and maximum planning value within three years (the UK and Germany). State created successor bodies such as historic dockyard trusts were gifted in the 1980s with parts of the historic areas at Chatham and Portsmouth in the UK, but both were underfunded for their triple tasks: to tackle the immense backlog of repairs inherited from the Ministry of Defence, to convert a complex heritage of historic buildings to new uses and to attract inward investment to finance development. In the 1990s, the UK government experimented with Urban Development Corporations in Merseyside, Bristol, London and Plymouth - the last of which was given three historic naval sites to prepare for civilian futures. Plymouth Development Corporation was one of the last and least successful UDCs. Though better financed than the dockyard trusts - at £55 million - it was unable to achieve the task it was set by government in the five years of its existence, though essential infrastructure was installed, such as the new breakwater at Mount Batten, the return of the summit of Mount Wise to public access, and the new access road to Royal William Yard. Public investment is usually vital to renewal, especially of publicly owned facilities. The Swedish government transferred its national housing office to Karlskrona to the south of the country, and paid for the elegant Marine Museum on Stumholmen which reuses an important boatshed to house its smaller vessels. In contrast, the British government decided on a cheaper light railway of unproven technology for access to London docklands and the Isle of Dogs rather than heavy rail or underground which did not arrive until later.

5 Local government and developers’ creativity

Perhaps learning from the redevelopment of Gunwharf, across Portsmouth Harbour, Gosport Borough Council, with the help of English Heritage and Hampshire County Council, was able to insist on the preservation of much more of Royal Clarence Yard’s surviving buildings: the granary, bakery, slaughter house, cooperage and artificers' workshops in a scheme by the same developers: Berkeley Homes. Some developers such as Berkeleys, make something of a specialism of taking on historic military and naval sites, for example Woolwich Arsenal on the River Thames, where historic buildings have also been converted to luxury apartments. Their interest reflects the high returns generated by proximity to waterfronts. The creativity demonstrated by the avant garde development company, Urban Splash, who specialise in converting large

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 177 industrial properties in Manchester and Liverpool to mixed uses has produced an exemplary conversion of the Brewery and Clarence storehouse at Royal William Yard, Plymouth. Their scheme, marketed in late 2003/4 has proved very popular. There are restaurants, shops and offices on the lower floors of the Brewery, with high specification elegantly detailed apartments above. These two buildings immediately attracted a large number of buyers from different parts of Britain; Urban Splash are currently preparing a master plan for the South West Development Agency which now owns the site. Urban Splash are achieving what proved an impossible task for Plymouth Development Corporation during their five year ownership of the site (Clark [2]). What distinguishes Urban Splash is the quality of their designs, allied to their commercial acumen: ‘They have an impressive record of seeking out derelict buildings and land and undertaking outstanding regeneration projects to bring them back to life’ Royal Institute of British Architects Awards Judges 2002.

6 Vision and archetypes

What is vital in the search for a sustainable future for both civilian and naval docks is the quality of vision they inspire - whether it is on the part of the state, local authority, local community or developer. As already mentioned, the regeneration of the state owned docks at Gothenburg offers a model of good practice. A triumvirate of an industrialist, educationalist and politician created a whole new quarter of the city, reusing most existing structures, though only one or two were legally protected. High-tech industry, a hotel and conference facilities, community sports hall, offices, a school, university campus, well- designed residential blocks, the largest operating flour mill in Sweden and a replica East Indiaman, are served by frequent ferries from the city centre. Perhaps the archetype of waterfront renewal is the redevelopment of Baltimore on the eastern seaboard of the United States. It has had many descendants. Charlestown Navy Yard in Boston is also achieving mixed use, but only over a period of more than twenty years. There has been a transfer of this type of civilian paradigm to naval dockyards and their supporting facilities such as victualling or ordnance yards. The Victoria and Alfred Waterfront in Cape Town, a nineteenth century British naval base, was redeveloped by the local Festival Waterfront Company with a mix of leisure attractions, a hotel, large retail outlets and some apartments. It is a nice historical irony that the Cape Town company and this mix of uses was imposed on Gunwharf, Portsmouth - which is where the guns were shipped for the relief of the siege of Ladysmith- by a related company with South African personnel. But in Portsmouth, a smaller redevelopment, the uses were predominantly leisure/shopping and vastly profitable luxury housing. The high value of the land charged by the British Ministry of Defence and the weakness of the local planning authority's planning brief led to almost complete clearance of the historic environment: the gunboat sheds, naval residential blocks, important archaeology including the King’s Mill and defensive redoubts and the inner harbour once used by the Army’s Special Boat Squadron (Clark [2]).

7 Heritage tourism

Tourism has often been seen as the saviour of historic environments, but over- reliance on one industry - as demonstrated in Venice - as the major source of income - may result in deterioration in the quality of life for local residents, offering a shaky foundation on which to build a sustainable future. Ironically, tourists are not currently allowed into the Arsenale where the city’s great wealth was once generated (Clark [1]). Another type of tourism altogether is that used to promote the naval base at Paldiski in Estonia: ‘shock tourism’. Visitors are invited to come and see what a terrible mess the Soviet navy made of the island. As it becomes a NATO base, this may be only a temporary marketing ploy. Newer visitor attractions, changing leisure habits and high entrance charges to cover heavy maintenance costs may make a sustainable level of tourist income hard to achieve. Portsmouth naval base Heritage Area, with its three preserved vessels, Mary Rose, Victory and Warrior, and two museums: the Royal Naval Museum and Mary Rose Museum, has fluctuating levels of income, particularly in winter. In some countries there is a contrast between state and private museums. State museums such as the Maritime Museum in Istanbul on the Bosphorus has an unparalleled collection of Ottoman caiques, costumes, paintings and flags and naval guns, but it cannot match the investment in modern interpretation and visitor facilities of the private Rahmi H Koç Museum housed partly in a Byzantine naval foundry on the Golden Horn. In Russia the opposite is the case: Peter the Great's magnificent naval collection is appropriately housed in the neo-classical former stock exchange on the Strelka in St. Petersburg on the Neva; but his baroque triangular naval stores island, New Holland, near the splendidly restored Admiralty still awaits major investment for conversion to cultural facilities.

8 Conclusion

There are two ideas one might draw from these very varied case studies. The first is that capital, vision, creative legislation, state investment in infrastructure and innovative local input are all needed, in order to respond sustainably to the challenges presented by renewal of historic docks, whether commercial or naval. Secondly, there are signs of convergence between the two types: civilian shipyard firms operating inside former or even current naval bases, and the same developers are often engaged in renewal of both waterfronts. The distinction between them, once so sharp, is thus becoming blurred.

References

[1] Clark Celia, 2000, Vintage Ports or Deserted Dockyards: differing futures for naval heritage across Europe University of the West of England, Bristol Working Paper 57, 2000

[2] Clark Celia, 2002, PhD thesis: ‘White Holes’: Decision-making in Disposal of Ministry of Defence Heritage Sites - University of Portsmouth 2001 [3] Clark Celia, 2003, 'As Strong of the Rock of Gibraltar', Naval Dockyards Society Autumn Newsletter [4] Gandy Matthew, 2002, Concrete and Clay Reworking Nature in New York City, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts [5] Hodge Cllr. Margaret and Walls Cllr Dianne, 1991, How the Cake was Cut: Ten Years of Docklands Association of London Authorities, The Docklands Consultative Committee, London [6] Meek James, ‘All at sea’ The Guardian, G2, 21 January 2004, pp.2-3 [7] Hall Nick, 2004, ‘Warrior on the move’ Ships Monthly, February 2004, p.10, Burton-on-Trent, England [8] Hughes Jane, 2004, ‘Deptford sunny side up’, Evening Standard Homes and Property, 3 March 2004, pp. 6-7 [9] Pinder D & Smith H, 1988, ‘Heritage and change on the naval waterfront: opportunity and challenge’, in Ocean and Coastal Management, Vol 42, Numbers 10-11, 1999, ISSN 0964-5691 [10] Riley Ray & Shurmer Smith Louis, 1988, ‘Global imperatives, local forces and waterfront redevelopment’, in Revitalising the Waterfront International Dimensions of Dockland Redevelopment, Eds. BS Hoyle, DA Pinder, and MS Husain, Belhaven Press, London and New York, pp.38-64 [11] Quartermaine Peter, 1999, Port Architecture Constructing The Littoral Academy Editions Chichester, National Maritime Museum, London [12] Urban Splash, 2004, Royal William Yard Brewhouse and Clarence, Plymouth Bristol and Manchester [13] Winklareth Robert J, 2000, Naval Shipbuilders of the World From the Age of Sail to the Present Day, Chatham Publishing, London [14] Ver Berkmoes Ryan, 2000, ed. Russia, Ukraine & Belarus, Lonely Planet Publications Pt. Ltd., Australia, p. 358 (Kronstadt); 870 (Sevastopol)