Community-Led Regeneration Community-Led Regeneration A Toolkit for Residents and Planners Pablo Sendra and Daniel Fitzpatrick First published in 2020 by UCL Press University College London Gower Street London WC1E 6BT Available to download free: www.uclpress.co.uk Text © Authors, 2020 Images © Authors and copyright holders named in captions, 2020 The authors have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the authors of this work. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library. This book is published under a Creative Commons 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0). This licence allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work; to adapt the work and to make commercial use of the work providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information: Sendra, P. and Fitzpatrick, D. 2020. Community-Led Regeneration: A Toolkit for Residents and Planners. London: UCL Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111. 9781787356061 Further details about Creative Commons licences are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Any third-party material in this book is published under the book’s Creative Commons licence unless indicated otherwise in the credit line to the material. If you would like to reuse any third-party material not covered by the book’s Creative Commons licence, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. ISBN: 978-1-78735-608-5 (Hbk.) ISBN: 978-1-78735-607-8 (Pbk.) ISBN: 978-1-78735-606-1 (PDF) ISBN: 978-1-78735-609-2 (epub) ISBN: 978-1-78735-610-8 (mobi) DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781787356061 Contents List of figures vii List of abbreviations x List of contributors xi Preface by Richard Lee and Michael Edwards, Just Space xiii Acknowledgements xvi Introduction 1 Part I: Case Studies 9 1. Walterton and Elgin Community Homes 11 2. West Ken Gibbs Green Community Homes 19 3. Cressingham Gardens Community 26 4. Greater Carpenters Neighbourhood Forum 34 5. Focus E15 41 6. People’s Empowerment Alliance for Custom House 50 7. Alexandra and Ainsworth Estates 55 Part II: Tools for Community-Led Regeneration 61 8. Gaining residents’ control 63 9. Localism Act 2011 80 10. Policies for community participation in regeneration 93 11. Using the law and challenging redevelopment through the courts 111 Sarah Sackman v 12. Informal tools and strategies 125 Part III: Next Challenges for Community-Led Regeneration 137 Conclusions 149 Bibliography 155 Index 163 vi CONTENTS List of figures Figure 0.1 Workshop on ‘Community-Led Estate Regeneration’, held as part of the Just Space conference organised for consultation on the Draft London Housing Strategy. November 2017. Image: Pablo Sendra. 5 Figure 1.1 A poster designed by John Phillips for Wal- terton and Elgin Action Group, 1985. It was used to adorn the hoardings on empty houses and as part of a communications campaign with Westminster Council. Image: John Phillips. 12 Figure 1.2 New social housing under construction in Walterton and Elgin Community Homes. January 2018. Image: Pablo Sendra. 15 Figure 2.1 View of the estates from one of the flats. January 2017. Image: Pablo Sendra. 20 Figure 2.2 Assemblage of actors, actions, strategies, formal planning framework and policies in the context of West Kensington and Gibbs Green. Triangles represent the actors involved. A continuous line shows those directly involved; those with a dashed line are indirectly involved or supporting actors. Hexagons represent actions, strategies, for- mal planning tools and policies. Those with a continuous line are those that engage with formal planning. Those with a dashed line represent actions or strategies outside formal planning and those with a dotted line are strategies developed by public authorities. Author: Pablo Sendra. 23 vii Figure 3.1 Residents and visitors walk around Cress- ingham Gardens during a theatrical perfor- mance representing community resistance to demolition. June 2016. Image: Pablo Sendra. 27 Figure 3.2 Architect’s drawing of Cressingham Gardens’ People’s Plan, showing the additional homes in the garage spaces. Author of the image: Ashvin De Vos, Variant Office, developed for Cressingham Gardens residents. 28 Figure 3.3 Assemblage of actors, actions, strategies, for- mal planning framework and policies in the context of Cressingham Gardens. Triangles represent the actors involved. Those with a continuous line are directly involved; those with a dashed line are indirectly involved or supporting actors. Hexagons represent actions, strategies, formal planning tools and policies. A continuous line shows those that engage with formal planning. A dashed line represents actions or strategies outside formal planning, while a dotted line shows strategies developed by public authorities. Author: Pablo Sendra. 29 Figure 4.1 Night view of the Carpenters Estate and Stratford. 2 May 2013. Image: Roel Hemkes. CC BY-SA 2.0. 35 Figure 4.2 Assemblage of actors, actions, strategies, formal planning framework and policies in the context of Carpenters Estate. Triangles represent the actors involved. Those with a continuous line are those directly involved and those with a dashed line are indirectly involved or supporting actors. Hexagons represent actions, strategies, formal planning tools and policies. A continuous line shows those which engage with formal planning. Those with a dashed line represent actions or strategies outside formal planning and those with a dotted line are strategies developed by public authorities. Author: Pablo Sendra. 38 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 5.1 Focus E15’s political occupation of an empty housing block on the Carpenters Estate. 27 September 2014. Image: danstowell (flickr). CC BY-SA 2.0. 43 Figure 5.2 Assemblage of actors, actions and strategies in Focus E15 campaign. Triangles represent the actors involved. Those with a continuous line represent those directly involved; those with a dashed line are indirectly involved or supporting actors. Hexagons represent actions, strategies, formal planning tools and policies. A continuous line shows those which engage with formal planning. Those with a dashed line represent actions or strat- egies outside formal planning, while a dotted line shows strategies developed by public authorities. Author: Pablo Sendra. 45 Figure 7.1 Alexandra Road. September 2015. Image: Pablo Sendra. 56 Figure 7.2 Alexandra Road Park after restoration. Sep- tember 2015. Image: Pablo Sendra. 57 Figure 10.1 Just Space and other community organisa- tions participating in the Examination in Public of the London Plan. February 2019. Image: Pablo Sendra. 97 Figure 10.2 Workshop on ‘Community-Led Estate Regen- eration’ during Just Space conference on the consultation on the Draft London Housing Strategy. November 2017. Image: Pablo Sendra. 102 Figure C.1 Cartoon by Rob Cowan from Built Environment 45, nos 1 and 2, 2019. © Alexandrine Press. 151 LIST OF FIGURES ix List of abbreviations CARP Carpenters Against Regeneration Plans CGC Cressingham Gardens Community CLSA Conditional Land Sale Agreement CLT Community Land Trust EU European Union FOI Freedom of Information GCNF Greater Carpenters Neighbourhood Forum GLA Greater London Authority HRA Housing Revenue Account JR Judicial Review LA 2011 Localism Act 2011 LBN London Borough of Newham LLDC London Legacy Development Corporation LTF London Tenants Federation NDC New Deal for Communities NFTMO National Federation of Tenant Management Organisations NP Neighbourhood Plan PEACH People’s Empowerment Alliance for Custom House RSL Registered Social Landlord RtM Right to Manage RtT Right to Transfer SPD Supplementary Planning Document SRB Single Regeneration Budget TMO Tenant Management Organisation UCL University College London WEAG Walterton and Elgin Action Group WECH Walterton and Elgin Community Homes WKGG West Kensington and Gibbs Green WKGGCH West Ken Gibbs Green Community Homes x List of contributors Authors Daniel Fitzpatrick is Teaching Fellow and researcher at The Bartlett School of Planning, UCL. His doctoral research was on mutual housing models in London and their governance. He has been researching the relationship between community groups and universities in planning, and looking at formal and informal practices of estate regeneration and collective housing. He has worked in India, Italy, Cuba, Chile, Nepal and London, working on projects at different scales – from international development and within local government. He was a founding partner of the planning and architecture practice Variant Office between 2014 and 2018. Dr Pablo Sendra is Lecturer in Planning and Urban Design at The Bart- lett School of Planning, UCL. He combines his academic career with pro- fessional practice in urban design. He is co-founder of the urban design practice Lugadero, which has recently facilitated a co-design process for two public spaces in Wimbledon, London. He is also co-founder of CivicWise, a network promoting civic engagement and collaborative urbanism. He develops action research projects and radical teaching in collaboration with community groups and activists in London. At UCL, Sendra is the Director of the MSc in Urban Design and City Planning pro- gramme, the coordinator of the Civic Design CPD course and the Deputy Leader of the Urban Design Research Group. He is co-author (with Rich- ard Sennett) of Designing Disorder (forthcoming) and co- editor (with Maria J. Pita and CivicWise) of Civic Practices (2017). He is part of the City Collective for the journal City. xi Other contributors Michael Edwards studied economics, then planning, at UCL 1964–6. He worked in Nathaniel Lichfield’s practice, doing economic inputs to the Plan for Milton Keynes. He has enjoyed lecturing at The Bartlett School, UCL since 1969 and been involved in all the Examinations in Public (EiPs) on London Plans since 2000, working with the network of community groups Just Space (justspace.org.uk). His publications are at michaeledwards.org.uk and he tweets as @michaellondonsf.