Scottish Urban Regeneration Forum issue 30 : spring 2005 scotregensharing experience : shaping practice In this issue: • Cultural Planning, Liz Gardner and Lia Ghilardi – pg 1 and 3 • Making Waves, Cllr. Charlie Gordon – pg 8 • Coastal towns report, Roland Hahn – pg 4 • Financial Inclusion conference report, Mike Chapman – pg 12 • Congestion Charges, Cllr Andrew Burns – pg 6 • The Northern Way, Vince Taylor – pg 13 • and much more... now read on... Self Image- Artist Steven Healy's photo is part of the 'Mongrel' photography project commissioned Thinking by the Royston Road Association Culture CULTURAL PLANNING AND COMMUNITY PLANNING - a recipe for success? Liz Gardiner of Fablevision and Cultural Planning Consultant Lia Ghilardi, from the National Cultural Planning Steering Group, make the case for culture as an essential element of successful regeneration strategies. What is a joined-up Cultural Planning approach? A Cultural Planning approach starts not from the identification of all In Scotland and elsewhere, at neighbourhood, city, regional and the problems in a community and addressing them one by one or national levels, there is a growing realisation that culture can deliver separately. Instead it takes a holistic approach and puts culture and on many aspects of community engagement, empowerment and people at the core. It addresses jobs, training for employment, the leadership. However, so far, the policy framework for implementing development of new small to medium sized enterprises, planning, integrated cultural planning projects and schemes is still relatively and regeneration, but never in isolation from each other. underdeveloped. Many local authorities and community regeneration bodies still see culture as an add-on to existing The Cultural Planning approach has emerged as a way of enabling programmes. policy-makers to think strategically about the application of the cultural resources of localities and the delivery of policies capable of Some months ago in this journal, Liz Gardiner wrote a short piece responding to local needs in a creative and flexible, bottom up way. posing a question: do integrated, joined-up approaches such as those implemented in the USA and Australia over the past twenty At the heart of Cultural Planning is the idea of a territory as a living years and defined as Cultural Planning, have something to offer the ecosystem, made up of diverse resources that need to be surveyed wider Community Planning process in Scotland? and acknowledged by the local community at large before policy can intervene. The question was timely given the impending policy changes affecting the Scottish cultural and community fields and it is The central characteristics of cultural planning, as described by Franco particularly relevant to urban regeneration policy. There is a Bianchini (1993) and Lia Ghilardi (2001) are a very broad, pressing need to develop joined-up thinking and action based on anthropological definition of ‘culture’ as ‘a way of life’, along with the local culture and the transforming effect it can have on both the integration of all aspects of local culture into the texture and routines image of places and on communities’ perceptions about identity and of daily life in the locality. belonging. The culture of a place is here defined in a pragmatic way to include not A Cultural Planning approach can be instrumental in mapping, only the arts and heritage of a place, but also local traditions, dialects, nurturing, engaging and developing the potential creativity and festivals and rituals; the diversity and quality of leisure; cultural, drinking, resources of communities. The coincidence of rising interest in eating and entertainment facilities; the cultures of youth, ethnic Cultural Planning and the requirements of Community Planning is a minorities and communities of interest; the repertoire of local products recipe for success in sustainable regeneration. and skills in the crafts, manufacturing and service sectors. A view from the chair Biondi-Morra was one of over 400 social entrepreneurs at the second Skoll Forum on social entrepreneurship held last month in Oxford. What struck me over the two days of the conference was the fact that although a lot of the problems faced by social entrepreneurs and community activists in the countries Alistair Grimes represented, especially those in the southern hemisphere, were SURF Chairperson caused (or at least not helped) by governments, no-one was waiting around for those self same governments to ‘do something’. The real heroism of the activists and entrepreneurs was in their willingness to take on what seem like insurmountable problems and to deal with them in a way that matches pragmatism with principle in the hardest of circumstances. Do you spend $25,000 dollars clearing an acre of Pragmatism, principles and landmines. landmines to 99.9% or the same amount clearing 10 acres to 97% and live with the subsequent two or three deaths that you Brizio Biondi-Morra is the President of the Avina Foundation, which know will surely arise? works in Latin America. He has a doctorate from Harvard Business For me, the Oxford conference was a great reminder of what School and his career has taken in, amongst other things, being an people can do in the most daunting of circumstances and a investment banker, working with Mother Theresa and being a guard in a reminder that the problems of urban regeneration in Scotland maximum security jail. At the moment, one of the projects his can, and indeed should, be solved because they are small in foundation is involved in financing is concerned with children in Sao relation to the resources that we could throw at them. It also Paolo in Brazil. There are somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 reminded me that the biggest resource we have in Scotland is children who make a living (if that is the right word) by scavenging on the dedication and heroism of those working with communities the rubbish dumps outside the city and who sleep on the dumps so that and with groups that are excluded from the labour market. The they will be there to get the ‘pick’ of the fresh garbage each morning. point of SURF is to continue to support and connect those It’s a situation that is miles away from anything we face in Scotland. communities with each other and to connect them with the Our problems seem small and almost trivial in comparison. policy makers who can perhaps make their life easier but who Although there are still too many poor people in Scotland, Scotland cannot (and it is important to recognise this) actually solve any of is not a poor country. the problems themselves. Editorial • We highlight Cultural Planning as a potential answer to the challenge of putting the Community in Community Planning. SURF will be following this very interesting trail by organising a participative seminar on June 9th in co operation with the new National Cultural Planning Steering Group. Andy Milne • Our friends in the North point out the Northern Way of doing SURF Chief things and again SURF hopes to link up with them for a study visit Executive looking at the role of culture in city/region regeneration and inter city cooperation. • Talking of city regeneration, Cllr Charlie Gordon lays out how Glasgow City Council are meeting the challenges of regenerating Scotland’s largest city in our Making Waves section and across the country Cllr Andrew Burns reviews the implications of the Edinburgh congestion charge referendum. Welcome to the 30th edition of Scotregen. • Mike Chapman reports on his recent Financial Inclusion The purpose of this quarterly journal is to use SURFs conference and what the Scottish Executive and Westminster are doing to make sure everyone has access to financial services. independent position to promote awareness and discussion on important developments in • Roland Hahn completes his set of 3 special reports on what he sees as Scotland’s forgotten challenge with one on coastal towns regeneration policy and practice. All this and details of SURFs future work, including an expansion Your responses to the articles we run (or other of our highly successful Open Forum series, and don’t miss Chik Collins on the “Language Games” we all play. topics) are vital in creating constructive debate. In the next issue we will be setting aside a page of Your feedback on any of the above, or anything else you think we should be looking at in future editions of Scotregen for readers letters, so please get them to Scotregen, is always welcome. Just e mail me at us by June 30th. Meanwhile, in this issue - [email protected] Page 2 scotregen : issue 30 : spring 2005 Thinking Culture The National Cultural continued Planning Steering Group- What and Why Thus, Cultural Planning is not the ‘planning of culture’, but a cultural approach to locality planning and policy (Bianchini, 1993 and While there is a growing awareness of the potential of Cultural Ghilardi, 2001). In particular, Cultural Planning adopts a territorial Planning as a focus for successful Community Planning in Scotland, remit and, crucially, it focuses on questions of what, for whom, and there is a need for guidance at neighbourhood, city, regional and why. In this way, national level in terms of the practical “how to” of implementing the Cultural Planning Inspiring - saved by local action - Royston Spire process. For this reason, Connector (www.connectorscotland.org) can help policy has been established by the Arts and Communities Association for makers to identify Scotland as a web based learning resource encouraging cross- the distinctive sectoral working practice and a National Cultural Planning cultural resources Steering Group has been established as an advisory mechanism of a city or acting as guide, mentor, monitor and standard setter for the locality and to implementation of joined-up pilot initiatives on the ground.