bottom drawer

A quote from Jack Lemley, Olympic Delivery Authority chairman: "We want to establish a framework where we can go to the market and have a shortlist of qualified contractors who are backed up by engineers and architects. "That is how we can get the best bargain for the public purse. I don't think we are in a position where we can ask a designer to design the stadium, for example. It takes a year to design then months to build it. We will have to go through a collaborative process." Another from Denis Oswald, International Olympic Committee Co-ordination Commission chairman: "The Olympic Park in general and the buildings proposed were a very strong point in London's bid. That had a great deal of influence on the final decision. "It was a really attractive proposal, with buildings which are technically first-class and also aesthetically advanced." Hmmn. Via BD .

A poll says that 53% of 'people' want more housebuilding in their areas. Admittedly this was commissioned by the House Builders Federation but anyway...anecdotally as well as statistically, I would tend to support this. Yesterday in a taxi from the station to my home town in deepest rural England, I had a pretty similar conversation with my driver, who complained against both the ghastliness of the new developments that take place around market towns in the area and the lack of affordable housing provision. He wanted less executive homes and more sensitively designed, affordable, well-located housing not just on the outskirts of towns but also in villages. Meanwhile, the Tory offensive against Prescott's funding of an academic study about the potential of underused urban land for housing continues. The MP for Poole professes himself 'aghast' at the 'plans which are hardly plans at all. To get it clear, the study says that in areas like Poole, large suburban ba...

The AJ reports that in a matter of months, Prince Charles will submit a planning application for a massive new development outside Plymouth. Named Sherford, it is being designed entirely in-house by the Prince's Foundation and with input from Charlie's 'Enquiry by Design' method which is billed as a "traditionalist approach to public consultation." So that will mean questionnaires which are completely disregarded, then. You can look at all the documents on the council's site here . It's going to have 4000 new homes, three primary schools, one secondary school and various other commercial uses. This is New Urbanism on a big scale for the first time in England. While a lot of the Prince's rhetoric (sustainability, walkable places, local distinctiveness) is absolutely right as far as I'm concerned, the way he translates this into aesthetic and lifestyle conservatism is, to me, not only regressive but also ethically dubious.

A true heroine to all of us who care about urban life, the nature of our cities - Jane Jacobs, after a long period of ill-health, died today. Not much I can say about her that isn't being said elsewhere . But she is still a real inspiration and although I sometimes feel that her ideas are now misused by those who care to twist words, I hope and believe that her legacy lives on.

A pretty appalling performance, I gather - because I have been stuck at home listening to Five Live trying desperately to work in preparation for a crit rather than standing in the pub - but Arsenal are through to the finals of the Champions League! Apart from the fact that it nearly killed me from a heart attack at several moments - have ever ninety minutes seemed so long? I'm over the moon. Can't wait. Fate, somehow, was on our side tonight. Perhaps we didn't deserve it - but perhaps given our season, we did in the balance of the god of footballing justice. Too long without a post here, I am aware - general news has been too much busy-ness before and after a glorious five days in Scotland over Easter picking mussels off the beach and walking the hills. Much to do too over the next month so don't expect too much banter happening on the blog. In the mean time - come on Paris!!

The Tories are really on the offensive to make planning and regeneration an election issue. It's always surprised me that no political party have really seen the potential of the field as a vote-winner - after all, it basically deals with everything that voters care about - quality of life, nice friendly neighbourhoods, property prices, good schools and decent local shops. Well now, in a classic example of taking a totally uneducated electorate for a ride, the Tories are insinuating that under Prescott your leafy back garden will get repossessed to build flats on. The Tories said the Government has given £2 million of taxpayers' money to planners and academics to investigate "urban densification." The recommendations include that a development in suburban neighbourhoods should be double the current density and there is "considerable potential" for back garden development. According to the Tories, other recommendations include that back gardens over 30 metr...

Stratford's international Eurostar terminal is completed in time to show off to a bunch of visiting Olympics bods. London's housebuilding planning permissions lags way behind tagets, according to Planning Resource (subs only). A study published last week by London Development Research reveals that the number of private sector housing starts in the capital fell from 13,400 in 2000 to 12,700 in 2005. The London Plan - a spatial development strategy published in 2004 - set out plans for at least 23,000 new homes a year in the capital. A consultation on increasing the target by 30 per cent, to 31,090 units per annum, ended earlier this year. I already reported that Arup are working with the LDA to plan an eco-development in the Thames Gateway. Now they are also working with Bill Dunster, and Arup director Peter Head told Building that he thinks a site will be pinned down in the next couple of weeks. But it will only be around 1000 units - hardly the equivalent of the new city ...

BD seems to be turning Tory. (Somehow I don't see Labour Central Office worrying.) Michael Gove, the shadow minister for housing, managed to get an op-ed piece into Building Design magazine (which under its new editor Amanda Baillieu, has caused no end of ruffled feathers by leading last week with Ricky Burdett and the proposed Design Director for London. Cue major kerfuffle among various boroughs and GLA types.) Headlined 'Tories understand the value of good architecture' he starts off with the motherhood and apple-pie stuff: "Of all the arts, architecture has the most profound effect on how we live. It gives form to our environment, gives expression to our collective identity and gives us all the opportunity to be inspired daily. Poor architecture doesn't just blight the lives of those condemned to live and work in ugly buildings, it cheapens the lives of all those who encounter it. The consequences of poor building design are borne by us all." Then it gets...

One of the things that's been on all the headlines this week has been the potential merger of the Housing Corporation and English Partnerships. The government has launched a review of the delivery of housing and regeneration, and will report in July. Those inevitable 'sources' have been leaking more or less officially various things that may come up. These include the probably merger between English Partnerships and the Housing Corporation. Another question the review will ask is which functions might be devolved from the ODPM to the new body. Those 'sources' close to the review said these might include Private Finance Initiatives, the decent homes standard, neighbourhood renewal, housing market renewal and private sector housing renewal. A senior ODPM source said: "Do we need a government department to administer [these functions] or would it be better to have an agency that may be that bit closer to them? It could be a lot easier to use an agency so we don...

Twofold: One - it;s been a horribly busy week getting a tender together for a potentially very exciting project in London. Hence very little posting. Updates are happening now, late on a Saturday night. My life is really buzzing!! Two: My web server for images was down a lot over the last few days. Sorry if you couldn't see the banner image at the top of the page or any of the other pics. Hopefully all sorted now.

Ah. Five days on the West Coast of Scotland. No mobile phone reception. No internet. Not a single light to be seen from the windows at night. And a hundred yards below us on the beach, mussels and winkels in abundance to be picked, and clams to be ferreted out, and even one glorious, huge oyster. We shopped in Fort William after getting off the sleeper and bought an enormous leg of lamb, some steaks, oxtail and a ritual haggis alongside plenty of veg and booze. We were amazed to find that, at the end of the trip totting up our spending, over five days we had only spent £50 each on food and enough alcohol to make us all into shrieking banshees by 1am every night. So a pretty cheap trip, and we ate very well - even if I do say so myself, having ensconced myself firmly in the kitchen and beating away intruders with a wooden spoon. And we had virtually nothing left to throw away at the end. Its amazing how economically you can eat if you actually cook every day and so use up all your lefto...

In a move sadly reminiscent of too many bad satires, while the ODPM advertised last week for a Chief Executive for the Thames Gateway, with a 'competitive six figure package' juicily dangled as a carrot to the person fool enough to take on the nightmare job, it has emerged that the three RDAs in the area are also seeking a Chief Executive for the Thames Gateway to 'co-ordinate the organisations' policies in the gateway'. Yes, the LDA, Is this a late April Fool's joke? Has anyone heard of the concept of 'tlaking to each other'? So the call from various parties to streamline the delivery of activity in the Gateway has ended up doubling the number of well-paid and useless people wandering around the marshes of Kent in chauffeur-driven 4x4s. Super sensible. (via Building, subs only). It just gets more and more absurd. CABE have been asked to come up with a 'design identity' for the Gateway in, oh, three months; Miliband wants a strategic framework ...

Of course, today's big news in planning surrounded the Adam Smith Institute's new publication, Land Economy by Mischa Balen. It covers many things: but most radically, it calls for the total abolition of planning regulation and the exstension of the 'invisible hand' principle to how land is developed. It also has really interesting things to say about the development of green belt areas. It calls for the 're-greening' of England with sterile agricultural land converted to new woodland habitat and housing. Balen says "If some of these [areas] were converted to sympathetic development consisting of 90% woodland, including small lakes and rivers and 5% each for housing and supporting infrastructure, each farm whose use was changed in this way, would yield almost 200ha of new woodland, together with 140 average sized new homes." He proposes that 3% of farmland is developed in this way over a ten year period, yielding about 950,000 new houses and almost 1...

The 12-strong board that will oversee delivery of the Olympics has been appointed . It includes: Lorraine Baldry, Chair of the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation; Tony Ball, former Chief Executive of BSkyB; Sir Howard Bernstein, Chief Executive of Manchester City Council, Barry Camfield, Assistant General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union; Neale Coleman, Policy Director to the Mayor of London; Stephen Duckworth, doctor, academic and entrepreneur; Christopher Garnett, Chairman and Chief Executive of Great North Eastern Railway; Sir Roy McNulty, Chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority; Baroness Morgan of Huyton, former Cabinet Office Minister; Kumar Muthalagappan, Managing Director of the Pearl Hotels and Restaurants Group; Sir Nicholas Serota, Director of the Tate; and David Taylor, Chairman of Silvertown Quays

Fresh back from an Easter break in furthest Scotland (no mobile phone reception, no internet, joy!) there's lots of news to report. First up is the quite surprising news that Richard Rogers Partnership has been reappointed to work on the Bankside 4 site next to the Tate Modern. Originally he was working on a residential high-rise building for the site, but after Land Securities, who owned it, saold the land to Clan Real Estate and Grosvenor it seemed that all bets were off. However now, Native Land (50% shareholder of Clan Real Estate - still with me?!) have asked RRP to look at the site again. Alasdair Nicholls, chief executive of Native Land, said: ‘We have asked Richard Rogers Partnership, who enjoy a world-class reputation, to look at ways in which we can bring the site forward. We are aiming to begin consultation with local residents this summer.’ A planning application for the scheme will be submitted towards the end of 2006. (from the AJ , subs only)

Ken's new plan: A "high-powered" design director will be brought into the GLA to oversee development in London. The Architecture and Urbanism Unit will apparently be replaced by the design director employed by a small advisory board, rumoured to be chaired by Richard Rogers. The new group will have more than four times the budget of the existing A&UU. Building Design offers a list of tips for the job, from favourite downwards: Ricky Burdett (current GLA design adviser, curator Venice Biennale), Deyan Sudjic (recently appointed director of the Design Museum, critic, author, & architecture critic on The Observer), Rowan Moore (Current director of the AF and architecture critic for the ES), David Lunts (ex-ODPM and head of policy at the GLA), Elsie Owusu (Architect and Arts Council member), Chris Smith (former Culture Secretary, chair of London Cultural Consortium), Joanna Averley (CABE deputy, Olympic Delivery Authority), and Roger Madelin (familiar to Deve...

A preliminary stab at a new look. What do you think? And happy Easter break to all my new readers. Thanks for visiting and tell your friends!

Kings Cross Central has been cleared to go ahead by the Government Office for London without an inquiry. Which is fantastic news for us as hopefully we will be able to start further work on the public realm soon! As the AJ (subs only) says today, "This represents an extraordinary victory for the developer and his architectural team, who have now steered the project through the entire planning system without once being turned down." Congratulations Roger Madelin and everyone at Argent for such a smooth ride!

Planning Minister Yvette Cooper has announced changes to government planning policy, including: Most types of planning application will now have to be accompanied by a design and access statement. Increases in internal floorspace of 200m+ within retail developments will be brought under planning control. LPAs will now have 13 weeks to determine a major application before an applicant can appeal on the basis of non-determination. (A change from 8 weeks) A quote from Yvette Cooper herself: "High quality design needs to be at the heart of the planning system. These changes mean that both developers and local planning authorities will have to give proper consideration to design and access before they start. This will help improve the quality of new buildings and spaces." Via 24dash.com .

Congratulations to English Partnerships chairwoman Margaret Ford, who got made a baroness today, and Sir Sandy Bruce-Lockhart of the Local Government Association and leader of Kent County Council, who got made a baron. Update your databases, everyone! Ken Livingstone is threatning the warring Stratford City partners with public intervention. According to reports, the consortium will this week hold an auction where one of the partners will buy the others out, but if the public sector ends up having to pay for it all, it would cost a whopping £700m...that's £250 more on every Londoner's council tax. £50m committed to transport improvements in the South-East and Midlands, including some roadworks near Peterborough and other bits and pieces. £50m is a bit pathetically small, actually...not really heralding a major investment to solve the infrastructure problems of the Thames Gateway. Not strictly about planning or regeneration but today the Big Lottery Fund launched lotteryfundin...

...if that's not an inappropriate way to talk about pre-fabricated housing. Prescott's favourite litte competition is about to get realised with construction work starting at several Barratts sites near Leeds and Northampton. I presume they are building the rather naff and twee designs that won the competition (more info here on the construction system etc). Across these two sites, 96 homes will be built for a construction cost of £60,000. The remainder will be a mix of smaller and larger homes constructed with similar cost efficiencies. A minimum of 30 per cent of homes on each competition site will be built to a construction cost of £60,000. Each of the developments will create mixed-tenure communities, including homes for sale, rent, social housing and for first time buyers under a shared equity scheme. Watch this space to see if it all works out...

The outcome of the People's Millions was announced today. I blogged about it on the new blog here so go read, if you're interested.

In the weird Big Brother-meets-Communist sloganeering of the 'People's Millions', today Groundwork emerged the winner of £1.5m Big Lottery Fund cash through TV voting via GMTV. "After a week of campaigning, frenzied voting and fraught nerves, GMTV viewers have voted for Groundwork UK to deliver Safe and Sound, a programme that will bring different generations together to create safer environments and help people feel better about where they live." Now I'm a fan of Groundwork and don't want to seem down on them, but 'frenzied...fraught...' - someone's had fun in that press office! Only 20,000 people - 0.03% of the population - voted so it's hardly the People's Millions, more like the Bored Housewives who watch daytime TV's Millions. What's more concerning is that this is evidently such a good way to give out money that next year, the 'People' will be asked to decide what project deserves to get £25-50m to spend. That...

Terry Farrell's got planning for a great big new tower down my neck of the woods, on City Road off Old Street. It's not that nice, actually... Richard Rogers Partnership's beleaguered Cambridge scheme has finally got thrown out by the planners. But they say they're going to stick at it and try again. Kensington and Chelsea are arguing that Ken needs planning permission for every single congestion charge camera that he will put up in their borough, as part of their ongoing fight against becoming part of the charging zone. What a waste of public money this saga is. K&C should just put up and shut up, like the rest of us. Suffolk planners have recommended that the SnOasis ski centre should be given planning permission. Yeuch. And finally, to make y'all laugh (or cry) on a slow Monday afternoon, here's Zaha Hadid's idea of a masterplan in case you haven't already seen it.

Another Toothless Academic Report That Points Out the Obvious. TART POO. Will it take off? Stifling bureaucracy and lack of infrastructure are making the redevelopment of the Thames Gateway and Greater Manchester unsustainable, a report has warned. It found a danger that key regeneration projects are "creating transient communities where residents commute long distances to work, and may end only staying in the area for a short period". Tim Dixon at Oxford Brookes carried out 54 interviews with the key stakeholders at six case studies in the Thames Gateway and Greater Manchester, such as Barking Riverside and New Islington. He identified a lack of commitment to providing community, education and health facilities. It called for the government and agencies working in both areas to ensure infrastructure is place before development goes ahead. It also warned that redevelopment in Greater Manchester concentrated too heavily on flats with a lack of affordable housing. This could ...

This has been all over the trade press at the end of last week but I figured I'd better feature it briefly. Northumbria University interviewed 30 peple from across the North-East including at the RDA, in local government, charities and private sector developers. They said that they thought the Northern Way was all about Leeds and Manchester and not at all about the north-east. Moreover they found it hard to keep track of all the funding streams and strategies covering the North-East. The RDA was also criticised, described by interviewees as "oversensitive", "puffed-up and self-important... with delusions of grandeur". They said it needed to be "more confident and able to take criticism". So that will join the ranks of reports that Tell Us Things We Already Knew, then. It may be useful for people to highlight these issues with 'real' quantitative research, but nothing really changes anyway...

I rather like the idea of retirement villages. But then, anything is better than sending your parents off to live in a vile stinking home where, as Alan Bennett so stingingly put it, "helpless creatures slowly and quite respectably starve to death." And now apparently they are the future - not only good for the people who live in them but also "good news for local communities, by helping health and social care providers to deliver health and community services more efficiently." On-site care and support in retirement villages can lead to fewer hospital admissions and promote earlier discharge, generating cost savings for acute hospital trusts. Moreover, as older people move into homes specially developed for them, significant numbers of family homes, previously under-occupied, can become available to ease housing shortages.Retirement villages can also stimulate local economies by creating jobs and by residents' support of local shops and facilities. But isn...

Research [pdf] out last week supposedly showed that Prescott's favoured 'design code' approach is a good thing for sites with multiple owners and complex developer/stakeholder set-ups. While I will resist the temptation to be cynical about research that was paid for by the ODPM, this isn't, to me, the controversial or 'anti-architectural' result that many architects will claim. Saying that design codes are intrinsically good or bad is like saying that diets are good or bad - its all in the content, not the form. The over-exposed and beloved-of-architects development at Borneo Sporenburg is an example of design codes as much as Seaside, Florida. Anything that gives complex sites some sort of overarching logic and order - whether a good masterplan that is strictly applied, or a design code, or, indeed, requirements for energy efficiency, use of local materials or tenure mix, is probably a good thing, but certainly won't guarantee 'quality' of design. ...

I blogged the other day about the Decent Homes Initiative and how there are still 6 million non-decent homes which would theoretically cost £47 billion to bring up to scratch, although the DCI has only a £19bn budget. Well, it seems like Miliband thinks that all that money might be better spent on a more holistic approach than inserting high-quality kitchens into failaing estates. Building (subs only) reports that Miliband and his housing deputy Yvette Cooper are thinking of replacing the standard, designed to bring all of England's social housing up to scratch by 2010, because it does not focus resources on the wider regeneration of an area. Miliband is keen that the money be spent instead on creating mixed tenure neighbourhoods in which private housing is used to break up concentrations of social housing, but this would be a major policy shift. A working party on the issue set up by Pricewaterhouse Coopers is proposing that councils be free to spend their housing funds on upgra...

In the cheesily-named Britain's Best Cities report, Manchester is this year apparently best for business above London even. One of the major drivers that has seen Manchester crowned the best has been the increasing rate of inward investment secured in recent years. MIDAS, Manchester's Investment Agency, has helped deliver a number of high profile investments in the last two years, including the Bank of New York, Shimadzu (hi-tech scientific equipment) and The Standards Board for England. It's a very American approach, levering in high-value employers through tax breaks and cosy deals with the council. Smacks of Wal-Mart-ism (of which more interesting news here which I'll comment on in a separate post. Something about it makes my hackles rise - while I know investment is a Good Thing, the cushy-ness seems to confuse the public interest with a quantitative evaluation of 'success'. But for all their new-found corporate zeal, Mancunians are still mad for it . Hund...

Heritage Link have published a survey that shows that, surprise, local groups think planners only listen to them when their views coincide with the foregone conclusion and 'Only 41% of all respondents were satisfied or very satisfied with the way their organisation had been consulted.' And moreover, the new planning process of Local Development Frameworks, that was meant to make 'partnership' working and consultation a much more integrated process, is a waste of time: "‘Our first impressions of the new Local Development Frameworks processes are that they are convoluted, bureaucratic, time-consuming, resource intensive and likely to fail.’ And LDF jargon won the prize for gobbledegook." Press release here (pdf). While clearly they are focusing on heritage issues and groups, it seems that consultation is a hot topic this week, with BDP launching a bid to pacify 'militant' locals over their work in Archway ( comment from the AJ for subs only). The Bett...

Casino bidders list revealed by DCMS. The first evaluation of the bids is expected to last at least six to eight weeks, with further examination of selected proposals taking place in the summer. Bristol have chosen Deeley Freed Estates as their development partner for the St Mary le Port business quarter and the £150m scheme could be underway within 18 months. It will be "a mixed scheme with retail uses facing on to Wine Street; cafes, restaurants and new housing overlooking the city's historic Floating Harbour and a landmark office building close to Bristol Bridge." Sounds original, then. The 20th Century Society and DOCOMOMO-UK have joined up to urge John Prescott to call in John McAslan’s controversial plans to revamp the iconic Trellick Tower, mainly because they don't want him to replace the windows. This comes as Kensington and Chelsea Council said it was ‘minded to grant’ planning permission for the refurbishment, but it can't grant full planning permiss...

Just weeks after the shock withdrawal of funding from Margate's proposed Turner centre, by Snohetta & Spence, we now receive word that the £7m Dumfries Theatre Royal redevelopment has been scuppered, after architects RMJM had gone through two planning applications (second one successful) and Lottery funding and European money had been put in place. The Theatre Royal, previously the "flagship of the Dumfries regeneration", was initially to be refitted (or rather the facades retained) but on rejection by planning a bold, if slightly anonymous, newbuild was submitted. Interestingly, the council apparently withdrew funding prior to awarding planning permission for the second scheme. It looks like these "indispensable catalysts for local regeneration" are becoming ever more dispensable as the weeks pass. Via this week's AJ (Subs only)

Alain de Botton has been doing the rounds recently. First an article on decoration in the RIBA Journal, and then on Saturday a thoughtful piece in the Telegraph Seven supplement, which they managed to twist though careful image selection into a double-barreled assault on Le Corbusier. You can read it here. Ah, it's because he has a new book out, is it? It's called 'The Architecture of Happiness' and will be around from the 20th April. In my view, his discussion of traditional versus modernist urbanism in the Telegraph (despite the bastardisation) is a little more on the nose than his arguments for decoration.

The April 2006 Green Places News, a monthly e-bulletin by the Landscape Design Trust has just arrived on my (e-) desk. We at General Public Agency get an image from our King's Cross work splashed across the front cover, alongside the author's welcome (and understandable, given the publication) emphasis on the scheme's urban and green values: "The site is a major urban development that will provide a green corridor between the boroughs of Islington and Camden." Easy words to say, perhaps, but it's nice to see these aspects of the scheme in the spotlight. Also a report from the Trees for Cities Urban Trees conference at the end of March. The article, by Howard Scott, mentions the laughable idea, courtesy of Myerscough College's Dr. Mark Johnston, that trees compromise urban safety through blocking the view for CCTV cameras: short term logic of the 'Secure by Design', prevention rather than cure ilk. Almost as bad as design guidance that prefers is...

I saw this come through and thought it was a hoax. But apparently the pledgebank staff have confirmed with Downing Street that it is not. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you didn't hear it first on the Today programme, you heard it here: Tony Blair is a pledgebank user (the same website as I used against George 'catlover' Galloway) and has pledged: "I will become the patron of a London community sports club. I will work with the club over the years as the Olympics approaches in 2012 to support their development and raise their profile but only if 100 other public figures in London will join me in supporting other clubs." There's something really weird about this, especially as he hasn't publicised it at all (or as far as I've heard - correct me if I'm wrong) so it almost seems destined to fail. Has the man who famously doesn't really have a grasp on email written (on paper or via the interweb) to all his 'public figure' friends to ask them ...

Civic Trust Award winners announced. Including Lyric Square in Hammersmith, SS Great Britain in Bristol and Broadway Theatre in Barking. Network Rail to spend another £11bn improving railways, apparently. So the great black hole continues to function as normal...£11bn? That's a lot of money. Russia just gets weirder. McAdam Architects and Will Alsop's ex-partner Jan Stormer are to masterplan a 'totally self-sufficient' new town outside Moscow for 70,000 residents in response to the 'increasing demand for middle-class, Western-standard housing in and around the Moscow area.' Make are to demolish one of the three remaining buildings from the Festival of Britain - the little information kiosk by St Paul's Cathedral - and replace it with something made from folded metal. Somehow this makes me rather sad.

The baby brother to Renzo's Shard has got planning permission from Southwark. New London Bridge House is on its way, replacing the existing 60s block with 600,000m2 of very expensive office space and a new entrance to the station to add, as Londonist notes , to the confusion around London Bridge Station. And 'substantial' improvements to the public realm, apparently.

Blair has launched his pledges for regeneration in East London prior to 2012 which includes a rather unbelievable commitment to opening 60 new city academies. In six years? I can't really see that happening, especially given what a disaster the initial wave of academies has been. It also includes a £35m skills package. And a memorable quote: "We have six years to regenerate east London. Six years to demonstrate to the world, as to ourselves, that we can host the greatest show on earth." Arrgh. Six years? It's really not long at all and I already feel, in football parlance, that its getting to be squeaky-bum time. (via) Building , subs only)

It seems like Labour decided that the risk of losing Tower Hamlets council to the dreaded Respect Party in the up-coming local elections, where Respect is running single-issue campaigning on Crossrail, is not worth it. It has completely scrapped the proposals , so controversial and which the cat-impersonating George Galloway said was the single biggest issue facing his constituency, to tunnel in Spitalfields, going back to the idea of boring from the two ends in Park Royal and Custom House. So "no need for the works between Hanbury Street and Pedley Street or the conveyor along the Great Eastern main line. Mile End Park would not be needed as a site for stockpiling excavated material." Pretty much a full U-turn, good news for my local neighbourhood as 24hr lorry movements in this densely inhabited area was never a smart idea, and I hope this takes the wind out of Respect's sails as I have no wish for them to become my new local 'representatives'.

I'm sure a lot of people heard the news on the radio today about a new study from Philip Lowe and his colleagues up at Newcastle. Their figures show that 5.3 million of England's projected 5.5 million population growth until 2028 will be due to the rise in the over-60s, as the Baby Boomers finally reach pensionable age. They will mainly be living in rural districts, with numbers of people living in the countryside aged 85 and over predicted to treble in the period. Remote rural areas in particular are expected to have a 47 per cent increase in the number of residents aged over 50 by 2028, compared with a 30 per cent projected increase nationally. Some rural districts - including West Dorset (where I've been working recently) are set to have three out of five of their residents aged over 50 by 2028. There are some really huge issues raised by this, but none of it should be news. Researchers have been saying for along time that the challenge of a greying rural population is ...

We've just enjoyed the leftovers of a rather successful Sunday lunch straight out of the legendary St John cookbook. Roast pork with turnips, anchovies and garlic. Off to the market on Sunday morning, before the rush, to pick up a generous (and not entirely cheap) joint of organic pork, and some turnips with their greens still intact from the Taj Stores on Brick Lane. The idea of dressing turnips with anchovies, lots of mashed roast garlic, parsley, oil and red wine vinegar sounds like it will end up very strong, but in fact the end result was delightfully subtle - a kind of mellow yet vaguely piquant warm salad almost, to go with a simply roasted piece of good meat. A few new potatoes tucked in around the pork at half-time and the whole thing was perfect for a Sunday lunch with beautiful April sunshine and showers playing outside. The dressing is really utterly simple. For a generous three-person portion (around four medium to large turnips and their greens) I used half a tin of a...

The Draft South-East Plan has been published for consultation and says that the area needs to build 29,000 homes per year, of which a third should be affordable. Realistic or not, or is it even right in its assumptions? Would love to know your views. The charity Planning Aid has announced a new scheme in conjunction with the ODPM to ecourage local authorities to all appoint an officer or elected member as a 'planning champion' to act as a bridge between groups who often do not understand the complexities of the planning system and how they can make their views known. I'm pretty much a fan of Planning Aid but it's slightly odd how their press release basically bills the scheme as producing Planning Aid champions as well as the more neutral aim of improving the planning process - one of their champions roles will be to "Shout about Planning Aid and its services within the local authority - and beyond." Developers have ' shunned ' the Treasury's in...

Arup's controversial scheme for the area around the new Dalston station (the East London line extension) got passed last Thursday despite heavy local opposition.The scheme involves the construction of a highly dense residential development on Dalston Lane, including a 19-storey tower. Locals object to it for two main reasons. The first is that it involves no affordable housing, a move accepted by the council because of the huge cost of building a slab over the new station. And secondly, the proposed plot is adjacent to the hugely contentious Dalston Theatre site, which is also proposed for redevelopment. The move to approve the station site proposals gives a clear indication that these theatre plans, by John McAslan, will also go through. Jon Aldenton, chief executive of local charity the Bootstrap Company, said ‘Allowing Transport for London to get away with ignoring the standards Hackney usually sets for development creates a really dangerous precedent. The committee made a weak ...

Interesting today to read in Planning (subs only) that the government is clamping down on property speculators who subdivide fields into plots for sale without planning permission. In an echo of the complaints by the establishment against the early 20th century plotlands, John Stambollouian, head of development control at the ODPM said: "These sales have created a number of problems for local planning authorities. The impacts on visual amenity relate to the erection of fences and other minor development..." Let's protect our sterile, over-farmed countryside because to admit it might be more useful for living on than for looking at goes against all our dreams of 'natural' arcadia lorded over by the old establishment, with the peasants safely out of sight! As opposed to the idea that allowing citizens to live out their 'good life' dreams of smallholding and country life might be democratic...But before I start sounding like a Tory (vide Cameron's recent...