bottom drawer

We've had UDCs and URCs, so now get ready for CDCs. The new regeneration companies are set to be included in the overdue local government white paper that is due out this autumn. They will be city-wide organisations with a focus on economic rather than physical regeneration, and are supposedly based on Creative Sheffield, the body set up when the Sheffield URC and investment agencies merged. Apparently they will be asset-owning but apart from that, work in a similar way to URCs. Meanwhile, Ruth Kelly endorsed Greater Manchester's plans for a city-regional governmental structure with a cabinet, which will also go into the white paper.

It has emerged that only 2% of Stratford City's energy needs will be met by renewables on-site, as compared to the 10% required by the London Plan. They got away with it because the scheme was submitted for planning permission before the Plan came into force in 2004. Newham, which was allowed to retain control over the Stratford area, is now pushing Westfield to up its targets, as it submitted a new planning application this May, but I'm sure it won't be easy. Quintain have selected Bellway Homes, with Stock Woolstencroft and Whitelaw Turkington landscape architects, as their residential partner for the Greenwich Peninsula first phase - 229 flats on the southern part of the site. While out in Ashford, CPRE is stirring up trouble again, claiming that jobs growht has not been fast enough to justify the housing numbers proposed, which will therefore become "an enormous, sprawling hosing estate, all of whose population trawl up to work each day on the Channel Tunnel Rail L...

Ooh, CABE get tough with MAKE architects. Their Cube project in Birmingham has been labelled 'claustrophobic' and 'uncomfortable' in its attempts to make a large genuinely mixed-use building actually work. They've ended up with lots of single-aspect apartments in their very deep plan. And a proposed 36 storey tower by Mersey Property on the Liverpool waterfront has been slammed for being 'joyless'. The quango also added that the site may not be suitable for a tall building: "the northern cluster may be adjacent to the site, but it is cut off physically...it will not be understood the same way at street level." But MP is still confident of getting planning.

Conference season has seen an outpouring of love for going green. From the gushingly green David Cameron, to the pragmatically green Lib Dems, to Ken's bold announcement about only funding carbon-neutral housing in London, to Miliband's speech which again raised the prospect of Meyer Hillman-style personal carbon credit cards, to the TCPA and Friends of the Earth's mock Planning Policy Statement on climate change (backed by - oh, most everyone, as lending 'support' is such an easy thing to do) which promptly meant that Yvette Cooper announced that she would bring out a real one, it's all over us like a rash. Cooper also said that all housing 'must' move to be zero-carbon - "it is going to be a challenge but ultimately we don't have much of a choice" - although craftily gave no timetable. Jon Rouse said that improvement were needed over a 8-10 year period. So basically, it doesn't take Ken to tell us that the environment will dominate...

And I don't mean the collapse of the crane at the huge and ugly Barratts development down there. Last week it emerged that Parkview are in talks to sell a controlling stake in the power station development to Treasury Holdings, an Irish developer. Treasury has apparently been getting Foster & Partners to draw up alternative plans for the site, with more housing to make it commercially viable. Meanwhile, Richard Rogers had an 'informal' meeting with Parkview recently. Watch this space.

And it's not Will Alsop & Paul Finch. Nor Ricky Burdett - losing his place at the top of the GLA design tree. Its Peter Bishop - currently Camden's director of culture and environment, all round nice guy, and the hot tip since last week. He's expected to take up position in December.

The shortlist for the development partner at Stratford (after L&CR took back control of the non-retail areas) is down to two: Bougyues (with Barratt) and Lend Lease (with East Thmaes Group and First Base). The winner will be announced in the next two months. Herzog and de Meuron have received planning permission for their first housing scheme in the UKK. After Greengate House in Plaistow fell through rather disastrously last year, Poplar HARCA contacted H&dM and now they've got planning for four buildings totalling 36 residential units and a medical centre. The shortlist for Ken's model zero-carbon development at Gallion's Reach has been announced: L&Q Group; Guinness Trust with Gallions Housing; Crest/Bioregional/Quintain (my hot tip?); Metropolitan/J Leon (who?); Bellway/Genesis Housing Group; and Lend Lease/First Base (another hot tip, I would have thought). Technorati Tags: l&cr , london , olympics , stratford

Look out, housing associations! Or, as may be, look out, people in need of affordable housing! Ken got so bowled over by being next to Bill Clinton that he said that he won't fund any more 'polluting public sector homes', ever. That is to say, when he gets control of London's housing budget (set to be approved by Parliament soon) he is going to demand new homes that are as near carbon-neutral as possible. "I intend to bring the architects and the housing association people in and say we're not going to allocate that money to any new home for construction that isn't absolutely state of the art. If you want a commitment from me at this conference it's that that three billion dollars won't subsidise another polluting public sector home in London." Technorati Tags: housing , green , london

Late notice I know, but executive editor of Worldchanging.com (where I write nearly as infrequently as here right now!) Alex Steffen is in London at the moment and we're having a meetup of readers, potential writers and anyone else who's curious this Sunday. We'll be drinking-in-residence at the Crown on Clerkenwell Green from around 2-6, so please come along! Any questions, leave me a comment.

Late notice I know, but executive editor of Worldchanging.com (where I write nearly as infrequently as here right now!) Alex Steffen is in London at the moment and we're having a meetup of readers, potential writers and anyone else who's curious this Sunday. We'll be drinking-in-residence at the Crown on Clerkenwell Green from around 2-6, do do come along! Any questions, leave me a comment.

Now that the British Pavilion has run out of 'Pride of Sheffield' real ale, the Japanese pavilion has run out of its exquisite catalogues, and most of the original builders/occupants of the French Pavilion have packed their bags and left, it seems like a good time to ponder the highlights and low-points of this year's Venice Architecture Biennale. I was there last weekend. I missed the Japanese catalogue, drank the last of Britain's real ale supply, and had dinner with the French. I imagine that the various pavilions and exhibitions are seen in a rather different light after the superstars and the press have decamped than how they are seen during the frenzy of the opening weekend: The AF/MoMa's 'venice super blog' http://www.venicesuperblog.net would have us believe that the festival of celebrating white-haired men and getting sloshed whilst talking in very serious tones about population destiny continues apace, but the truth is that the two sites, Arsenale...

The Housing Corporation has launched a new initiative for design quality in the Gateway by appointing Tim Williams (former adviser to Miliband and ex-chief exec of the LTGSP) to chair a commission. He's going to collaborate with CABE, local authorities and everyone else to provide a 'guide to the Corporation's expectations' of quality for homes they will fund. This is linked to a fundamental review of the Corp's Scheme Development Standards, the space and design standards to which every HC-funded development must adhere and so this initiative may actually be pretty useful, coming a day after CABE said yet again that almost all new housing in this country is badly designed. "By agreeing with providers and planners the expectations of the Housing Corporation upfront, we will ensure we get quality affordable housing across the board rather than the regular trickle of average schemes through section 106s that seek waivers from our standards." Quite right too....

My walk to work is really going to change over the next few years. Allies and Morrison have released images of their new skyscraper for Great Portland Estates, which has just gone in for planning. It will be on Bishopsgate just south of Camomile St, replacing some existing stuff, and includes a nice corporate plaza which they claim will be an "active public realm". And Hammerson are moving forward with Foster & Partners to develop yet more of the north side of the City, actually breaking the boundary by buying some land off cash-strapped Hackney to add to their Norton Folgate sites. They've stuck with Fosters (who designed their controversial Bishops Square development just down the road). Expect a 40 storey tower which, interestingly, will have not only offices, but a hotel and apartments on top. They've also got the Bishopsgate Goodsyard to come, to complete their monopoly over the northern City Fringe.

Phew! There's going to be a Waitrose in Statford City . Sighs of relief from estate agents all round. And a John Lewis too, so all those new residents can stock up on good quality basics for their flats without going to IKEA at Brent Cross. How convenient. On to more serious news. The ODA has formally assumed its role as planning authority for the Olympic zone. But Newham has won the right to determine the first phase of Stratford City despite it being within the Olympic Park, and is still 'negotiating' with the ODA about the second phase. I saw some drawings the other day of the Park and it seems to have shrunk rather a lot from the glorious panoramas that we saw around the time of the bid. There's been a huge furore over Eurostar's decision to massivly cut services that stop at Ashford in favour of Ebbsfleet, and also to not stop at Stratford when St Pancras becomes operational next year. I'll go more into detail in another post, but basically everyone's h...

For some reason two long-ish draft posts got deleted by my system. Suffice to say I can't be bothered to research and write them again. Ephemera that was probably boring anyway. Well, today's round-up contains: Ruth Kelly has challenged developers to beat the standards of Scandinavian housing within the decade, with regard to energy efficiency and carbon neutrality. Well, maybe they'll beat the Scandis standards of today in ten years...but by that time the original energy-saving blondes will have moved onto houses that probably eat carbon for breakfast, rather than emitting any. Is it groundhog day? CABE says that housebuilders are still failing on quality but get planning permission anyway. Apparently just six percent of new housing is 'good' or 'very good' under their measures and despite some design champions being appointed, they are "not being listened too", which comes as a shock. Meanwhile CABE itself has been missing targets: BD reports th...

A lovely picture of all the boats to pass London Bridge in an hour, in one montage. Apparently the number of passengers transported on the river has gone up by 44% since 1999, to 2.4 million a year. Weirdly, the blogs are all linking to this via the Daily Mail (eugh). In other news, (hello, sorry for not blogging) I went to Scotland for a week of gorgeous hermit-dom; sailing (into the Atlantic, no less! Needless to say I wasn't actually *doing* the sailing), walking, eating, reading (six books: intellectual nourishment.) I will be off to the Venice Biennale in a few weeks, trying to avoid the crowds and actually enjoy being in Venice. Autumn has come to London with an unexpected Indian summer punctuated by downpours. Arsenal win in Europe and not at home.

I've been away for ten days to a place without email, where regeneration starts sounding like the silly word it really is and where the local village (of 60 people) has been trying to get a project to build a new shop off the ground for about a decade. Where the local post office is totally unsigned, and run out of a freezing room in a decaying stone mansion by the batty maiden survivor of the dynasty, alongside her dogs, rabbits and birds. Yet, because this is the British Isles, in the pub people discuss how they can get broadband, and the local smokehouse sells to Harrods. The face of rural Scotland. There was only one really significant piece of 'real news' while I was away in what the Guardina calls the "booming Highlands" . Us Londoners have a newly Ken-ized Overground rail service (why, oh why, not just call it a tube? it will run every 8 mins, just like the Circle line) which will actually help people in London get around. And I will be able to get from my...