The Conference covered a range of social, economic and physical regeneration issues including the challenges in joint public/private sector developments and the importance of people based initiatives and sustainable design. The five speakers covered a wide range of topics reflecting the breadth of issues covered by RPS' regeneration consultancy services in Scotland.
Baroness Ford, chair of English Partnerships and Irvine Bay Urban Regeneration Company (URC) provided a cross-border perspective. She highlighted the current opportunity to create sustainable communities where mixed use developments incorporate good public transport, public realm and architecture and support mixed income communities. She called for the public sector to work effectively together and with the private sector. Baroness Ford also talked passionately about reshaping Irvine Bay's housing, leisure and commercial offering and highlighted some early successes.
Baroness Ford, English Partnerships and Irvine Bay Regeneration Company |
Alisdair McIntosh, Scottish Government Head of Regeneration Policy spoke from a policy perspective. He stated that Scotland has a lot to be pleased about and highlighted the Scottish URCs, targeted community regeneration activity and tackling vacant and derelict land. He added that regeneration for the new Government is about transforming place for the benefit of people. He highlighted the challenging climate created by the spending review and political changes at national and local level.
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He added that future policy will build on experience and be informed by research such as URCs review and the use of Regeneration Outcome Agreements - Ian Clark, RPS Technical Director previously managed these studies for the Scottish Government.
Bob Millar, Director of New City Vision gave a private sector perspective. He commented that the 2006 Policy Statement 'People and Place' was not particularly helpful to the private sector. In their dealings with the private sector, Bob called for the public sector to be clearer about their requirements, to allow developers to show imagination in regeneration proposals and for timetables to be speeded up.
Gwen Barker, E. Ayrshire
Community Planning Partnership |
Gwen Barker, East Ayrshire Community Planning Partnership Manager provided an insight into rural regeneration initiatives. She emphasised the joined-up working of the Community Planning Partnership and highlighted a number of people based projects addressing low aspirations, poor health, worklessness and limited public transport links. Ian Clark RPS Technical Director previously assisted with the development of the Partnership's Thematic Action Plans and evaluated a number of the highlighted projects.
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Karen Anderson, Partner of Anderson Bell + Christie Architects spoke on the importance of good design. She highlighted some of her practice's award winning work in urban (Raploch in Stirling) and rural areas (the isle of Gigha) and warned against repeating past mistakes of poor design, particularly in the growth areas in England.
Notes:
1) RPS Edinburgh and Glasgow's wide range of social, economic and physical regeneration services include master planning, strategy development, project and programme evaluations, housing and labour market analysis, feasibility studies, baseline studies, socio-economic impact assessment, community engagement and funding support.
For more information please contact:
RPS Edinburgh - Planning & Development
T: 0131 555 5011
RPS Glasgow - Planning & Development
T: 0141 332 0373