TEN is a small group of senior local government officers in London who have met regularly over ten years to share ideas and exchange knowledge on how to achieve urban renaissance. Using the principle of looking and learning they visit pioneering projects to draw out lessons that can be applied in their own authorities. In the process the members develop their skills as place-makers, and are able to build up the capacity of their authorities to tackle major projects. A TEN group subsription typically consists of four London based meetings, a symposium and a European study tour.
2012-1013 members were Grosvenor Developments, Catalyst Housing Group, Ealing Council, London Borough of Camden, London Bourough of Lambeth, Haringey Council, Sutton Council, London Borough of Newham, Stephen Tapper Associates, David Hennings.
The TEN Group has come to the end of its ninth series. Starting in 2003, with a small meeting in Camden, we have now been 'looking and learning' for a decade. The attached presentation summarises visits the group have made in the last ten years and will be presented at a celebratory dinner at the end of May 2013.
Ten years of TEN from urbed
The final session in the TEN Group’s ninth series focussed on how to make large housing schemes viable, with a visit to the Berkeley Group’s redevelopment of the old Ferrier Estate at Kidbrooke in the London Borough of Greenwich. The Group were impressed by the quality of the development, which is bound to win lots of design awards. Thanks to John Anderson, Chairman of the Berkeley Group region leading the development, we also learned a lot about the underlying principles needed to make new housing viable in the current economic circumstances.
The briefing paper and report of the visit are available to view or download to the right of this text.
The TEN Group’s fifth meeting of series nine, on Friday 8th February 2013, focussed on the value that investment in the public realm can play in regenerating a poor area, and how to link public and private investment. We were fortunate to walk around Dalston with Patrick Hammill, former Director of Urban Renewal at Levitt Bernstein, who have been involved with a number of major projects such as the new housing at Holly Street, and in whose offices we met. We also had discussions with locals involved in ‘meanwhile’ uses in the area, such as Dalston Eastern Curve Garden, The Farmshop Dalston and we walked past the Ashwin Street workspaces run by Bootstrap Company. The issues we explored concern how you assess success, the process of regeneration, the value of different types of public space and art, and the impact that improved connectivity can have on an area, and its integration with the rest of the city. The briefing pack provided some valuable information on the extensive community engagement that has taken place in designing new spaces, and we also drew on a visit to Barratt’s marketing suite at Dalston Square.
A full report of the event will be available on the website shortly.
Dalston Peace Mural, 1985
The Dalston Eastern Curve Garden reuses an old railway line
Living Suburbs - Delegate brief.pdf, Living Suburbs - Reading.pdf, Living Suburbs - Report FINAL.pdfBritain has long been the land of the railway and the car, with a deeply entrenched attitude that cycling is for either the poor or the fanatically fit. How much more liveable would London’s suburbs be if cycling were mainstream, as it is in Scandinavia and the Netherlands? In Copenhagen 36% of trips to work are now by bike compared to 5% in London. The modal shift in behaviour achieved by the city took 30 years. Copenhagen may be small but it is can teach us valuable lessons. If we are to turn London’s main roads into living streets, we have to change our attitudes to cycling.
In this free symposium a series of speakers, including Danish representatives, will share their experience with practitioners and policy makers in London and a number of workshops will compare approaches, and agree what action needs to be taken. You will be receive an email from URBED regarding the available workshops after registering for the event.
The event is organised by Ealing Council along with URBED and the TEN Group with support from NLA. Ealing, “Queen of the suburbs” is already undertaking work to change behaviour among ordinary people and become more like a European city. URBED has many years experience aiding organisations in ‘looking and learning’ and has visited a number of European cities on tour. The symposium follows a TEN Group event ‘Learning from Scandinavia’ of October 2011 which showed how Copenhagen was transforming routes into the City.
There will be plenty of bicycle parking provided by cycle hoop out the front of the Building Centre so please feel free to arrive on your bike.
On Wednesday 28 November 2012 the TEN Group met at The Building Centre board room at 6pm and discussed lessons from Paris. Using a power point presentation (attached) delegates summarized the various aspects of the tour to those who were unable to attend. Nicholas Falk kicked off the evening by answering, 'why to visit Paris in the first place?'. Stephen Tapper gave an over view of the two days, followed by Mark Lucas who described in detail Paris Rive Gauche and what aspects could be transferred to central London. Pat Hayes gave a detailed description of St Denis, an area that he knew well as he had spent time in prior to the study tour. David Hennings told the story of ZAC Claude Bernarde, a mixed use development bordering bouldvard peripherique in Paris Nord Est. and Nicholas Falk summed up the lessons for London.
The two recommendations which stood out the most were:
It was felt that a deeper investigation into how exactly the development agencies work and are financed is required. The group were interested in bringing over one or two key individuals from Paris who could answer these questions.
On October 26th the TEN Group were joined by planners from Norwich, Cambridge, and Peterborough, as well as London. We examined the progress in meeting zero carbon objectives at the New England Quarter in Brighton (which URBED masterplanned) and Graylingwell Park in Chichester, one of the members of the Sustainable Urban Neighbourhoods Network. The visit confirmed the importance of matching the standards and practices to the location, and of adopting appropriate parking policies.
.jpg "Graylingwell park is the sight of a former mental hospital")
FINAL_report of Paris study tour.pdfThe TEN Group’s visit to major regeneration projects in Paris on September 27, 28, uncovered a new approach to planning and financing large scale housing and employment projects. Meetings with Parisian planners and Architects revealed the importance of politicians with the ‘passion’ to create great places, and the value of sharing experience between London and Paris. The lessons will be fed back to the wider group on Wednesday 28th at 6pm at the Building Centre, Store Street, London.
TEN Group Report of Bow_10 Aug 2012.pdfThe first meeting of the ninth series took place 10 August 2012 and explored ways of upgrading Council housing estates now that large scale redevelopment schemes are increasingly unlikely to be viable, and focussed on the feasibility of refurbishing existing tower blocks. We were greatly helped by representatives of Swan Housing Association, who have transformed the old Crossways estate in Bow from what was classed as the second worst estate in the country for crime to a really attractive place to live. The masterplanning and design was undertaken by PRP, and we are really grateful to Scott Sanderson and his colleagues for putting so much time into making our visit really useful.
