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Dear
friends and supporters of BUDD
I am enclosing below the text of an email I have sent to David
Rudlin and Nick Falk from URBED - part of the New England Consortium
aiming to build a supermarket-led development (or, in their
words, a 'new urban quarter') on the Brighton Station Site.
It is a personal response to their presentation at a recent
Working Group meeting, but I am sending it out to you in order
to keep you informed and to invite your own responses and thoughts.
Therefore, if you do wish to reply, please copy what you write
both to the other addressees here and to URBED - email: BRIGHTON@urbed.co.uk
For
details about the Council Working Group, e.g. membership, please
consult the BUDD website - http://www.solarcity.co.uk/BUDD
For those of you who are not aware of the work of URBED or the
background to their involvement with Sainsbury's, the brief
notes below may be of help.
1.
URBED is a small, not for profit consultancy on urban design
issues, established in 1976 (ironically, with money from Sainsbury's!)
Śto devise imaginative solutions to the problems of regenerating
run down areas'. It produces a newsletter, SUNdial, from its
Manchester offices (this is available free by ringing 0161
226 5078 - and I recommend requesting it). Two of its directors,
David Rudlin and Nicholas Falk, recently wrote Building the
21st Century Home: the Sustainable Urban Neighbourhood (1999,
Architectural Press - again, highly recommended).
2.
Having read their book, I contacted them last year to ask
if they would be prepared to come to Brighton to talk at a
BUDD public meeting about their ideas. They declined, on the
grounds that as a small consultancy they did not have the
resources to give time to a group unable to pay them. BUDD
then also lobbied the Council to employ URBED as consultants
to conduct the proposed community consultation and draw up
a new planning brief for the site, and URBED wrote to the
Council to describe their work and what they could offer such
a process. This request was turned down and existing Council
consultants Drivers Jonas were employed instead.
3.
Subsequently, the New England Consortium engaged URBED's services.
The NEC includes JS Developments (the development arm of Sainsbury's),
Railtrack, Gleeson City Living (housing), project manager
QED (headed by Chris Gilbert), with Rapleys (represented by
Shirley Karat) as retail consultants. The last two-named were
involved in the previous Sainsbury's superstore proposal and
the Public Inquiry. David Rudlin and Nick Falk met with representatives
of BUDD before beginning work, in September 1999, and asked
us whether we felt their involvement with Sainsbury's was
ethical and valid. (We suggested not!). They argued that in
exchange for the supermarket, the community would gain a number
of important benefits on the rest of the site, and went ahead.
At the Community Planning Event in October 1999, Sainsbury's
presented a scheme of which many of you will be aware. To
URBED's seeming surprise and dismay, it was not popular with
those who attended the event.
4.
At the present moment, Railtrack are still contractually obliged
to sell the site to the NEC if it can get planning permission
for its ideas. At the second Working Group meeting, on 18th
Jan., URBED, Chris Gilbert and Shirley Karat presented an
amended scheme. They emphasised that it was a draft, and invited
the WG to negotiate on aspects of it - but not, of course,
the centrepiece of the supermarket (25,000 sq. ft.) and car
park of 'about' 200 places.
In
fairness to URBED, they contend that they are simply accepting
the reality that a supermarket is the most likely development
on the site, and that their input means that it is better overall
than it would otherwise be. One issue for BUDD is the extent
to which we should accept their argument that the progressive
development proposals they have are a fair exchange for a supermarket,
and I invite your responses to that. (To find out more about
them, please come to the meeting on the 27th Jan (details in
previous email), or look at the BUDD website in the future).
Another
issue is how far BUDD's stance of opposition to Sainsbury's
is undermined by its failure to put together a viable alternative
development proposal, that is worked out, costed and backed
rather than just a utopian wish-list. Again, I invite comments
on this. (My own view is that these accusations - made by many
including the Council and URBED themselves - somewhat overestimate
the energy and ability of community groups to resource such
a move, desirable as it might be. Coin Street Community Builders,
who spoke at a BUDD meeting last June, achieved what they did
because the GLC in the early 80s backed their then small community
group with Council architects and office space / facilities
- none of which is forthcoming from our own Brighton and Hove
Council).
However,
we DO have a chance to influence the recommendations that are
made by the Working Group, which could potentially rule out
a supermarket development (for instance, by focusing on the
traffic issue). At the moment, it seems that Railtrack is asking
the WG to write the Planning Brief around the JS proposal.
The
issue on which I focused in my email, however, is URBED's attitude
to the views of local people, especially their opposition to
a large retail-led development so clearly expressed at the Community
Planning EventŠ Hope to hear from you with reactions!
Sara Bragg
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Dear
David and Nick
I'm
writing to follow up your presentation of the new Brighton Station
Site development proposal at the Council Working Group meeting
last week.
I
am really focusing, here, on the comments you made about BUDD
and local opinion, rather than on the details of the scheme.
This is a personal response (at the meeting I was in minute-taker
role and not allowed to speak). However, I will copy this to
some BUDD supporters who are on email, and forward to them any
reply you send, as well as making both available on our website,
in order to facilitate exchange of thoughts and opinions.
I
thought that you sounded quite defensive about URBED's role
in working with Sainsbury's, but that rather than address the
concerns people do have, you are telling yourself some consoling
fictions. Amongst these fictions are:
1. BUDD is so entrenched in being oppositional that
it can't bring itself to compromise or to acknowledge the
good elements in the URBED scheme (this seemed to be your
view, David).
This
is not the case at all. For me personally, the best aspects
of the Community Planning Event (CPE) in October were moments
when there seemed to be genuine dialogue, a shifting of position,
people working out points for compromise and negotiation. It's
true that these were only glimpsed at the event. I had hoped
that the Council Working Group would extend this process and
make it transparent. This is why we argued for it to be open
to the public, so that there could be accountable, collective
debate about priorities, grey areas and bottom lines. I thought
such a process could really achieve something consensus, perhaps,
and certainly a deeper public understanding of the many factors
shaping development. Learning new things and challenging myself
is part of the pleasure of being involved with BUDD. And remember,
I read your book in order to move forward in my thinking (as
have other BUDD supporters).
BUDD
has NEVER been based solely on opposition to a supermarket scheme.
It was founded on a desire to cherish, celebrate and uphold
something important that Brighton offers. This is why it was
called Brighton Urban Design and Development from the beginning,
not 'Stop the Store'.
This brings me on to your next fiction:
2.
At the CPE there was no discussion about what constitutes
sustainability, in the sense of how we can build places that
last (Nick's point, with the implication that this is why
local people don't really understand the issues).
Again,
this is not the case at all. The discussion was absolutely implicit,
even if not invited by the organisers. Many of us feel we are
privileged to be living in a thriving example of a vibrant,
enduring, urban neighbourhood. People at the CPE were identifying
what they saw as the positive aspects of sustainable urban living
(including so many of the features your yourself describe in
your book), asking for more of those and fewer of the factors
that make it less attractive and a struggle.
To
remind you about what those were, I'm enclosing Planning Officer
Nigel Green's commentary on 'preferred uses' for the site.
You
may say we're wrong. That we romanticise the quirkiness of the
North Laine without acknowledging our / its reliance on more
mainstream commercial centres. That we're naďve for not recognising
the value multi-national conglomerates could bring to our lives.
But
at least talk to us to persuade us of that. The CPE was in effect
our opening gambit in a conversation about urban sustainability.
Can't you reply rather than patronise and dismiss us? If you
can't talk to us, when we seem to have so much in common, to
whom WILL you be able to?
3.
'Community leaders' don't agree with the findings of the CPE
anyway - it wasn't representative.
I
just want to say that I found this comment of Nick's very disappointing.
You seem prepared to dismiss grassroots opinion when it doesn't
suit you, and cite instead the words of Ścommunity leaders'
(who they I wonder?) who nonetheless couldn't get off their
arses to turn up to the event. Don't pick and choose whom you
talk to just to make yourselves feel better.
Since
early 1997, BUDD has talked to thousands of people on our campaign
stall and at public meetings, about what they do and don't want
for the site. I believe we owe it to them to represent the views
they have put forward.
The
fundamental messages that emerged from that process, as from
the CPE, were: 'we don't need another supermarket', Śwe want
to enhance the London Road and North Laine', Śwe want something
imaginative and innovative' and Śwe don't want a traffic generator'.
Don't underestimate the importance of the last point. It was
amusing to hear your new colleagues in the New England Consortium
struggling to master the urban sustainability rap you have taught
them (that Śmodern jargon' as Chris Gilbert so revealingly called
it). It raised a question for me: is this really evidence of
change from within, or you providing the sheep's clothing for
the wolf? Because Shirley Karat was actually at her most eloquent
when she said that Sainsbury's would never move into Somerfield's
because it doesn't have a big enough car park, and that the
new store would compete with what out of town stores offer,
especially parking. In other words, this is a traffic-based
scheme.
You
don't live in the area. You had never visited the London Road
before you started work for Sainsbury's. You don't get choked
by fumes from the 5 o'clock tailbacks in New England Street,
or run into by cars driving onto the pavement to get along Trafalgar
Street a millisecond quicker. You are not blockaded in your
house at the weekend by cars parked on the pavement outside
your front door, do not compete daily with visitors to find
a parking space for your own car (I believe some residents do
have them!). OF COURSE we understand the argument that car journeys
and thus pollution overall might be reduced by an in-town store.
Our concerns are specific to the North Laine, which was built
in the last century, and never designed for traffic. If a development
brings new visitors into the area by car, if the 200+ car park
is full, where will they go?
These
are real questions and any dialogue must address them. You haven't
done so yet: can you?
But
participants in any dialogue always speak from particular places,
and of course yours is with Sainsbury's. What would you tell
us if you were not being paid by them, I wonder?
Ultimately,
we need to ask other questions, for ourselves:
•
What other value generators could be found, that might meet
community aspirations better than a supermarket and yet still
be acceptable to Railtrack?
•
What trade-offs should there be: would we actually prefer
a less Śhigh quality' development, but that generates less
traffic?
• What guarantee is there that any of the urban design
features you have put into the plans (and no one is doubting
your expertise, skill and creativity there) would ever be
implemented? JS Developments didn't come to the meeting
with you; how are we to know whether they are committed to
anything beyond their own profit? How do we know they won't
do what supermarkets up and down the country have done, and
apply for an extension to the store and the car park three
years down the line? Or buy up neighbouring shops to expand
(as reported in the Observer recently)?
• To what extent does URBED's involvement with Sainsbury's
simply make it more likely that a supermarket proposal will
be accepted by the Council and Planning Inspectorate, and
therefore actively undermine local desires to work towards
a different kind of development?
There is a huge difference between deciding for ourselves that
a supermarket (and its associated traffic and effects on the
local economy) would be a reasonable sacrifice to make, and
having it foisted on us by people who tell us that we don't
know what's good for us and don't grasp economic realities as
well as they do.
The
vital importance of public understanding, education and involvement
in the development process was one of the points stressed in
your book. Can you, then, realise and act on your own vision?
Sara
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