When I first heard of the Scottish Government’s proposed research into barriers to engagement in planning, I expected the barriers would relate to access to information, too much jargon, and outmoded communications channels like statutory notices.

How wrong I was! As part of the team with Yellow Book and the Scottish Community Development Centre appointed to do the research, I quickly discovered that these and similar points – important though they are – are really second-order issues.

The research revealed that of far more importance to people in local communities who engage with planning is something far more fundamental: a lack of trust.

In an online research survey with over 1,600 responses, a staggering 86% of community/civil society respondents disagreed with the statement “there is mutual trust, respect and confidence between the players”. The proportion of professional respondents who disagreed, 83%, was scarcely any lower.

Trust of developers, trust of professionals, trust of local authorities – all appear to be in short supply. Maybe it’s symptomatic of the wider malaise afflicting governance and politics in these days of Brexit and Trump.  Whatever the cause: the clear message from the research was that, unless trust is (re-)built, fixing the second-order issues will be as effective as the proverbial finger in the dyke.

A healthy crowd of BEFS members and other interested folk got together on 1 August to find out more about the research findings, and consider whether the engagement proposals outlined in the Scottish Government’s recent Position Statement on the Planning Review would overcome the barriers identified in the research.

There isn’t space here to go into the detail of the barriers research and its findings.  You can get the report online here or view a summary in the 1 August presentation here.

The question posed on 1 August was: will the proposals in the Scottish Government’s Position Statement on planning reform successfully overcome the barriers to engagement?

We discussed three key areas that emerged from the research findings. Below, I have summarised proposals from the Position Statement that relate to each area; please note that the Position Statement did not, however, respond to the barriers research, these are purely my attempts to make connections.

Firstly, what’s the purpose of engagement? (information, consultation or empowerment?) How much engagement should there be? Where should it end?

On these questions, the Position Statement suggests that the proposed new Local Place Plans should be consistent with Local Development Plans, that community and spatial planning should be aligned, that young people should be more involved, and that there should be consideration of how to shift from consultation to empowerment.

But what of other seldom-heard groups of society beyond young people? And how can we better link planning into the community empowerment and community planning agendas?

A second area of the research findings related to the complexity of planning, and the inevitability of tensions. On these issues, the Position Statement urges involving people earlier in the process and production of guidance on rights and responsibilities.

Will these be enough to restore trust? What about people who haven’t been involved earlier in the process (newcomers to an area, for example), especially with a ten yearly Local Development Plan review? And is guidance enough to ensure that everyone – professionals, developers and the public – behave responsibly?

Finally, in relation to the lack of trust and transparency that was identified in the research, the Position Statement proposes amendments to Pre Application Consultation, removal of applicants’ “free go” after a refusal or appeal dismissal, stronger enforcement and training for professionals.

All these proposals from the Position Statement are very important but, fundamentally, will they be enough to tackle the mistrust in our system that seems to be endemic?

We will have more clues on that when the final proposals are published later this year. My hope is that the government doesn’t rely on legislation to build trust; I believe it will need a much more concerted package of action and resources, as we learned from the importance of the ‘culture change’ proposals during the last round of reforms in 2006.

Nick Wright, Nick Wright Planning

nick@nickwrightplanning.co.uk

Built Environment Forum Scotland’s joint screening of Paul Sng’s film ‘Dispossession – the Great Social Housing Swindle’ with Tower Block UK was relevant, topical and added to by  a lively and interesting debate at the Screening Room in George Square on 26 July.

Sng’s previous film, ‘Sleaford Mods – Invisible Britain’ was a documentary that captured the story of the band mentioned in the title against the background of the 2015 General Election. Dispossession is another documentary in the style of ‘someone who tells the stories of people who challenge the status quo.’ And a good story it was too.

Paul Sng himself was present to take part in a debate after the screening chaired by BEFS Director, Euan Leitch, which comprised Tom Slater from Edinburgh University’s School of Geosciences, Edinburgh Tenants Federation (ETF) Chair Betty Stevenson and ETF Executive Committee member Heather Ford.

The debate was perhaps less focused on the film and more on Edinburgh’s housing situation. Stevenson and Ford between them combining years of social housing tenants’ activism, answered questions about how Edinburgh Council responded to poor housing situations they had experienced. Stevenson did, however, provide useful insight into the demolition of the Red Road flats in Glasgow, which featured in the film, with residents from the flats interviewed saying the communities in Red Road were destroyed by the demolition. Stevenson had met with residents of the flats herself and said that many people she spoke to were desperate to move; there was a significant amount of people affected by stress and mental health issues from living in the blocks  and overall Stevenson’s message was people in communities have to work together with officialdom to improve communities; regeneration isn’t just about blowing down and then building up again, in a people as well as a physical sense.

In fact, this was the main theme of the film: communities from Bath, Glasgow, Nottingham and the high rise blocks in the London areas of Lambeth, Southwark and Tower Hamlets showed the corporate machinations that were preventing local people from remaining in the areas they lived and loved in, captured beautifully in the images and interviews shown in the film. The story is best viewed to form your own conclusions on how bad the situation is in the areas featured in the film, whether you blame it on ‘market forces’, the demise of local government house building programmes or just the predatory greed of large development corporations to acquire land to generate more profits for their shareholders.

If you haven’t seen it, the opportunity for that should be forthcoming again soon in Edinburgh with a showing due at the Cameo in September and in local community centres (part funded by Unite the Trade Union), hopefully giving more people the chance to view a film that could do for social housing what Ken Loach’s ‘I, Daniel Blake’ did for the Welfare Benefits system. Try and catch it if you can.

The lack of time prevented perhaps a more detailed discussion on Edinburgh’s housing situation, where the huge land values and the need for a  greater programme of new build affordable housing might have led to more insights from the body of politicians, academics, students and community activists who attended, but overall well done to those who organised it and especially to Paul Sng for a timely film that, on the back of the Grenfell tragedy, reminds people that housing is for people to live in, not for rich people to invest their money in.

Harry Woodward

Paul Sng’s documentary, Dispossession: The Great Social Housing Swindle, is profoundly affecting, and I recommend that anybody working in the ‘built environment’ finds a way to watch it. Every now and then it is important to be reminded what that ‘built environment’ moniker really means – places, for all of us to live in.

Dispossession briefly charts the history of social housing in the UK, from the response to slum overcrowding in the mid-20^th century, to the Right to Buy and the more recent regeneration of social housing. For me though the linchpin on which this story turns is the accompanying rise and fall in the aspiration associated with council housing.

The rolling out of social housing across the UK in the mid-20^th century was met by wide-spread aspiration to have the opportunity to live in not just a new, modern home, but an affordable one with security of tenure. Was the Right to Buy, which was introduced in the form we know it in 1979, just an extension and individualisation of this security of tenure? Whether or not we see it that way, the Right to Buy subsumed the earlier aspiration associated with a council house, and consolidated the now taken as given British aspiration to own your own home.  But Sng’s film, more than just charting the decline in social housing as a consequence of changing times, gives a raw account of how people who live in social housing have been demonised by some. What used to be a mainstream housing tenure in a market where the average housing cost is not affordable on an average income, has in the popular imagination been transformed into the destination of last resort.

Dispossession gives a voice to the ‘ordinary’ people from many walks of life who live in what remains of the UK’s social housing stock, primarily in London, but also in Glasgow and Nottingham, and allows them to counter the cartoon negative and moralistic portrayal of social tenants that too often pervades in the media. Their stories are varied, but with a common thread – secure housing offered a place to raise a family, a place to build a settled life, or a place to be part of a warm and thriving community. In all cases, the way that housing has been managed, whether in terms of maintenance, redevelopment or even demolition, left its residents feeling disenfranchised and ignored.

The documentary provoked many questions from me. Stories from three very different cities are told without exploring the different underlying forces bringing about change in those places. There was also an absence of voices of those who might feel they are impacted positively by current decision-making, and therefore stories from which we could begin to see which direction we should be travelling in. Experience tells me that these stories are out there.

Nonetheless, I don’t think that mapping the complex solutions we need is the purpose of this film. Rather its value lies in its impossible to ignore documentation of the human cost of our societal failure to value decent housing for all. We won’t find a structural solution until we listen to, and understand, that human cost.

Planning and planners are increasingly aware that we must give higher priority to more meaningful community engagement, and with a wider spectrum of people. This film channels the voices of people affected by the kind of decisions planners make, and therefore inevitably makes for uncomfortable viewing for a planner at times. It is a timely reminder that sincere community engagement is tough. It means hearing things that we don’t always want to hear, and being prepared to really listen to different views and experiences. One contributor to Dispossession speaks of his warm affection for the Red Road Flats: It’s all too easy to dismiss this unconventional view. But, to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, we have to be willing to listen and see our preconceptions challenged.

Thanks to BEFS and the Tower Block project at University of Edinburgh for the opportunity to view Dispossession in Edinburgh before the film’s commercial screenings in the city and in Glasgow later in the year.

Sir Patrick Geddes (1854-1932) was a pioneer of the environmental movement and one of the greatest social thinkers of his time. His fascination with the organisation of human societies and their spatial manifestation in the city and country led him to develop a highly individualistic theory of societies and cities. Geddes was a strong advocate of town planning and is perhaps most famous for introducing the concept of “region” to planning and architecture.

In October 2016, the Centre for Research Collections at the University of Edinburgh and the Archives and Special Collections at the University of Strathclyde commenced their collaborative, Wellcome Trust Research Resources-funded, project ‘Evergreen: Patrick Geddes and the Environment in Equilibrium’. This is a two-year project which aims to preserve, conserve, catalogue and virtually reunite two collections of papers of Sir Patrick Geddes held in both institutions.

The project seeks to create a complete catalogue of the collections, enhancing the existing, inadequate catalogues; create an online scalable resource virtually reuniting the collections; undertake a robust preservation and conservation programme, repacking all collections in archival packaging with all significantly damaged items conserved to ensure the long-term preservation of both collections; digitise a small selection of items and make the collections ‘digitisation-ready’; and develop a virtual community and active network of researchers with an interest in Geddes and to engage researchers with the collections.

The collections, which are actually two parts of an original whole, separated by historical accident, are of international significance. Combined, the collections contain over 4000 plans, over 1400 photographic items and in the region of 175000 other items, comprised of papers, notebooks, and correspondence, amongst much more. The collections content ranges from his Cities and Town Planning Exhibitions; The Survey of Edinburgh; his work in India and Israel; his summer schools to his fascinating correspondence with countless networks of contemporaries. The prolific mass and polymathic nature of the collections reflect Geddes’s energy, ideas, relationships and working, and vividly document the development of all Geddes’s theories.

“A preliminary Enquiry, A City Survey, is essential to adequate Town Extension Planning, and still more to City Improvement and Development upon any considerable scale.” (Patrick Geddes, ‘Cities in Evolution’, 1949).

(University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections. Coll-1167 – A1.13 – The Valley Section and its social types: in their native habitat and in their parallel urban manifestations).

Project progress to date has seen the retro-conversion of over 750 legacy printed catalogue descriptions to electronic format. An extensive stock-take of the Edinburgh University collections has now been completed with material having now been identified, accounted for and catalogue numbers applied and locations information recorded accordingly. Over 11,000 catalogue descriptions have now been assessed and a programme of re-cataloguing commenced. This work will facilitate enormous steps forward in improving access to the collections and subsequently, the sharing and investigation of Geddes’s ideas.

The next stage in the project will be for the University of Edinburgh’s Library Digital Development team to generate some possible options for the online resource technical infrastructure. The peculiar systems, the legacy cataloguing styles and their inconsistencies, and by their very polymathic and disparate nature – the collections themselves – will present some interesting cataloguing challenges to overcome. We will require professional and innovative solutions, and perhaps even a Geddesian approach: ‘Vivendo Discimus – By Living we Learn: By Creating We Think’.

The project archivist has been engaging with over 30 key stakeholders and later in the project there will be a number of exciting opportunities for individuals/ groups to engage in more depth with the project and the collections. Previous newsletters can be found on our project blog (soon to be updated), and you can also follow us on Twitter @GeddesEvergreen. If you would like to receive our quarterly newsletter please contact the project archivist, Elaine MacGillivray – elaine.macgillivray@ed.ac.uk.

Edinburgh’s North Bridge finally opened in 1772 after a challenging construction process. Its completion enabled the fields to the north to be developed into what became the new town. 18^th century Edinburgh, just as it is today, was bursting at the seams, and required new infrastructure to open up available land for housing.

But there is one major difference between the way in which the new town was developed compared to how we do things today, and that it is who benefits from the uplift in land values. Prior to the construction of the north bridge, there was little demand for housing on the fields north of the city due to the lack of connectivity to the jobs in the old town. In today’s money, the value of this land would have been worth around £18,000 per hectare. But as soon as infrastructure is put in, the demand for housing in a connected area will rocket, sending residential land prices soaring to as high as £4 million per hectare.

In the 18^th century, landowners generally benefitted from the productive work of others through their monopoly of land ownership. This greatly frustrated Adam Smith, who in the Wealth of Nations complained that landowners were a major barrier to capital accumulation and wealth creation. Indeed, the issue of free riding was so pervasive that King James VII of Scotland, when he was the resident royal commissioner of Holyrood a hundred years earlier, awarded the city a grant. The grant stated that when Edinburgh should have occasion to enlarge the city by including the building of bridges, the proprietors of lands benefitting from the enlargement are obliged to part with the land on reasonable terms.

In essence, instead of having to buy the land at £4 million a hectare to build houses, they were able to acquire it at levels much closer to £18,000 per hectare. This issue lies at the core of the housing crisis across the country today. Britain needs to invest in infrastructure to open up new areas of land for housing to increase supply. This investment generally needs to be financed by government, but it is expensive. In most other European and Asian countries, the uplift in land values is captured by the local municipality to finance the infrastructure. But things are different in England and Scotland where it is the landowner who benefits instead.

But we as a society must ask ourselves whether it is right to continue to reward landowners for doing nothing, while foregoing the precious funds the country needs to finance infrastructure to enable families to live somewhere called home? Research by the Centre for Progressive Capitalism shows that over the next 20 years a handful of landowners and investors will make more than £8.5bn in windfall profits just by owning land in the Edinburgh City Region. These massive windfall profits of course have a downside. Shelter estimates in Scotland alone there are over 10,000 households in temporary accommodation including over 5000 children. Furthermore, homeless applications are over 34,000.

But the housing crisis is increasingly impacting households with good jobs too. It would take a household earning £36,000 nine years saving 10% of their net income for a 20% deposit on an average one-bedroom flat in Edinburgh.

Both Scotland and England are currently going through policy consultations in an attempt to try and resolve this issue. The English housing white paper referenced that it is looking at land value capture as a way to finance infrastructure to open up new areas of land for housing. The Scottish government is also focused on how infrastructure might be financed to open up land for housing.

But neither administration has yet demonstrated it is willing to tackle the underlying issue which is that the Land Compensation Acts (1961 in England and 1963 in Scotland) require landowners to be compensated for land as though it had planning permission. This impacts the land market and ensures that landowners pocket most of the increase. However, both Acts can easily be amended so that no account of any prospective planning permission in land designated by a city region for infrastructure including housing is taken into account.

One of the last politicians to attempt to change this was Winston Churchill, who following Adam Smith, argued that it was unjust for landowners to pocket what was essentially unearned income. Both the Westminster and Holyrood Parliaments need to debate this issue and come to a conclusion whether it is right that landowners should continue to pocket such large sums of money for doing nothing. Our failure to learn from Adam Smith and Winston Churchill will only mean that the housing crisis will get worse.

Read the full report ‘Financing local infrastructure using land value capture – Potential levels of investment for the Edinburgh City Region‘.

At a recent members’ business debate in the Scottish Parliament, the topic of heritage and environmental conservation charities’ support for outdoor learning was raised and discussed with a particular emphasis on the natural environment, but of course we all know that the natural environment has been shaped by people both past and present.  Archaeology Scotland has over twenty years’ experience offering archaeology and place-based learning and our Heritage Hero project (which ran from 2012 to 2015 with funding from Heritage Lottery Fund, Paul Hamlyn Foundation and the LEADER programme) established a successful framework for delivering outdoor archaeological learning.  With over 900 pupils from South Lanarkshire and Scottish Borders participating in the project, it aimed to support the transition process from Primary 7 to Secondary 1 and instil an interest in using archaeological approaches to exploring and recording local sites including historic graveyards and a former WWI Prisoner of War Camp.

Richard Lochhead MSP said during the Parliamentary debate that “Outdoor education is the future of education in Scotland. We have to give it a central role in increasing attainment and promoting health and wellbeing—mental and physical—as other members have said” and he cited recent research by Dr Beth Christie from the Outdoor & Environmental Education Section of Moray House School of Education about the “need to develop an empathy and ethic of care towards the environment”[1].

Scotland’s rich cultural heritage offers boundless opportunities for outdoor learning.  Providing young people with opportunities to engage directly our historic environment helps with the development of critical thinking skills through exploring evidence of past cultures and making links to how we live today. These place-based learning experiences allow learners to look at familiar spaces and places in new ways, encouraging young minds to explore landscapes and empathise with people in the past.  Archaeology has the additional benefit of promoting cross-curricular learning – the mix of skills required in the investigation of archaeological remains helps make links between different subject areas (social sciences, literacy, sciences, mathematics, technologies and expressive arts).  This is in addition to the health and wellbeing aspects of working outdoors. It also encourages a sense of stewardship, helping safeguard Scotland’s heritage for future generations and hopefully doing something positive towards developing empathy and ethic of care.

We have created the Heritage Hero Awards which are available to young people throughout Scotland at no cost to them.   All young people achieving a Heritage Hero Award have to actively engage with heritage and most groups choose to look at historic sites and buildings in their locality.  This has ranged from exploring a local high street to investigating a nearby hillfort.  Young people have been involved in activities including excavating their local graveyard in Dunfermline; mapping the industrial heritage of their local canals in Inverness, Falkirk, Edinburgh and Glasgow; researching the changing functions of buildings in their local area through photography in Inverclyde; and planning and delivering activities at a castle carnival in Ardrossan.  The Awards have been used by heritage organisations, primary and secondary schools, community groups and youth groups.  Some groups are now using the Awards alongside other important outdoor learning focused awards, including the John Muir Awards and Duke of Edinburgh Awards.  Projects have been completed in 12 of Scotland’s local authorities with 965 people currently recipients of a Heritage Hero Award and applications continuing to come in from across the country.

As part of Scotland’s Archaeology Strategy, we are planning on working with the Outdoor Woodland Learning network to encourage greater use of archaeology and heritage by educators and developing programmes of work to support young people learning through visiting sites in the care of NTS, HES and others such as the Historic Houses Association. We have also been talking to Learning Away about their “Brilliant Residentials” campaign and would support a call for schools to allocate pupil equity funds to residential experiences and visits to historical sites and building in Scotland. This attainment funding is allocated to head teachers and they can decide how to spend it.

As Beth Christie’s research says, “ultimately behaviour change stems from a connection to a place; in other words young people will make the effort to love and care for something that they are positively connected to.”

Eila Macqueen, Director of Archaeology Scotland

May 2017

[1] Christie, B. (2012). The impact of outdoor learning experiences on attitudes to sustainability: a brief review of literature. Field Studies Council/University of Edinburgh. Field Studies Council Report 06/2012.

I’m David McAllister, managing Director of Craigerne Consulting Limited, based in Peebles in the Scottish Borders. I have set up this new business following a period of sixteen successful years in various roles with the National Trust for Scotland. I’m a highly experienced professional with a total of over 30 years in the Heritage sector focussed on Conservation and Operational management and skilled in the planning and delivery of successful, award winning heritage projects. I am now taking opportunities to bring my expertise to a wider and more diversified Client base.

I have a deep passion for our entire heritage and have well developed understanding of all the complexities, opportunities and constraints that are always the fundamental elements of Heritage, Conservation and Cultural projects. Also, with over 7 years as a member of the NTS Senior Management Team I have the experience of managing an extensive portfolio of highly significant heritage assets in a climate of considerable change.

I believe his combination of experience makes me a considerable asset for the planning and execution of successful projects in the Heritage, Conservation and Cultural Sectors.

See more about the services I offer on my website: www.craigerne-consulting.com

Current Activity

I’m currently working on a Visitor Improvement Plan for the Bo’ness Motor Museum. This is focusing on the wonderfully unique and at times quirky collection of 20^th century cars and associated memorabilia the museum has collected over the years, many associated with film and television – so all very much recent cultural heritage here! The James Bond collection is particularly noteworthy as is the Harry Potter Ford Anglia. The work involves setting out short, medium and longer-term actions for the team to implement that will boost visitor numbers and improve visitor experience.

We are also exploring a new website and expanding on social media content to promote collections, activities and engage with new audiences.

Hospitalfield Arts, Arbroath

As a Trustee and Chair of the Development Committee at Hospitalfield for the ambitious Future Plan it is an exciting time with our Stage 2 HLF application in for approval hopefully later in the year. It is an ongoing pleasure to be involved in such a worthwhile and vibrant project!

Project Funding approval from Creative Scotland is expected soon and we are one of the key capital projects included in the Tay Cities Deal proposals currently under consideration.

Phase 1 of the project includes a new residential block by Stirling Prize winners Caruso St John, the restoration of the old Glasshouse and Fernery, bringing these back into public use. The latest addition to the scheme is the exciting proposal for the garden by Nigel Dunnet, which we are delighted with and we believe, will bring new audiences to Hospitalfield for the first time. Hospitalfield is dedicated to contemporary art and ideas a place to work, study, learn, visit and enjoy.

See more at: http://hospitalfield.org.uk/about/future-plan/

Two Cities

I have been fortunate to visit two World Heritage Cities in recent weeks, Bologna and Hamburg. This is the reason I was unable to attend the Financing the Historic Environment conference in Glasgow, which I’m sad to have missed as it looks to have been a great success with insightful presentations and discussions. Hopefully next year I will be better organised.

Here are some impressions from Bologna, a truly inspiring city that don’t need more words to describe. Make a point of visiting if you have not been before, ther is wonderful artwork everywhere you look!

Hamburg is also well worth the visit, particularly to see the outstanding conservation/transformation underway in the Halfencity district, but for the purposes of this blog I wanted to focus on just one building. The Elbphilharmonie by Herzog & De Meuron  -arguably a building that is redefining a city.

Not without controversy (the cost overrun puts the Scottish Parliament in the shade and is still a very hot topic in the city). This is an astonishing, awe inspiring building all the more remarkable in that it is an adaptation and extension (and what an extension) of an original brick warehouse in the heart of the old docks.

Hamburg now has an unmistakable new landmark on the city skyline.

The guidebook talks of its silhouette as a …’symbol of Germany as a nation of culture. A symphony of beauty, an ode to the future’ I don’t disagree.

Finally a plug for a couple of upcoming events focused on Grandison & Son Decorative Plasterers– one of the last remaining plastering workshops in Scotland, and how their wonderful collection of moulds and casts will be at risk once the current proprietor retires in around 10 years’ time. Over the past few months a small group of us have been working on ways of securing the future of this unique business and plasterwork museum based in Peebles and with the grateful assistance of Live Borders are happy to announce two upcoming events planned to increase awareness of the collection, which we hope one day will be recognised as a collection of national significance in its own right.