Richard Wilson and Alice Casey of the participation thinktank Involve have hit the nail on the head in their article in The Guardian about government outsourcing of consultation and community engagement. Their argument: …government consultations, citizens’ juries and e-democracy are very often delivered by external contractors… The problem is when you outsource democratic services, online […]
Archive | December, 2008
revitalising Paisley town centre
Throughout 2008 I’ve been doing work in Paisley town centre for Renfrewshire Council, with colleagues Ewan Imrie of Collective Architecture, Willie Miller of Willie Miller Urban Design and Alan Edgar of J & E Shepherd surveyors. The aims of the work have been to research the use and condition of upper floor properties in the […]
Anna Minton “Ground Control”
Anna Minton’s new book Ground Control: fear and happiness in the 21st century city makes a convincing case that planning and housing policies have, perhaps inadvertently, made British cities increasingly distrustful and alienating environments over the last thirty years. One of her main theses is that an excessive policy focus on individual property and privacy […]
collaborative masterplanning | a new ecoquarter in West London
A 19 hectare brownfield site in the heart of West London, and a client with ambitious aspirations for an exemplar development: this kind of opportunity doesn’t come up very often. This study for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in Kensal did indeed have lofty ambitions. The brief was to assess the feasibility of […]