Sleeping Giants of the Thames Gateway (and other places)

Some years ago I was working with an Asian business network in London who were asked by the Mayor of London's Office to organise some consultation meetings on regeneration issues for the Thames Gateway area. The Mayor's Office later withdrew their support.

My client and I duly met in a Woolwich café to discuss these meetings. Our conversation was overheard by a youngish man who obviously had strong feelings about some of the things going on locally under in the name of “regeneration”. He called the situation “a sleeping giant”. By this he meant that when local people understood that regeneration might not be in their best interests, there would be trouble.

Opposition by communities and individuals to compulsory purchase orders to facilitate larges scale demolition programmes (involving homes and businesses) and the construction of road schemes, is now being felt throughout the country. In London, these programmes are substantially linked to the 2012 Olympics, and elsewhere to initiatives like the Pathfinder Scheme.

More effective public consultation by the likes of the London Development Agency and English Partnerships (of whom I shall have a lot more to say), may well have alerted politicians and officials to the problems inherent in a “comprehensive re-development” approach to area regeneration.

Once again, and as my next blog shows, it seems Liverpool is a city that has dared to fight nationally imposed policy, albeit at the community rather than local government level. Moreover, on this occasion the community has won, and set a precedent for other areas.