Local Development Framework - Draft Core Strategy [Sections 5, 6 and 7]

Lambeth council recently released a draft version of its "Core Strategy", which is the most important document contained in the "Local Development Framework". The entire document is 116 pages long, although the Council welcome comments. I've been sifting through it over the past few days have and produced a cut-down version, mostly just summarising what was written. I've not changed their wording much, but have shortened and simplified because it contains some interesting ideas for the Borough.

I've used the document headings where possible, but have not summarised every section as it's a highly repetitive document.The terms in purple are the "key" definitions.
The insightful comments in red are my comments. Due to length of the document, I've split my summaries into separate blog posts.

Section 5 – Spatial Planning Issues

In order to achieve sustainable development over next 15-20 yrs, the Core Strategy must address 6 key issues:

1. Accommodating population growth (p24)

According to the mayor’s London Plan, Lambeth must find space for additional 1100 homes every year until 2016/2017. This target has been exceeded for the three yrs since 2005/6. Demand will come as Lambeth children grow up, existing households break into smaller units, and adults/families migrate to the borough to find work and a place to live. Affordability is a struggle in Lambeth where entry level price for housing is high compared with household income. Lambeth’s essential public services find it hard to retain key workers because they can’t afford to live close to whether they work. Lambeth need to identify an additional four pitches for gypsies and travellers in Lambeth.

2. Achieving economic prosperity and opportunity for all (p26)

Lambeth is prosperous, but with pockets of extreme poverty. The poverty is in commercially vibrant areas eg. Waterloo/Brixton. Therefore skills shortages are filled by migrant labour which then increases demand for local housing, transport and services. The Core Strategy will contribute to tackling these barriers by maintaining a supply of local job opportunities. Affordability of premises is an issue for some businesses eg. creative sector and social enterprises.

Waterloo and Vauxhall present the most significant potential for commercial development and job growth in the borough, as well as potential for new housing. However, this will not happen unless the capacity of the public transport infrastructure serving these areas also grows at a sufficient rate. Major developers will be expected to help meet the cost of increasing this. (p27) [They will probably be able to tick the boxes to say that this is done if the developers of Battersea Power Station add two additional tube stations to the Northern Line, but I’m not sure whether those will fall strictly in Lambeth. I think that one of them will. It doesn’t really help anybody living towards the south of the Borough]

Lambeth’s hierarchy of town centres presents another opportunity. New shops need to be located in a way that supports, rather than undermines existing town centres. Brixton and Streatham have potential for new commercial and residential development. This will help secure their future in the face of retail and leisure expansion at Elephant and Battersea. Clapham High Street is thriving. Other high streets need careful regeneration eg. West Norwood, Stockwell [where exactly is Stockwell High Street?] and Herne Hill (p28).


3. Tacking and adapting to climate change (p29)

Most important contribution is to reduce carbon emissions by meeting needs locally, promoting alternative to the car, sustainable design of buildings, re-use of existing buildings, renewable energy, safeguarding allotments, retaining/promoting tree growth, urban greening and reducing landfill waste. [I detect a clash of goods between attempting to build the council housing stock on certain open land, versus promoting green spaces in the north of the Borough. Watch this space.] However, there will still be a need for appropriate car usage, and parking, including for those with mobility difficulties.

4. Providing essential infrastructure (physical, social and green) (p31)

It won’t be possible to achieve the significant levels of housing and economic growth set out in the Core Strategy without supporting transport infrastructure. [This point is reiterated throughout the document, but other than the proposed Northern line extension, I can't see where the investment might come from to promote this.] North/south transport is better than east/west transport and major developers in worst locations will be expected to supplement significant future public sector investment. More land is required for schools. Lambeth, particularly in the north has little open space relative to population. More open space is needed for burial sites.

Lambeth has various sites for sustainable waste management, but does not have the quantity to manage 486,000 tonnes (the prediction by 2020) (p33). [This is very interesting, and presumably all Boroughs have similar problems. I wonder what community strategies could be promoted for reducing waste.]

A general theme running through all partners’ programmes is trend towards neighbourhood based delivery so local facilities need to be increased to promote adult learning, skills training, English language tuition, employment support, child care etc. [I detect another clash of goods between promotion of "local" high street services (Brixton/Streatham) and development of large retail establishments (Elephant and Vauxhall). The document does actually mention this, but fails to outline how all of the community/retail areas are to grow co-operatively.]

5. Promoting community cohesion and safe, liveable neighbourhoods (p33)

Some communities feel their neighbourhoods lack stability and not enough households stay long enough to put down roots. [That’s probably a correct assessment if one considers that there’s a yearly churn of 20%! See previous post.] Residents in some parts of the borough feel that communities are essential to stable community and that the loss of family housing to flats is damaging that. The Core Strategy seeks to address that. Multiple social problems frequently occur on existing social housing sites and it’s difficult for those communities to make positive changes. [Unsurprisingly], some of these estates fail the “decent homes” standards. [It’s not clear whether “the decent homes standards” relate to the figure on p14 that one third of council housing is “unfit”. I suspect it doesn’t, but I’m not clear what the decent homes standards are, and since it sounds alarming, it would be useful to have this outlined.] Communities need spaces that allow informal day-to-day contact and social interaction. Lambeth has such buildings eg. youth centres, places of worship, cafés, local shops, but coverage is uneven and some have shortages of useable space, while others have under-used facilities. Space for young people is a priority in areas where unemployment/gang activity is high. [I hope they've read the studies that suggest that unstructured youth clubs can actually increase crime.] Lambeth has no central volunteer centre. [Interesting point. A volunteer centre would be an interesting proposal.] Large church congregations struggle to find good sized premises in good locations. In the South of Lambeth, there’s a lack of play facilities.

6. Creating and maintaining attractive, distinctive places (p35)

Historic assets are currently under used. The Core Strategy intends to pay particular attention to proposed development on the River Thames. High density development will continue to be essential to meet Lambeth’s needs over next 10-15 years. Tall buildings are appropriate for some uses and in some locations. The Core Strategy encourages high density development, including tall buildings, where of high quality and appropriately located. [I still wonder where tall buildings are ever appropriately located. I wish somebody would do some work on whether tall buildings create or deter community cohesion.] The large number of artists is a distinctive feature of Lambeth and they have specific space needs. Local shops, independent businesses and street markets are essential to identity. These include gay businesses in Vauxhall, Brixton/Lower Marsh markets, Portuguese businesses in Stockwell and Somali businesses in Streatham.

Section 6 – Spatial Vision and Strategic Objectives & Section 7 – Strategic Policies

These sections reiterate much of the above, but p38 has an optimistic and visionary idea of Lambeth in 2030. p42 has a map, showing transport hubs and key areas. p46 sets some housing targets that I haven’t seen elsewhere in the document.

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Section 8 will probably appear tommorrow. It is quite interesting, but is taking a while to summarise because it deals with local areas, and is quite information heavy.

The inspiration for the SE11 blog; 56a infoshop

I've been meaning, for a while, to make a post about (part of) the reason for starting this blog.

I used to work in the SE11 area in a job where I was required to spend a considerable amount of time trudging around Kennington, Elephant, Vauxhall, Stockwell, Brixton, all over really. Whilst working, I chose to walk a great deal, and I took a lot of short cuts through random areas. Such trudging lead to lurking, and the lurking lead to a great deal of knowledge about some really groovy hangouts.

The one that really inspired the blog though was the discovery of the 56a Infoshop on Crampton Street. It was the first place that made me say, "I wonder why more people don't know about this... it's a really good local place to lurk about". I know that Crampton Street is in SE17, but it's one of the places I really wanted to add to the map, even though it's outside the mapped area (and it's also one of the reasons that SE17 is a place that I'm qite interested in blogging).

The 56a Infoshop on Crampton Street is a kind of information resource and food distribution centre and social space, based loosely around a theme of "radical" politics. It appears to be held together by volunteers who work fairly limited shifts. This sounds like a bad thing, but actually the limited opening times almost always guarantee that it's open when it says it will be. At certain times, the Fair Shares food place (I hesitate to say "shop" since I think it would be better characterised as a "way of life") is open, and it sells (not for profit) vegetarian and vegan goods. At other times, they run free bike workshops for teaching people how to fix bikes. My favourite part though, is the kind of archive of books, zines, pamphlets and odd bits of paper based loosely around the theme of alternative politics. It include anarchy, encapsulates feminist info (really hard to find this these days), socialist literature, queer history, alternative histories of London, squatting info, and a whole lot of things that don't quite fit into the categories outlined. Also, they have a fair amount of non-UK related material.

When you first wander into 56a, it's quite odd as it doesn't appear to be "staffed" by anybody. There is no hierarchy, and anybody can come and affiliate (or just lurk there) themselves, if they feel that the space might be useful for them to read, study or hang about in.

There is a website for the 56a Infoshop here.

Edit: There's a great video by some friendly looking ladies about their work too.

The Little Apple - Sunday lunches

Last summer, it became something of a tradition to go for Sunday lunch at the Little Apple, in Kennington at the Elephant and Castle end of Kennington Lane and on the eastern end of Chester Way (itself a lovely road). It has a wondeful beer garden/patio area and it's a great place to enjoy a pint or two in the sun. Last year, the chap cooking the meals and serving people was apparently standing in for somebody else. It is a bit of a shame he has gone.

For about £8.95, it's possible to get a starter, roast dinner and pudding (per person). The starters are still excellent. We ate prawn cocktail (in lovely 80s style glass) and vegetable samosas (fairly spicy) with sweet chilli dip and fresh salad. Yum. Would definitely recommend for starters alone! For the main course, we both opted for pork, and thus counted ourselves out of Yorkshire puddings. Pork was very tender, moist and highly appetising. Roast potatoes were well-roasted and a little over-salty, but not quite as crispy as the Dippy Egg Cafe. Vegetables were slightly over-cooked and a little unimaginative, with the usual peas/carrot combination and the addition of cabbage, but we'll forgive them that due to catering for such large numbers. I think that last year, we were given a much wider selection of veg. And finally, I requested a fruit salad for dessert, expecting the exquisite and freshly prepared fruit salad of last year, and instead got a plastic tub containing the contents of a tin.

No complaints about the service, which was excellent, and the price can't be beaten anywhere else, but please bring back the imaginative vegetables and the fresh fruit salad...

We're definitely returning - this is a firm Sunday favourite roasting spot, but did miss the little touches of last year.

How "buying agents" clearly have no idea who has the best parties...

One of the interesting things about the Kennington News blog is that the author of it clearly uses some sort of online news gathering software which just picks out the word "Kennington", whatever the article might be about. This is useful in that the blog includes everything from articles vaguely relating to Kennington (it just so happens that the last block of "blue" aeroplane toilet ice landed through the roof of a couple in Kennington) to those that are highly relevant (advertisements of church fetes, local plays etc.). It also means that any bias against negative news is entirely bypassed as everything that hits the word is covered.

This article on How buying agents found my dream home in London caught my eye today. I am, in one sense rather glad that Kennington - SE11 - will not become occupied in the immediate future by those who do not want to live in a mixed society - rich, middle-income and poor; black, brown and white; Buddhist, Muslim and Christian; gay, bi and straight, all next door to one another. In another sense, I am, quite frankly shocked that somebody would consider the threat of being mugged (on the word of one person) as a reason not to move to the area! As an aside, it is probably the fact that I have spent so much time trudging around all of the back streets around here that I refuse to be afraid (or maybe I really am just foolish) of moving to SE11. I mean who, in their right mind, goes to a local police station and asks how safe an area is? Most police stations only see the worst of an area. I always remember with admiration a friend of mine who said, "everyone told me not to send my children to that school because they would learn nothing, but nobody seemed to think of the fact that the other children at the school might benefit from having my children there".

I think Kennington is a particularly fascinating area because it is one of those places that it is impossible to gentrify. Whilst there will always exist large Georgian and Victorian properties worth millions, those houses and flats will always (I hope) sit alongside 1920s and post-WW2 local authority housing. Long may this coninue, because I think that such social mixing is vital for any area. I do not think that this country is one in which the poor will be less poor, anytime soon (whilst many people say that they want this, it's not clear to me that many people have enacted a viable corporate politic that might make it concrete). But neither do I consider that those who are wealthy should be allowed to cocoon themselves off in boring little safehavens where they might never be accosted by somebody that smells bad. Why is it assumed that people should want (if they are rich) or should be forced (if they are poor) to live in places where everybody else there is like them?

Anyhow, there's no doubt that Regent's Canal beats the SE11 gas cylinders... But perhaps it's me, or maybe not; I think that Kennington, Oval, Vauxhall, Stockwell, Elephant, Brixton and their surrounds still possess something that pulls the kind of people who choose (or are forced) to stick two fingers up in the face of the risk of "crime" and say, "to hell with north London, where is everybody else?"