Creating Positive Space

Strategic Communications Director
Heatherwick Studio

In case you missed it, Sadiq Khan wrote to Robert Jenrick on 24 April, confirming his team will work with MHCLG to hammer out a compromise on the new London Plan. The obvious question is, will it make any difference for the people of this city? And how does Covid-19 change things?

One of the striking changes written through this Intend to Publish version is the emphasis on working to ‘collaborate with communities at an early stage and throughout development’. That is basically new and creates an opportunity to redefine normal practice and ensure clear social principles underpin development in a way that benefits millions of Londoners.

So if you work in property, design or planning, there are three sections of this regional policy framework that you really should read:
Policy D1 of Chapter 3 (which proposes area assessments to establish how places are perceived, experienced and valued),
Policy SD10 of Chapter 2 (which requires boroughs to collaborate with communities, at an early stage and throughout the production of local development strategies and on regeneration programmes); and
Policy S1 of Chapter 5 (which calls for an audit of existing social infrastructure and needs involving the local community).

All this would have been important at the start of 2020. But C-19 has brought the issue of neighbourhood strength to the forefront of public debate. It’s not only exposed stark social divisions. It’s also enforced our geographical reliance and revealed the extent to which many people want to be involved and want to feel connected.

I think it’s useful to understand that change in the context of how social attitudes have been evolving in Britain throughout the last decade. If you examine the ONS wellbeing data and the DCMS Community Life Survey pre-Covid-19, it shows the general population enjoying higher levels of life satisfaction, saying they felt happier, feeling more like they belong, and increasingly believing that people from different backgrounds get along well in this country.

In an age of austerity, after four years of rancour over Brexit, I find that remarkable, don’t you?

But look closer and you note these are views that people report about their own lives, not about society as a whole. We thought our own lives were getting better but society as a whole was getting worse. We believed that people, in general, can be trusted – just not in our own neighbourhood. And while life satisfaction was rising, place satisfaction was slowly falling, with cities faring better and small towns doing worse.

What we don’t know yet is how the citizen perspective might have changed in four short months. But my point here is that the new London Plan offers people working with and for communities a powerful hook. Just those three sections referenced above provide more than enough reason for property companies to rethink and reset how they work in the aftermath of lockdown.

That is part of what Grosvenor is trying to achieve this week with the launch of a new community charter, called Positive Space. Because there won’t be a better springboard than Covid-19 for championing community engagement. And I reckon we should all keep a close eye on the final furlong of the London Plan saga. It matters more than ever.

ONS Personal & Economic Wellbeing in the UK (August 2019): https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/wellbeing/bulletins/personalandeconomicwellbeingintheuk/august2019

DCMS Community Life Survey (2018-19): https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/820610/Community_Life_Survey_2018-19_report.pdf

British Social Attitudes Survey (2018):
https://www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/media/39278/bsa35_social_trust.pdf

Matt Bell

Strategic Communications Director
Heatherwick Studio