Tag Archives: Canary Wharf

Controlling the urban landscape: the pros and cons of putting public spaces in private hands

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A 2007 report from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) described the growing private ownership and management of the public realm as a “quiet revolution in land ownership”.

The study included a handful of early examples, such as the Excel Centre and Canary Wharf in London, and Liverpool’s Paradise Street development (later rebranded Liverpool One). Since then, more of these privately owned public spaces (POPS) have been appearing across the UK, including Granary Square and the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London, Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth, and Brindleyplace in Birmingham.

The evolution of public space

Until relatively recently, local government owned, managed and maintained streets and squares in the UK’s towns and cities. But over the past two decades, budgetary constraints have diminished local authorities’ ability to maintain the public realm. Increasingly, the gap has been filled by the private sector, which has created new POPS.

On the face of it, the redevelopment of previously run-down areas with no cost to the public purse would appear to be a good thing. But there are concerns about the private landlords of these spaces who have the power to restrict and control activities of the public using these spaces.  Alongside these new private-public developments, the rise of Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) has increased private sector influence over town and city centres.

A bridge too far?

The issue of privatised public spaces was given renewed prominence with the proposals for a new “Garden Bridge” across the River Thames. Designed by Thomas Heatherwick  the project envisions a pedestrian bridge with its own elevated garden.

Supporters say the Garden Bridge will enrich London, providing economic, environmental and aesthetic benefits. But opponents have expressed concerns about a list of rules prohibiting activities on the bridge, such as busking and cycling. Restrictions of this kind have been applied to other POPS, sometimes resulting in awkward encounters between members of the public and security guards representing the property managers.

As things stand, the fate of the Garden Bridge remains uncertain, following the decision by the Mayor of London to set up an inquiry into the project’s use of public money, and a warning from the National Audit Office that the money may have been wasted.

The pros and cons of POPS

But does it really matter if urban spaces that appear to be public are actually privately-owned?

No, say POPS supporters. Without private funding, spaces such as Brindleyplace and LiverpoolOne might not have been developed at all. Furthermore, the cost of maintaining these privately owned public spaces can be borne by the private sector, instead of local authorities (and the taxpayer). They also point to Liverpool One as a successful example of town centre regeneration, and suggest that private ownership of public space can be a catalyst for renewal of neglected spaces.

But others are unhappy with the creeping privatisation of public spaces, arguing that they sacrifice community spirit and historical identity for the sake of a sterile, monotonous, corporatised spaces. Opponents of POPS are also concerned about the restrictions land owners place on such spaces.

The view from Aberdeen

One city which has recently bucked the trend towards private control over public spaces is Aberdeen. In 2010, the city council planned to hand over the historic Union Terrace Gardens in the city centre to a consortium of business interests – Aberdeen City Garden Trust – under a long lease. The trust released its plans to redesign the Victorian park, raising the sunken gardens to street level. Campaign groups mounted opposition to the scheme, but it was narrowly approved in a city-wide referendum in 2012. However, a new Labour administration came to power shortly after the referendum, and the scheme was finally scrapped. During the summer of 2016, the council announced new plans to redevelop the site, which will remain in public hands.

Final thoughts

The Aberdeen example shows that moves to put public spaces in private hands are not universally popular, or inevitable. Even so, many local authorities are struggling to maintain public spaces, leaving the way open for private developers. The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, in the borough of Newham, is one of the most recent POPS to appear in London. Sir Robin Wales, the elected mayor of Newham would have preferred the park to be maintained using public funds, but has accepted that his borough could not afford to manage it: “We know we don’t have an income stream.”

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Fairness Commissions: tackling poverty and inequality in the UK

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by Stacey Dingwall

Next month, Brighton and Hove will become the latest council area to publish the report of its Fairness Commission. Established in 2015, Brighton and Hove’s is one of 24 Fairness Commissions set up in the last five years across the UK, in areas ranging from Dundee to Plymouth.

What are Fairness Commissions?

Fairness Commissions began to come together in 2010, in the wake of rising inequality in the UK. Inspired by the publication of The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better by Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson (the founders of The Equality Trust), local authorities came together with academics, trade unions, and third and private sector partners to draw  up recommendations for ways of tackling inequality and poverty in their local area.

Similar to a parliamentary select committee, Commissions begin their work by gathering evidence from the public, which is then analysed and synthesised into a final report containing recommendations to the local authority. Typically, this process lasts for a year.

In their report on Fairness Commissions published in July 2015, the New Economics Foundation outlined the typical stages of holding a commission:

  • Scope: decide what and whom you are targeting with the commission.
  • Language: decide what to call the commission and define its purpose.
  • Resource: decide on a proportionate budget and allocation of staff time.
  • Leadership: invite commissioners to participate and appoint chairs.
  • Communication: start talking about the commission locally and invite people to participate.
  • Participation: gather evidence and solutions through a range of methods.
  • Analysis: develop recommendations based on the evidence and possible solutions.
  • Recommendations: make recommendations for change to the relevant organisations.
  • Implementation: put the recommendations into action.
  • Evaluation: monitor progress, measure change, and report on it.

Fairness in London – the Tower Hamlets story

Two key reports have been published by Commissions in London: one by the pan-city London Fairness Commission and another by the Tower Hamlets Fairness Commission. Inequality between the East and West of the City dates back to Victorian times and while Tower Hamlets has seen some improvements, most notably due to investment in education, this gap still persists. Although home to the global financial hub Canary Wharf, a major contributor to the borough’s £6 billion a year economy, 49% of Tower Hamlets’ residents live in poverty – the highest proportion in the entire country. Despite ever increasing house prices and rents in London – an average income of £75,000 was required to privately rent in the borough in 2012 – a fifth of its residents earn under £15,000 a year.

These figures, alongside evidence of stark health inequalities and the impact of welfare reform, formed the basis of the Fairness Commission’s inquiry in 2012-13. Speaking to residents, the Commissioners found a distrust of the big business that now dominates the borough, partly due its perceived contribution to the gentrification of the area. Residents whose families had lived in Tower Hamlets for generations spoke of feeling like they existed in a “parallel world” and that opportunities in the borough were inaccessible to them. The Commission’s final report made a total of 16 recommendations, for local and national government and the third sector, aimed at bringing the local community back together and making Tower Hamlets a fairer place to live.

Fairness and inequality – the political agenda

The London Fairness Commission was one of the organisations who made recommendations to the new Mayor of London ahead of his election on the 5th of May. In a poll conducted one week prior to polling, the Commission found that three out of four respondents believed that the income gap between those on the highest incomes and those on the lowest incomes had increased over the last five years, and that the majority would welcome the introduction of an annual London Fairness Index to test whether the city is a fair one in which to live.

The Index was one of the key recommendations in the Commission’s final report, which described the city as a ‘ticking time bomb’. Housing, transport and childcare were identified as the three biggest issues facing London, and the Commission made a number of recommendations on how to address these, including:

  • a binding London minimum wage of £9.70 per hour;
  • setting ‘affordable rents’ at 30% of household income rather than 80% of market rent; and
  • suspending the right to buy scheme for five years while supply is increased.

Reducing inequalities was also a key feature of the Scottish Parliament elections, with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon pledging that the SNP would “use every power” to tackle poverty and inequality in the country. Sturgeon also detailed plans to implement the recommendations of the Independent Advisor on Poverty and Inequality, publish a Fairer Scotland Action Plan, and reintroduce the socioeconomic duty for public bodies to consider the impact that their decisions will have on narrowing inequalities.

With the UK government committed to continuing their austerity programme, and persistent evidence that the UK is one of the least equal of the world’s developed countries, it’s clear that reducing inequality and striving for fairness will, and must, remain high on the political agenda for the foreseeable future.

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