Camden Blueprint Project

Testing neighbourhood planning in Bloomsbury and Somers Town

Donna Turnbull, Voluntary Action Camden. Michael Parkes, Voluntary Action Camden / Planning Aid for London. May 2012.

The Camden Blueprint Project has set out to test neighbourhood planning in two inner London neighbourhoods. The intention has been to use methods that mobilise as many people as possible, address issues of access and equality, and highlight the importance of having the capacity to deliver neighbourhood planning through effective community development work and independent technical aid.

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Summary: ingredients, observations and lessons

London: a special place

A truly global, multi-cultural city where land and rental values are higher

than anywhere else in the UK: thus the stakes are higher. London has a

long history of successful community led action ranging from Covent

Garden1 and Coin Street2 to far smaller campaigns like the Calthorpe

Project3, and countless others which either only partly succeeded or

which failed.

In this context there are projects to learn from, access to independent

technical aid, inbuilt community capacity and often a mistrust of the

private and public sectors.

Against a background of major growth opportunities there is still a

considerable voluntary and community sector network at regional and

borough levels, but funding to support core community development

work is scarcer than ever.

Community led planning: more than bricks and mortar

All community led plans will identify and address issues of community

safety, jobs and training, health, housing, education etc. If they did not

they would not be particularly credible within the neighbourhood and

would certainly miss major opportunities for making cross connections or

negotiating planning gain.

1 www.coventgardentrust.org.uk

2 www.coinstreet.org

3 www.calthorpeproject.org.uk

In Camden working with credible, experienced community organisations

like the Bloomsbury Association and Somers Town Community

Association has been essential.

Neighbourhood planning is proving to be popular and it can and should

be done.

Challenge and opportunity: culture change

Culture change is needed in the public, private and voluntary and

community sectors. Regeneration is about people as well as place. Be

pragmatic rather than formulaic, learn from mistakes, and be brave.

The public sector can help people to help themselves by sharing

information, responsibility and power. Participatory democracy can add

value to representative democracy. The neighbourhood planning process

is beginning to demonstrate this, for example through councillors seeking

information from officers on behalf of a neighbourhood forum, and

thereby assisting overview and scrutiny.

In the private sector genuine pre application consultation, ideally in

partnership with the neighbourhood forum, should take place. There is

also opportunity for mentoring and support for local small businesses,

local jobs and training schemes. There is no duty for landowners to

engage and some will not. This could be a serious problem in London.

The voluntary and community sector can support growth, help to avoid

nimbyism and work to involve communities beyond the usual

gatekeepers.

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Challenge and opportunity: resources

There have to be resources for independent technical aid and the

voluntary and community sector should be centre stage, particularly in

London.

Both Somers Town and Bloomsbury initiatives could not have been

sustained without the basic resources of Voluntary Action Camden (VAC)

staff time, equipment and basic community savvy. VAC type specific skills

and local borough knowledge of service demand and delivery, political,

legal and operational feasibility, capacity building on all sides are essential

if neighbourhood planning is to move forward successfully from plan to

action.

Likewise it is essential to secure experienced independent planning

technical aid. Access to design, architectural or conservation services are

not usually the first priority. Central and local government funding needs

to be refocused to the appropriate local level and sector at this time.

Collaboration: a context for culture change

Get local councillors on board as soon as possible, and ideally find an

existing base e.g. Somers Town Community Centre, to champion and

ground the process. Outreach to as broad a range of residents, small

businesses and other local interests as possible and tailor the outreach

work to the people you wish to involve.

Work with existing local organisations and networks and start a skills /

resources bank or database. Meetings should be as participatory as

possible. Small groups may be a better way for everyone to be involved in

a discussion than a large forum. Use other facilitated activities like games,

themed walks, and surveys and make use of technology where

appropriate.

Equally important is to develop good relations with planning officers as

well as with others like Safer Neighbourhoods Team, Business

Improvement District etc. Prepare and agree joint briefing notes with

officers. Show good intent from the outset: invite planning officers to

speak at community based meetings, brief working groups and feed the

neighbourhood planning work into their broader frameworks and vice

versa.

Neighbourhood plan boundary and forum

The plan and forum must be credible if the public and private sectors are

going to take both seriously. That means derived in a democratic way

with input from as representative a range of local interests as possible.

The concept of a ‘first try’ boundary and forum allows for some flexibility

and change as the neighbourhood planning process unfolds. Inaugural

events were held in Bloomsbury and Somers Town to include as many

people as possible in early decision making about boundaries and forum

membership. The ‘first try’ forums and boundaries emerged from

deliberative workshops and games.

Make sure the boundary and population is not so enormous to render the

whole process difficult to realise and support in the future.

Get and keep people involved

Have a publicity strategy that uses local events e.g. Somers Town mini

planning day to be held during the summer festival. Set up working

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groups that can get things done, link up with other initiatives, and achieve

some early wins.

Encourage different people and groups to set up their own activities that

feed into the process. Or incorporate the planning project into their

existing programmes e.g. through an ESOL class or film group. Outreach,

outreach, outreach…………

A gift: the added value of neighbourhood planning

As the most local level of all planning documents, neighbourhood

planning is the one with greatest potential to engage and empower

communities – providing it is community led. It is inevitably bottom up

and therefore likely to be dealing with, certainly where early wins are

concerned, manageable, viable, and useful small scale projects.

Neighbourhood planning is a potential gift to all those concerned to

secure real evidence of sustainable social development and the

promotion of community cohesion and community development.

Likewise it is best placed to start the necessary process of capacity

building and collaboration for delivering planning and other services in an

economically challenging climate. The connections between housing,

health, education, community safety, jobs and training, transport,

environment at neighbourhood level are invaluable in their own right.

Each element can credibly inform or cross fertilise the respective housing,

health, education, crime and disorder, employment and training,

transport strategies.

As a result much better coordination of services can be achieved,

including where so identified, local delivery solely by the community, or in

partnership with other sectors.

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Neighbourhood planning in Bloomsbury and

Somers Town March 2011 – May 2012

Community Context

Beginnings

Camden Community Empowerment Network (CCEN)4 hosted a seminar5

in March 2011 to debate the implications of the then Localism Bill.

Feedback and follow up calls from voluntary and community groups

revealed neighbourhood planning to have the most popular appeal of all

the new ’rights’ included in the Bill. Two groups with an interest in

developing a neighbourhood plan who contacted us were the Bloomsbury

Association and Somers Town Community Association.

The Bloomsbury Association had already familiarised themselves with the

planning elements of the Bill and had aspirations for ‘Bloomsbury Village’

which they believed could be achieved through neighbourhood planning.

So with a Planning Aid for London (PAL) volunteer on board we decided to

shape a local approach to neighbourhood planning before legislation and

the potentially inhibiting influence of regulations.

Initial meetings with Somers Town Community Association also revealed

local priorities that could be developed through neighbourhood planning.

Critically the two neighbourhood associations we decided to work with

have broad based constituencies and ideas that need a vehicle.

4 CCEN was hosted by Voluntary Action Camden until end December 2011.

5 Speakers from Voluntary Action Camden, London Borough of Camden, Planning

Aid for London.

Enthusiasm for forging new networks and partnerships and willingness to

share power has also been important. The neighbourhoods both have

histories of development impact with little community influence or gain.

Bloomsbury Village

The Bloomsbury Village neighbourhood covers twenty acres immediately

south of the British Museum and has a population of approximately 1800

residents, dozens of small businesses, students and thousands of tourists.

There is a vast gap between rich and poor with pockets of extreme social

exclusion and high levels of crime and fear related to the night time

economy. There are no dedicated community facilities apart from St

Georges Church6. The neighbourhood has two large development sites7

within its boundary, is in close proximity to the Tottenham Court Road

Crossrail development, and overlaps the InMidtown Business

Improvement District.

Somers Town

Geographically and socio-economically Somers Town is almost a natural

neighbourhood. The majority of the population of about 9000 have a life

expectancy ten years lower than people living in Hampstead in the north

of the borough. Dense housing is bounded by major railway stations at

Euston and Kings Cross St Pancras, and Camden Town and Euston Road to

the north and south. There is currently one new development site8 within

the neighbourhood, construction of the Francis Crick Institute is

6 Anglican Grade I listed Hawksmoor church on Bloomsbury Way.

7 Former Royal Mail Sorting Office site and land opposite on Museum Street,

both fronting New Oxford Street. 8 Euston Traffic Garage on Drummond Crescent.

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underway behind the British Library, and there is the probable arrival of

High Speed 2 at Euston in the future. Many Somers Town residents have

lifetimes of living with the impacts and inconveniences of building

development.

Getting started

Bloomsbury Village

The Bloomsbury Association was already forming a Bloomsbury Village

vision. Neighbourhood planning was seen as a means to develop those

ideas. Priorities included improving streetscape and community safety,

and supporting small businesses. An event took place in July 2011 to set

up a ‘first try’ neighbourhood forum and agree the boundaries of the

neighbourhood. The venue was Hawksmoor’s grade 1 listed St George’s

Church – the only obvious community space in the neighbourhood. The

event was well attended by residents, local businesses, and landowners.

Council planning officers attended and also helped out at the last minute

with workshops.

Alternating workshops were designed to encourage deliberation.

Discussion about the neighbourhood forum was facilitated with a card

game where participants chose 21 stakeholders and 6 additional co-

optees or advisers. The resulting forums then influenced, or were

influenced by, the neighbourhood boundary discussions. Analysis of the

workshops revealed strong relationships between percentage of

residents on the forum and what to include within the boundaries. Whilst

small business interests are one of the drivers behind the Bloomsbury

Village project the consensus was to include large development sites on

New Oxford Street only if the majority of forum members were local

residents.

Attendees were also invited to fill in postcards offering time, skills and

other resources to the project. The cardboard post-box filled up with

offers of meeting space, people taking on the tasks of talking to

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neighbours, leafleting and carrying out surveys, various built

environment and design skills, and IT support.

Somers Town

In September 2011 a similar event was held at Somers Town Community

Centre. Somers Town is a larger area than Bloomsbury Village and houses

significantly more people. The event took place during the day with

workshops targeted at specific groups of older people and parents of

young children, and in the early evening for open public workshops.

Somers Town is almost a natural neighbourhood so discussion about

boundaries focussed on whether to include newer additions to the area

along the boundaries like the shopping area in St Pancras Station, or

other areas on the periphery with residents who use facilities in Somers

Town. The discussions about forum membership were more complicated

with a large population and numerous interests to represent. Analysis

revealed consensus on having a majority of ‘representative’ residents,

and including local councillors, businesses, institutions, the voluntary

sector, police etc. The challenge was (and is) keeping the forum

representative but lean enough to be able to make decisions and get

things done.

The postcard offers in Somers Town were less forthcoming, possibly

because the area has a high number of active residents and supportive

community groups who invariably take on responsibilities. Importantly

the area has a community centre with formal and informal space for

people to meet and stay in touch with the project. Worth noting is that

approximately 80% of people attending the first Somers Town event did

not use email or websites. In Bloomsbury all participants had an email

address.

An addition to the event in Somers Town was to ask people to list their

top three priorities for the neighbourhood. The results reflect

longstanding needs and aspirations in Somers Town for real and local

economic benefits from new development. Generally speaking jobs,

health equality, and more improvements to housing and the

environment. An agenda actively championed by the local ward

councillors.

Camden Council

VAC contacted council planning officers at an early stage of the project. A

first meeting established that officers were prepared to give technical

guidance where they could and would supply electronic plans of the

neighbourhoods. It was agreed that officers would be kept up to date

with developments and could also learn from the process.

Camden Council had already embarked on a place shaping initiative. Place

shaping plans are being developed for areas of the borough subject to

development pressure and change. The process involves consulting

communities affected and developing a vision to guide new development.

The Bloomsbury and Somers Town neighbourhoods both overlap with

place plans. This has been approached as a positive and mutually

beneficial aspect of the Blueprint project from the start. The parallel

processes can share information and enrich both plans. Additionally the

place shaping has meant that there are lead officers for each plan

focussed on issues that are also relevant to the neighbourhood planning.

These officers have been involved in planning and development working

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groups in Bloomsbury and Somers Town, and have provided valuable

briefings and Local Development Framework (LDF) guidance.

The neighbourhood plan is the bottom rung of the local planning

framework so it needs to connect and contribute to shaping the whole

too. Camden’s place shaping is not part of the statutory planning

framework, but the approach makes a useful resource in Camden for a

young neighbourhood planning process finding its way.

Planning process plus

It’s not new, but……

Communities have led planning initiatives before. The difference now is

legislation that gives a neighbourhood plan a place within the statutory

planning framework. Whilst limited in some ways (expectation of adding

to existing development plans) it still gives people an opportunity to start

from a positive point of view. To engage with the planning system

constructively, not simply to object to imposed development. From there

anything can happen, and neighbourhood planning may or may not turn

out to be the right vehicle to achieve community aspirations.

On the other hand it can be part of a much more integrated platform for

civic participation in shaping and improving services, growing community

assets and generally reinvigorating democracy. Priorities can be matched

up by linking the neighbourhood planning process with other local

strategies like the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment, safer neighbourhood

plans, Business Improvement Districts etc.

Where this has happened in Somers Town the activity that goes beyond

building development ensures that the whole project maintains a

vibrancy and momentum that might wain simply waiting for plans to get

agreed and building to happen.

Through this additional activity there are early wins to be had, like the

neighbourhood watch schemes and new business enterprises being set

up by the Somers Town Neighbourhood Forum working groups.

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Mobilising

To make the planning process as inclusive and representative as possible

a variety of activities, outreach opportunities and media have been used

in the Blueprint project. Meetings have been kept as informal as possible.

Encouraging action focussed working groups that reflect neighbourhood

priorities has allowed people to pursue areas of interest rather than get

bogged down in every detail.

The emerging neighbourhood forums are more dynamic cluster of

working groups than formal committee. Representative participation in

the projects is more difficult the larger the neighbourhood. Even in an

area as small as Bloomsbury Village the capacity to reach people

effectively is limited. Nothing is ever as effective in motivating and

mobilising as talking to people face to face. The commitment of people

who get involved to talk to others in the neighbourhood (a sort of ‘knock

on’ recruitment) is crucial.

Activities

There are already plenty of methods and tools available for community

planning, from Planning for Real9 type activities to readymade surveys like

Place Check10. Community outreach work is essential to ensure the

process presents opportunity for everyone to get involved, and

establishes different ways of gathering opinion and information. In

Bloomsbury personalised letters and stamped addressed return

envelopes were used to encourage input from 70 housebound residents.

9 See www.communityplanning.net for ideas, and information about Planning for

Real® and similar tools. 10

www.placecheck.info

In Somers Town young people suggested defining neighbourhood

boundaries by filming whilst cycling around the area – a sort of beating

the bounds by bike.

Local mosques have been engaged through the persistence of the PAL

volunteer in developing personal relationships with trustees, and taking

time for some important myth-busting about earlier planning and

development in the area. The culmination of these efforts was

information about the project being disseminated to a congregation of

several hundred people attending Friday prayers, and the participation of

trustees in the neighbourhood forum.

Outreach and involvement is a continuous element of the planning

process embedded into the whole array of activities. Activity doesn’t just

happen though. Support, facilitation and technical help are all critical to a

successful project – a project that has purpose, lets different people take

the initiative, can meet local expectations, harness local skills and

resources, include everyone who wants to take part and boost local

neighbourliness and well-being through process not reliance on an end

result.

Relationships

In Bloomsbury and in Somers Town the relationships between local

stakeholders are different to the multi-agency / local community

collaborations that have developed in the past, for example single

regeneration budget and neighbourhood renewal partnerships. These

have been instigated and led by the public sector with the public body

having the decision making power but also shouldering the

responsibilities and risks of ownership.

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The emerging neighbourhood planning forum in Somers Town has

already encountered some of the challenges involved in real community

led collaboration, from tensions between voluntary and community

sector values and some private business practices, to issues of

representation across a large and diverse neighbourhood, to managing

relationships with traditional hierarchical public structures. All the

stakeholders are stepping into new territories, and familiar boundaries

are changing.

With no higher authority to refer to for rules or decisions a process of

collective problem solving is developing drawing on the resources of all

stakeholders. The emerging peer networks where contribution is valued

equally also present broader opportunity for more people to join in – they

don’t have to start at the bottom or fit into a fixed structure. Our

experience so far shows that ward councillors appear to fit pretty well

into this way of working, as do the local authority planning officers

who’ve enabled the process through guidance and advice. The challenge

is to properly engage cabinet members and chief officers so that they can

trust in and surrender some power to what may seem a chaotic and risky

new landscape.

Emerging outcomes

Outcomes

Facilitation of neighbourhood planning in Bloomsbury and Somers Town

has brought stakeholders in the community together motivated by

legislation and diminishing economic resources. In order to develop

neighbourhood plans governance and management working groups are

busy consulting on and writing constitutions, and preparing to apply for

recognition as neighbourhood forums. Already in Bloomsbury a major

developer has approached the forum group to discuss development plans

for a site within the neighbourhood boundary. A cautious meeting on

behalf of the developer, but still a coup for the Bloomsbury Village

project, who have practically been a pre planning application first point of

contact.

A planning for real type event in December 2011 gave some indications

about what might end up in the Bloomsbury Village neighbourhood plan,

and the project has generous professional pro bono support that is

helping with streetscape strategy and an interactive website. However

the project is still largely dependent on one energetic individual

organising everything that happens. The danger is that without more local

residents taking the lead the project will cease to be community led and

instead become a showcase for professionals (ourselves included!)

developing resources and expertise in neighbourhood planning.

In Somers Town the opposite has happened. The energy of the

community and a community association happy to share power is driving

the project forward. The pro bono skills and resources are all coming from

within the neighbourhood. The planning and development group are

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moving forward using the under construction Francis Crick Institute as a

precedent for negotiating better future planning gain11. The section 106

agreement is securing apprenticeships and jobs for local people, a new

‘living centre’, support for local schools, and streetscape improvements.

The planning and development group is currently focussing on a

designated development site and the possibility of High Speed 2 in the

area. A neighbourhood plan will eventually be agreed, but the Somers

Town project has already moved well beyond the confines of the planning

system.

An employment and training group is addressing youth unemployment by

connecting local businesses, institutions like the British Library, and the

local council with young people looking for opportunities. The result is

fairly straightforward: local employers are offering training and jobs to

local people that need them.

In parallel residents, housing providers, the police and other stakeholders

are busy setting up small neighbourhood watch type schemes to start to

address some of the anti-social behaviour issues in the area. This overlaps

with the young people looking for jobs, so they have set up a youth forum

and will be getting involved in the neighbourhood watch too. Residents

concerned with open social spaces on the local estates also believe that

there’d be less anti-social behaviour if everyone knew each other a bit

better. Through the neighbourhood forum parents can easily connect

with housing providers to set up key holder schemes to open up locked

playgrounds and gardens. The thinking is that their kids will all get to

know each other and develop mutual respect that will help to combat

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UKCMRI / LB Camden Section 106 agreement. March 2011.

anti-social behaviour in the future. They are thinking long term and

sustainable.

The groups all come together back at the ‘forum’ each month. Three

months down the line there is strong communication and healthy overlap

between activities which adds value all round. For example the

connection between anti-social behaviour and unemployment, or

building development and health, or any other combination is hard to

avoid, but it’s all in the right place to find achievable solutions.

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Next steps

What’s needed now?

All this work should be long term and on-going. Ingrained in the

neighbourhood, part of the culture. Ideally the potential for

neighbourhood planning projects to empower and inspire communities to

solve problems and improve life quality will eventually be recognised in

the form of sustainable resources.

There is potential to plan environments that really do deliver the

infrastructure, services and social and economic benefits that people

really need and want. The small scale bespoke DIY nature of the

Bloomsbury and Somers Town projects make it possible to accurately

connect a problem with a solution, or demand with supply. Key resources

needed to enable projects like this are technical aid and creative

community development work that will ensure inclusion and provide

independent insights for progressing the projects.

The sums of money required are pretty small compared to the millions

currently spent on vast contracts that are often chasing the same results.

Or indeed compared with funding available to progress aspects of

government’s Big Society. The tendency to throw millions into short term

bursts of support is wasteful and gives no time for coherent development

and change. To put it in perspective £400,000 could enable and facilitate

the extremely lively Somers Town and Bloomsbury projects at current

activity levels for 6 years. This is the sort of sum government programmes

seem to want to see spent in 6 – 18 months.

The neighbourhood planning ‘front runners’ are being reviewed, and

independent projects like Bloomsbury Village and Somers Town are also

examining the pros and cons of community led planning with statutory

weight. At this stage the obvious conclusion is that realistic and

sustainable resources are critical to sustainable planning and stronger

communities. In short the seriousness of legislation needs to be matched

with some more serious enabling if people are really going to be given a

chance and equal opportunity to shape their own neighbourhoods.

Next steps in Bloomsbury Village and Somers Town

In the next few months it is likely that the neighbourhood forums in

Bloomsbury Village and Somers Town will seek ratification, and

formal agreement on plan boundaries, in order to progress their

neighbourhood development plans.