A gateway to a new future

John Sorrell, CABE chair, talks about the identity and design of the new Thames gateway, and the strategy behind it.

In his speech to the Thames Gateway Forum about identity and design, John Sorrell started with a few facts about the Gateway:

• It has the longest seaside pier in the world.
• It has the battlefield where the Romans sealed their conquest of Britannia.
• One of Sir Christopher Wren's greatest masterpieces is found there.
• It's where Zandra Rhodes and Tracey Emin learnt their craft.
• The Victory was built there
• Salmon, dolphins, seals and turtles swim in its rivers.
• It's home to England's second oldest cathedral.
• The Windrush touched land here at the end of its long journey.
• Elizabeth I rallied her troops to fight the Armada on its river bank.
• Two of the world's most advanced diesel engine plants are located in this place.
• It is a port of world importance.
• It's the last place where wild Corncockles grow.
• One of America's first women heroes met her end there.
• It inspired authors like Conrad and Dickens and artists like Turner.
• Its birdlife includes the avocet, the Brent goose and 155,000 overwintering waders and wildfowl.
• The largest city in the south east is on its southern shore.
• It was one of the cradles of British aviation.
• The world sets its time from the meridian which runs through this place.
• Modern factory production and modern building design have roots in its dockyards.
• Britain's newest, fastest railway line will connect it to the European mainland in 2007 and place it 15 minutes from central London.
• London's only lighthouse lies just across the river from one of Britain's most sustainable communities, upstream from the world's largest enclosed dock system.
• 2.3 million people live there, rich and poor. They come from many backgrounds, speak many languages and enjoy many different ways of life. This is their place.
• And this place will host the 30th Olympiad in 2012.

Now, I've been asked to speak about identity and the Gateway. I could stop right now, couldn't I? I've hardly scratched the surface but you already have a picture of somewhere with a rich history. A fascinating environment. A vital role in Britain's growth and the shaping of our communities and culture. A place with potential and an exciting future.

\"A nowhere place\"

Yet the Gateway was described in a recent issue of Blueprint Magazine as a \"nowhere place\". Blueprint isn't alone in forming a negative impression of the Gateway. I understand why people who don't know it well might reach that conclusion. For all its richness, the Gateway shares something in common with many of our northern cities. Post-industrial landscapes tell a story of places whose economic purpose has been lost. There are, as well, places which have been used as dumping grounds for London and its satellites. Places which have not been cared for. These too, are part of the Gateway's identity. But I don't think that they justify the claim that it's a nowhere place.

What Blueprint did understand is that the words \"Thames Gateway\" are a very new way to describe some very ancient places. Naturally the name won't mean as much to people as old ones like Barking, or Gravesend, or Greenwich. And here we have a clue to understanding the identity of the Gateway.

It is, in fact, a place of many communities. Each already has its own idea of itself. The things it likes about itself. The things it would like to change. Expecting its people to sign up to a single new identity isn't going to work all at once. I'd like to suggest that there isn't any point in asking people to do so unless they are being asked to sign up to something they can value and believe in. Something that's at least as special as what they already have. Something that allows them to believe that things will get better in the future.

This begs an important question. Is there any point in trying to define a broader identity for somewhere so diverse? Is the Gateway no more than a bureaucratic convenience? A target at which to aim quantities of new housing, new infrastructure and government money?

Positive identity can change perceptions

I think that painting the bigger picture clearly for people can add value. A strong, positive identity will help to create a Thames Gateway which takes advantage of those great places I have talked about to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts. It can create links in people's minds between locations that are already seen to be high in quality and those which haven't made it yet. I am reminded of a comment made to CABE by a developer as he walked round a scheme in West London. \"I'm afraid you won't get this quality in the Thames Gateway\" he said. \"The market isn't there for it\". Well we need that market. We need it to attract new people into the Gateway's communities and to improve the quality of life for people already there. There is strong evidence that positive identity, coupled to good design, really can change perceptions about places and build market value. Look at Manchester or Barcelona and you can see these processes at work. Mayor Joan Clos of Barcelona was in London recently describing how Barcelona has used strategic urban design. There, design quality and a clear strategy at city scale have been used to \"change the tendency of the city to develop to the west\". Barcelona took advantage of its good fortune in becoming an Olympic city to start this process. We have the same good fortune and I see no reason why we cannot use strategic thinking about high quality design in the same way.

So how might we do that in practice? First we must be clear about what an identity for the Thames Gateway shouldn't describe. It shouldn't describe a place whose only purpose is to solve problems for other parts of London and the South East. People in the Gateway have seen that before. The great sewage and gas works built to the east of London to avoid stinking out the City. The characterless overspill developments which destroyed so many Downland woods in Gillingham in Kent and brought so many Londoners to live there. The rubbish tips of Rainham in Essex. We shouldn't talk of using the Thames Gateway to absorb housing to protect other areas. Nor should we see it only as a place that will take development pressure away from West London. That doesn't show enough respect for the people whose place this is. Nor does it explain why new people would want to live and work here.

An imaginative strategy

We must also avoid creating places that are simply dormitory suburbs for London. Commuters will remain a big part of the Gateway's labour market. We should recognise it and plan for it. We know, however, that the original raison d'etre of many places in the Gateway has changed successfully in the past. Fisherfolk haven't traded from Barking since the 1850s. The navy abandoned Woolwich long ago. Aircraft are no longer built in Rochester. Instead new businesses are thriving in the Gateway. New universities are opening. It has always been a place of industrial and design innovation. The strategy for the Gateway has to be about much more than commuting into the City and the West End.

Finally, I don't believe the Gateway is the place to put a national park. I have talked to Terry Farrell about his idea and I find it, and him, inspiring. We certainly need something to capture people's imagination. Terry's proposal is a good starting point for defining what that something should be. But a national park has drawbacks which would make it impractical here. National parks limit development. So a national park would be a gift to the NIMBYs at a time when we need development. It would add another layer of bureaucracy to a programme which, if anything, needs to have its delivery mechanisms simplified. I also doubt the wisdom of focusing development effort mainly in the London part of the Thames Gateway. Most of the Gateway's communities need new homes, new jobs, new public spaces and new transport. They won't get them unless the plan embraces growth and change across the whole area.

Inspirational vision of a beautiful place

So what is it that inspires me about Terry's vision? Its scale, for sure. Its starting point in the uniquely characterful landscapes and riverscapes of the Gateway. Its recognition that development in the Gateway has to improve the quality of life for people who live there now, and who will come to live there. Its assertion that this will be a great and beautiful place that draws its strength from its rivers, its landscape, its history, its people.

Architects and planners love to steal ideas from biology. We hear a lot about the DNA of a place at the moment. Unless you are an extremist in the nature versus nurture debate though, you will recognise that a person's identity comes from three things: their DNA, how they are cared for by those closest to them, and how they react to factors in the wider environment.

If we stretch a point or two, I think we can apply this thinking to places. The DNA of the Thames Gateway is formed of its great rivers, their surrounding landscapes, its ancient routes and settlements and those other human-made features which have stood for so long that they are now part of the grain of the place.

Those closest to the Thames Gateway have shaped these things and now they care for what they have shaped. Sometimes they do it well. Often they don't.

Then, the Gateway has to react to the changing environment around it. To climate change and growing flood risk. To globalisation. To the huge economic magnet that is London. To national social changes such as those which lead to the need for more affordable houses in London and the South East.

All these things should be recognised when we talk about the Gateway's identity. So, you are asking, what is all this leading to? What's he going to say we should do about the identity of the Thames Gateway?

I have five key messages:

Work with the grain

First: Work with the grain. Recognise and reflect the value and the values of the places that already exist. Understand and exploit their unique character. Use the principles of good urbanism and good design to create attractive towns, cities and neighbourhoods, each of which is special in its own right.

Reconnect to the river

Second: Unite these places by promoting the Gateway's unique DNA as its most valuable asset. This means reconnecting people and places to their rivers. It means investing in the landscape to create what the Germans call a Landschaft Park. A landscape you can live in. One which will protect wildlife, absorb occasional flooding, alleviate post-industrial decay. Where appropriate development of new homes and businesses is seen as a positive benefit because of the access it gives people to the natural environment. Can such a place truly exist? Well there is something like it, though on a slightly smaller scale, in Emscher Park in the Ruhr Valley in Germany. A post-industrial landscape where each community has its own vision for how it will be, but a vision which is part of a successful sub-regional strategy for environmental and economic recovery and growth. The San Francisco Bay Area watershed plan is another interesting example where a river and its tributaries form the skeleton for the region's development framework.

Sustainability leadership

Third: A big idea about landscape will not, on its own, be enough to build up the Thames Gateway as an attractive place to invest - though it will go a long way towards helping people to understand the high quality we are demanding. So what else should we do? At CABE we think this should be the most environmentally sustainable place you can buy a new home, rent an office, travel, go to school, or attend university. More than that, we think the Gateway offers Britain an opportunity to demonstrate sustainable development on an internationally significant scale. The world's attention will be focused on the Gateway in 2012. What an opportunity to show leadership. We think that's a commitment everyone involved should make, on behalf of existing places and new ones. And I'd like to see more than a carbon-neutral, low energy Gateway. I'd like to see the place grow as a great centre for technologies which solve the world's climate and energy problems. Carbon- Neutral Valley doesn't sound quite as cool as Silicon Valley but we surely need a place like that. If we develop its universities, hi-tech businesses and the size of its markets, the Thames Gateway could be that place.

Benefit existing communities

Fourth: We must stop talking about the Gateway only in terms of housing growth and get serious about the benefits for existing communities as well.

Get the design process right

And fifthly, I'd like to assert the vital importance of great design, and of the design process as the way to get the places we want. A design process which starts with what's good and special about existing places, which is based on the principles of good urban and landscape design and which can be used as the springboard to the future. So what is CABE doing to make this real?

Well, we are already working in the Gateway. Our Design Review programme is very active in the area. We support the Kent Architecture Centre and we have been working on the feasibility of a similar centre for South Essex. Our Growth Areas Urban Design Task Group offers those involved in design the opportunity to learn from best practice and, of course, CABE is a partner in developing Essex Design. Today the Housing Corporation has announced our new partnership to drive up the quality of affordable homes.

However, we agree with Terry Farrell that a more strategic statement is needed about the purpose and identity of the Gateway. CABE wants to work with the key stakeholders to establish an identity which will help to fix high design quality as a core objective for schemes and plans across the Gateway. I should make it absolutely clear that this will not be about CABE appearing on the scene and dictating what should happen. CABE's skill lies in working with people to develop and express ideas. A huge amount of work has already been done. We have heard at this conference about English Heritage's work on heritage landscapes. The Environment Agency is introducing new ways to manage flood risk sustainably. The Countryside Agency and English Nature are already heavily engaged in the Gateway. The sub-regional partnerships have very clear ideas about identity and about the importance of the Gateway's rivers and green spaces. I have already mentioned the work of the green grid partnerships and, of course, the idea of regional parks first emerged in the Kent and Essex development frameworks for their sub-regions.

What's in a name?

To conclude. The Thames Gateway isn't a blank sheet of paper. Nor do we lack good starting points for the next stage of its development. For example, the importance of its rivers and landscapes has been recognised by the ODPM from the start in "Greening the Gateway" and in early environmental projects such as Ranscombe Farm County Park, and the Green Grids sub-regional partnerships have done a huge amount of work to establish and promote the identity of their places. We also have a name. What's in that name? "Thames" describes the backbone of the Gateway very well. Its identity is clear. It can be a uniting force. When Rochester and Gillingham Councils were merged in 1998 they chose the name Medway Council because they saw the river, once a dividing line, as the thing that united all their communities. They also started calling the place Medway. Vox pops on local radio showed very quickly that the river, the place, the name had become central to how people saw themselves. It just goes to show that if you work with the grain you can fix an identity in people's minds, and in a way that's popular.

And what about the word \"Gateway\"? If it keeps its original meaning of \"gateway to London\" it only tells part of the story and it may not appeal to people from Kent and Essex. If we turn the idea on its head, however, I like it. The Thames and Medway have been our gateway to the world for centuries. They have been the departure point for our traders, our explorers, our adventurers. They have welcomed the world, from the Romans to the West Indians on the Windrush.

In 2012 they will welcome the world again, to the 30th Olympiad, in the Thames Gateway. A Gateway to a new future. A Gateway where many communities, each rich in their own heritage and culture, enter together to build something great and beautiful which they can call their own. That seems to me to be a Thames Gateway with an identity we would all want to share.

This is an extended version of the speech given by John Sorrell on 24 November 2005