New things happen: identity and place-making in the Thames Gateway

John Sorrell, CABE chair, considers the aims, aspirations and long-term vision for the Thames Gateway project.

Ever since the Thames Gateway was first defined as an area for regeneration 15 years ago, there has been a burning question left unanswered. What is the Gateway all about?

A very big question. Over the last year, CABE has been looking in detail at the character and identity of places throughout the Gateway. We have asked people living and working there what they think makes the place unique and what it needs. And in New things happen they articulate a vision for its future.

But imagine trying to capture the identities of an area stretching from Marble Arch to Oxford. There's a lot of contrast within that 40 miles - and the Thames Gateway is even more complex. It was always going to be an ambitious project, and we needed some guiding principles.

At the Forum last year, I outlined what those could be:

• first, stop talking about the Gateway in terms of housing growth and get serious about the benefits for existing communities. Enterprise matters just as much as physical development.
• second, make the Gateway the most environmentally friendly place you can buy a new home, rent an office, travel, go to school, or attend university.
• third, work with the grain to reflect the value and values of places there already.
• fourth, unite these places by promoting the landscape as the Gateway's unique DNA
• and finally, assert the vital importance of great design.

Yvette Cooper commissioned this identity project from us on behalf of the Thames Gateway Strategic Partnership. She wanted us to capture the unique qualities of the landscape and places across the region. We were asked to look at how these qualities can be used to ensure that new development is of the highest quality.

A number of things have moved very fast in the past year. One of them is the value given to 'place-making'. It's not one of the dark arts: if you want people to invest in your region, come to it (or even stay living there), you'd better articulate a strong sense of place.

But what makes a place a place? A place is a location with a real meaning. And the bigger and more interesting the place, the harder it becomes to identify that meaning.

So what does this place, the Thames Gateway, want to become?

New things happen is a kind of time capsule. It reflects the views of people connected with the Gateway on the future they hope for. They know that the Thames Gateway is like nowhere else. From this research, four themes have emerged.

These start with redefining work, and reconnecting with nature. The energy of the Gateway comes from its unique setting, where a world city meets a wild estuary. This has shaped the history of the Gateway and it should shape its future. There are great hopes of a new type of \"landscape framework\", the Thames Gateway Parklands. This is a working landscape. For renewable energy, for market gardening, for water and flood management. In other words, a new kind of landscape to visit, and to love living in and working in.

The future Gateway also needs to build on its distinctive culture: reasserting individualism is another core theme from our vision. In Canvey Island, plotland developments were the forerunners of self-build housing. People here have always challenged convention, and the future Thames Gateway must allow people to create the kind of communities they want.

Finally, development in the Gateway will need to be about reinventing identity. With its strong trading tradition, new cultures have always joined the stream here. What struck us very strongly is a pioneering culture. Perhaps this comes from living on the edge, at the turning of the tide. It makes the Gateway feel less like a place, and more like a journey.

Which brings me to another thing that has moved very fast in the past year. The realization that there is something new under the sun. Climate change is front of stage. But it's still hard to imagine living a very different life, as we all must, in response to a warming world.

Some people find this easier to imagine than others. The Thames Gateway is itself at a turning point, of course, facing a massive regeneration programme. But we believe that it really is well-equipped to respond to change.

Estuaries have always been places of immense change. People in the Gateway - and the kind of people attracted here - don't just adapt to change. They embrace it. The character of the Thames Gateway means it could be the first region in the UK to address the urgent call for action in the Stern Review. Investing to restrain climate change at the same time as meeting the need for new homes. Using that working landscape, the Thames Gateway Parklands, to protect the environment and generate jobs.

Of course, there'll be cynicism. The Parklands concept, for instance, has been dismissed by some as a branding gimmick. This could not be further from the truth. The spirit of a place grows out of its reality. The estuary as a working landscape - providing valuable services which protect the environment - reflects a real understanding of what the Gateway can achieve.

Others will ask what the value of knowing the identity of the Gateway really is, given the sheer scale and speed of new build going on there?

Well I believe that in reality, identity defines us. It changes perceptions, markets and places. People invest in places for very different reasons: to make money, find a decent job, educate their children or improve their quality of life. But above all, they invest in places that have a clear and valuable identity.

And new places that are successful follow certain rules. They draw on the existing grain, and built close to existing settlements. We show how this could develop in the map inside New things happen which we will give you later. Successful places are well-connected in terms of transport, and walkable. It's common sense of course. But I can guarantee it will only become common practice if new development is rooted in a strong, coherent identity, which responds to the enduring qualities of the region. Remember that place-making is rooted in what people do in an area, as much as where it happens to be geographically.

New things happen may be visionary but it is designed above all else to be a practical piece of work. It defines the key ideas which should be at the heart of planning policies, of investment strategies, of design decisions. It has already informed DCLG's Interim Plan.

In this guide to the future of Thames Gateway, New things happen shows how very different places within a region can build a stronger relationship with each other. Personally, I like to compare it with the area around the San Francisco bay area: lively, centred on water, post-industrial - and looking good on it.

So how can we ensure that the Thames Gateway is a place where people now, and a hundred years from now, love to live? By celebrating the character of each place, building on a rich historic fabric but also creating something new that looks to the future. Relating to London, but not as transient commuters. By creating beautiful places with great design. By managing flood risk and water supply. By celebrating that extraordinary landscape, and retaining a sense of wildness and space.

In the Gateway each place is different and individual, but they are all networked together. These are places where new things happen.