“You can create something that is of this place, not just a place that could be plonked anywhere. People can feel completely empowered – like they have a role in shaping their own built environment, the places where they work, where they live, where they gather.” [sustainable development company Kiss House – on Mayday Saxonvale, Frome, Somerset]
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Last month, we looked at how we fix the modern scourge of soulless urban landscapes – and concluded with the suggestion that “this is why it was so important to establish good design at the heart of the Sid Valley Neighbourhood Plan”
The blog piece followed on from the inspiring first programme in the new series Building Soul: with Thomas Heatherwick on BBC Radio 4 last month.
The final programme looked at Public Service Architecture – with further inspiring good, concrete (pun intended) examples:
Joy, pride, comfort – these aren’t luxuries, they’re essentials. In this episode, Thomas Heatherwick explores the power of the public to reshape our cities. From emotional attachment and grassroots campaigns to the influence of mass media, he shows how people – not just planners – can drive radical change in how we build.
When it comes to Sidmouth, there was the grassroots campaign to stop the district council from relocating from Knowle – when the Telegraph reported on how the town took to the streets over a beauty spot threat as the council faced scrutiny. Of course it didn’t stop the council from building an ugly new HQ on an industrial estate and it didn’t stop the former Knowle hotel from being gutted by fire. And yet it does seem that questions over the council HQ relocation project led to a dramatic change in political leadership at the council in 2019.
People do have an “emotional attachment” to places – whether it’s the Knowle or, on the other hand, the Drill Hall, which was to be retained, refurbished and reused, also back in 2019. Two years earlier, to counter the district council’s plans for Port Royal, an alternative view, a new campaign and an online petition had been put together and were eventually successful. Now, Rockfish, Sidmouth @ the Drill Hall hopes to be ‘open by the end of this year’.
This is the “joy, pride and comfort” which the architect Thomas Heatherwick talked about, together with the power of the public to reshape their local built environment.
When it comes to Frome, next door in Somerset, he gave an example of exactly that: of “how people – not just planners – can drive radical change in how we build”.
This is from the Guardian from earlier in the year on how Frome residents won a five-year battle for a community-led housing project:
Residents of a “renegade” Somerset market town have won their battle to create an innovative 5-hectare (12-acre) community-led development that includes homes, workspaces and a lido, after councillors agreed to sell a large brownfield site to the not-for-profit social enterprise behind the project.
The Mayday Saxonvale scheme in Frome, which hundreds of residents have spent five years fighting for, also features two public squares, and a community-owned boutique hotel and cafe. Supporters of the project, which they believe is the largest of its kind in England, say it means that the Saxonvale site in the town centre will be saved from being turned into a “cookie-cutter” development by a commercial company more focused on its shareholders than the good of the place.
The sustainable development company Kiss House is entering into a joint venture partnership with Mayday. Oster said: “It means you can create something that is of this place, not just a place that could be plonked anywhere. People can feel completely empowered – like they have a role in shaping their own built environment, the places where they work, where they live, where they gather. It’s quite a powerful thing.”
The piece also tellingly shows how important this development is:
The progress of the scheme is being watched keenly by other progressive towns who hope they may be able to replicate it.
Back in these parts, and there were searches for Sidmouth’s brownfield sites for new housing development under the district council’s Local Plan – but as there aren’t any, we must make do with a plot owned by developer Persimmon. But questions have been asked as to how good is Persimmon’s new-build housing? and “Can the housebuilder which owns large areas of building land in the Sid Valley step up to the plate and deliver?”
To what extent, then, under the Sid Valley Neighbourhood Plan, will people “have a role in shaping their own built environment, the places where they work, where they live, where they gather?”
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