Tuesday 9 March 2010

Double Vision

Nobody really had any idea what a Charrette was. Except Lunchista, because in her previous job, some arbitrary chain of contacts had landed our firm with the chance to take part in one. In East London, of all places. And so I'd been dispatched down south to a swanky hotel in Greenwich, to help a panel of architects, urban planners and property finance experts come up with interesting ideas for a regeneration project for the lucky citizens of Deptford. Lunchista's contribution had been to consider anything in the area connected to energy and sustainability.

The idea is to put together something like a brainstorming session, except instead of taking an hour or so and producing a list of possible ideas on a flip-chart, this was to take a week (plus extra days for feedback from, then to, the public) and produce proper architects' plans for what to do with the entire area. The name derives from the carts upon which Parisian art and architecture students of the previous two centuries would dispatch their project work so as to meet examiners' deadlines. The same carts, I might add, upon which undesireables were dispatched to the guillotine. But I digress.

Our city has so many giant projects ongoing, and so many possibilities, that Yorkshire Forward had decided we were in need of some serious brainstorming, to come up with a Vision of what the city should look like over the next 25 years, and how it should work. All local organisations, including our Party, were invited along. The panel, as in the Deptford excercise, weren't locals but were given several days to get to know the area's geography and apply their brains afresh to problems with which we ourselves may have become too familiar. We were offered two whole days of presentations and feedback on a range of subjects (such as Transport, Parks, Communities...). And someone with a wicked sense of humour had allotted Lunchista the subject of Business.

So as I sat down round the table with five other consultees and our panel representative, I was wondering which parts of our beautiful city all the others wanted to obliterate with large lumps of Business. But it didn't quite happen like that. Everyone around the table was so enthused by the possibilities offered by the University's expansion programme (which is already under way, and includes a science park, a theatre, a swimming pool and for all I know a spaceport) that they decided that, at least as far as buildings were concerned, was all the growth we need, for now. They then decided that the best business area to grow in was renewable energy: the Council, even as I write, are putting together a feasibility study for precisely that. Then how about a total refurb of the city's office space? And growth in local, organic food?...And...isn't it great that the time-frame of our "Vision" stretches over the time when all this work needs doing, but not into the unknown territory beyond, when the economy will still need Growth but he rest of us will already have all we need, or indeed are able to afford?

Now when asked to a process such as this, it's useful to know in advance who started it, and what they might be looking for. In this case, as I mentioned, it was Yorkshire Forward, and they (after all it is their job) are looking for Prosperity. So when the time came for each panel representative to sum up what their table had put together, I was fully expecting, for example, the Transport table to express a collective want for more road space, but we were instead treated to a delightful prospect of an entire city centre without cars.

I wonder how far all the inspired ideas from this far-from-cheap excercise will propagate up the edifice of government? After all the very same government are still encouraging us to buy more cars, and reports still bemoan the recent reduction in road traffic as a sign of the Recession. All the while they're cheerfully shelling out for adverts to persuade people to reduce their Carbon footprints (for example by driving less).

Lunchista gets double vision when extremely tired. Might HMG be tired?

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