Glasgow’s new Transport Museum designed by Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) is the latest in a series of buildings intended to be key parts of the regeneration of the River Clyde corridor over the last 30 years.  Starting with the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre (SECC) in 1979, the developments include the Clyde Auditorium or Armadillo, an addition to the SECC complex by Foster and Partners in 1995, the Glasgow Science Centre by BDP in 2001 including the striking Glasgow Tower by Richard Horden and the BBC Scotland studios originally by David Chipperfield but completed by Keppie Design in 2007.  The Glasgow Arena by Foster and Partners is expected to open in 2013.  During this period, the Clyde Corridor hosted the Glasgow Garden Festival in 1988, become home to the International Financial Services District and has seen the construction of new bridges at Finnieston and Tradeston.

For many exhibits in the Riverside Museum this will be their fourth home in fifty years.  Kelvingrove Museum, the Tramway and latterly the Kelvin Hall all housed major elements of the collection but this latest and presumably permanent location in theory can display far more of the collection than previous venues.  The riverside location provides an appropriate transport and movement context in abundance.  There are railways, ferries and the seaplane terminal, the buzzing of helicopters, the noise from BAE Systems downstream building Westminster’s warships and the constant background noise of the Clydeside Expressway.  Despite all this movement, the museum’s context is dereliction and the current recession may ensure that it will stay that way for many years.

Interestingly, Glasgow City Council considered three approaches to the provision of a Museum of Transport:  1) constructing a cheap shed on an accessible site and spending more on interior display and curation, 2) housing the collection in an appropriate historic structure – for example a disused shipyard building or perhaps a tram shed or 3) housing the collection in a new icon building.  Clearly the lure of the third approach won, potentially weakening curation and display, secondary research opportunities and floorspace.

Approaching the building by road or on foot is a disappointing experience.   The latest modifications to the Clydeside Expressway have ensured that the Riverside Museum has few convenient connections with surrounding areas.  The access road has the feeling of a motorway off-ramp to a retail park.  With bitmac footpaths and pin kerbing in abundance around the rudimentary car park, this is a value-engineered environment.  Buses roar backwards and forwards from the city centre carrying two or three people in each while the car park (pay and display) overflows with visitors.  Clearly innovation has stopped at the outside wall of the new building.

Well that isn’t strictly fair on Gross Max who designed the public realm around the building. Gross Max, one of Scotland’s brightest and most accomplished landscape architects have produced a sequence of spaces around the curves of the building with token misters for the kids and green mounds and silver birch trees integrated into a simple paving treatment.  Here it is possible to see a nod towards the aesthetic of scrub and spontaneous landscape that is common to the post-industrial Clyde Corridor.   Is it the intention that the maturing of this landscape would see ZHA’s building in a glade of scrubby silver birch?  Who knows – it is hard to find any sense of landscape in the various visualisations of the building.  One thing is certain though and that is that Gross Max did not anticipate the vast consumption of junk food from three temporary outlets around the new building or the consequent overflowing rubbish bins and tomato ketchup staining around the picnic tables.

The building itself is another of the metal clad genre common to the Clyde, very photogenic and certain to join the family of other recent buildings that have become the postcard face of the city.  Like the Science Centre, Armadillo and the recent bridges, it is flattered by blue sky and vacant surroundings which help to point up its other-worldliness.  Purely by being interesting enough to be photographed, the building becomes a location that is unique and worth a visit.  It establishes a significant place on the river – even if it is disconnected from anything else.  And we may be seeing it at its best because once the Scottish property market recovers and starts to roll out more junk developments, especially to the west of the Riverside across the Kelvin, the setting of the building will be altered for the worse.

There are few clues from the outside as to what is happening in the building.  Its crisp exterior of zinc and dark glass, flawless cladding and signature roofline create a memorable if severe aesthetic.  From across the river at Govan, the presence of the SS Glenlee berthed alongside the Museum presents a slightly uncomfortable visual moment which flatters neither object – the effect may be similar to your granny turning up at your graduation wearing a Crimplene dressing gown.

Inside the building, the atmosphere is chaotic and redolent of a 1950s toy garage.  Presumably there were three phases of appreciation of the building: as an empty cathedral-like space with no exhibits, as a completed building with everything in place except for the ‘customers’ – these two being very important to people living in the architecture bubble – and finally, the crowded and complete environment we see today with kids trying to break exhibits and folk bumping into each other.  It’s a happy place though with much smiling, patient helpful staff and reminiscing.  Almost everything seems very familiar yet very special too.  The curation is crowded and for some, overcrowded or cramped, lacking space for contemplation or research.

Although it may be a minor work in terms of ZHA buildings, it will surely be an excellent investment for the Council, hugely popular and extremely positive for the marketing of the city.  But despite the merits of the building, it can’t escape its surroundings and disconnection with the city. So it would be unfortunate if any euphoria surrounding the Riverside obscured the fact that this un-crowded stretch of ‘world class waterfront’ is actually a world class failure in terms of the production of contemporary city and certainly one of the worst waterfront developments in Europe.  If landscape articulates a politics as well as an aesthetic then this waterfront is a consummate neo-liberal landscape of public waste, private greed, risk aversion and an environment for ‘customers’ in which communities, their economies and potential are completely ignored.  It’s not that the individual public sector funded developments have not succeeded – indeed they are mostly highly successful in their own terms – but the external environment of each development is a total failure and after adding in the sterile private sector developments and their accompanying over-designed roads infrastructure, the cumulative effect is nothing more than junkspace – the Clyde Corridor’s default urbanism.

Hopefully ZHA’s building will be the final moment of iconicism on the Clyde.  For the creators of this waterfront, the first steps towards a change of approach – involving recognition that there is a problem – will be difficult and painful.  For the private sector, to own so much land yet achieve so little and to be unable to string together any sort of cohesive urbanism whether traditional, Modern, contemporary, futuristic or parametric is a profound failure and would make anyone wonder about the skills at play or what those involved were actually trying to achieve.

The point is reached where there has to be a genuine acknowledgement that a different approach is required:  that doing small things better might be more constructive than more mega-million stones on the shiny metal necklace.  That joining things up with decent infrastructure and good public transport  - rather than stinking noisy buses – might actually start to create a riverside of higher value. That growing existing communities to the river might also work – as a contra-notion to developing laterally along the river.  And that constructive employment and providing the circumstances in which economies and innovation might thrive and in which communities can be involved are more valuable aims than private greed and shareholder satisfaction and that all these things are more important than design as shape-making and object creation.

The galleries below include most of Jon-Marc’s images of the Riverside Museum taken in the late afternoon of 4 July 2011.

Interior views: 

External views: 

A pdf of the original article in the AHSS Magazine is available to download here (125kB).

More than ten years into the 21st century it feels strange to be writing about a new urban motorway but just such an entity was opened to traffic in Glasgow in June 2011. The motorway connects the M74 from Carmyle to Tradeston and Kinning Park then to the M8 heading for Glasgow Airport and the Clyde Estuary.  It skirts the communities of Rutherglen, Polmadie and Gorbals and is not so much a new approach to the city centre as a way of avoiding it.  The contrast between this new stretch of motorway and the well known M8 eastern entrance to the city could hardly be more marked. Where the M8 approach, like the M77, gently unfolds the landmarks and drama of the city, good and bad, the M74 extension is a particularly banal experience.

The debate about the M74 extension passed a long time ago.  It is now perhaps fruitless to discuss questions such as could this money have been better spent, do new motorways actually solve traffic problems, was the blight along the route necessary, what about the environmental pollution from the new road and wouldn’t it have been possible to build a respectable public transport system for the same money?  Instead it is interesting to focus on deeply unfashionable questions around the perception of the city from this enormous piece of infrastructure and how it changes the narrative of Glasgow for residents and visitors.

The classic book ‘The View from the Road’ written by Donald Appleyard, Kevin Lynch and John R Myer in 1965 was one of a number of important publications that focused on the perception of cities from behind the wheel.  This was also the subject of various publications by John Brinckerhoff Jackson and most significantly by Robert Venturi, Steven Izenour and Denise Scott Brown in ‘Learning from Las Vegas‘.  These works still have their place in the world of architecture, landscape and urbanism but they also have parallels in photography and film. Yutaka Takanashi’s ‘Toshi-e‘ (‘Towards the City‘) and Lee Friedlander’s ’America by Car‘ both examined the experience of movement in cities through photography: the windscreen and camera creating a frame within a frame.

Motorway design can reach high points of excellence as demonstrated by many parts of the American Interstates and Parkways and also in the motorway systems of most European mainland countries.  The creators of these roads had skills and insight which are sadly lacking in the design of the M74 Extension. The Transport Scotland website is of course overflowing with the supposed benefits of the M74 Extension and they include economic regeneration, environment, traffic, road safety and community regeneration.  But if we imagine just for a moment that these are all genuine benefits isn’t something else completely missing? If as Mark Cousins says, ‘movies make money as well as meaning’, why can’t projects like the M74 Extension provide meaning as well as other supposed benefits?  Why couldn’t the new motorway create some positive experience of entering the city?  Where are the views, the scenography and drama, the habitats, the communities, the compositions or the evidence of thought?

We can see the lonely landmark tower of Rutherglen Town Hall and Greek Thomson’s Caledonian Road Church but little else.  But most of all, where is the River Clyde?  There is a sign saying we are passing over it but along the entire length of the new road, the barriers, super-elevation, topographical choices, screens and ill-placed railings block views of potentially interesting features that would give some sense of place to the road.

While in the background we still see Glasgow, its tenements its towers and surrounding hills, the foreground is hidden behind what is effectively a 3-dimensional map of cost cutting, negotiation, compensation, risk aversion and managerialism stretching over a six mile corridor.  The banal reality of this new road may have appealed to Yutaka Takanashi’s sharp eye for composition but to most commuters and visitors, it is a poor introduction to the city and reflects a lack of interest in matters that might create genuine long term value for the city and its communities.

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The second part of the study looked at the infrastructure requirements of three city scenarios considered during the City Visioning and Local Development Plan process, to help understand the impact on public sector service provision (and the public purse) of different development planning strategies.

Although the mapping shown here relates solely to healthcare facilities, similar effects might be anticipated in relation to other public service infrastructure.

Imagine a country with around the same population as Scotland that builds Metro lines and high speed rail links, that has the ambition to build a 50 mile undersea tunnel link to another country and is built around an extensive welfare state.

Imagine the same country regularly topping international comparisons of national performance in health, education and quality of life, as well as being the seventh most competitive country in the world.

Imagine its capital city, with a similar population to Edinburgh, with an extensive district heating system, the foresight to introduce a vacuum powered district waste disposal scheme that eliminates bin collections and which is extending its tram based public transport system with six major new lines over the next few years.

Helsinki is a city of 480,000 people with a surrounding metropolitan area of around 1.3 million people. It is very similar in size to Edinburgh (478,000) and it also the capital of its country with a population slightly less than that of Scotland at 5.3 million.

It is a remarkable and beautiful city with big plans for the future which include a fast rail link to St Petersburg, promoting and developing its airport as a European hub to China and investigating a 50 mile tunnel link to Tallinn in Estonia. This is a city in which seventy percent of the land area and almost all development land is owned by the City Council. This is a city with big plans and the ability to implement them.

The city also has ambitious plans for its own expansion, particularly on to waterfront areas previously occupied by docklands and inner harbours which have moved out to a new complex at Vuosaaric on the eastern edge of the conurbation. It is expected that an additional 100,000 people will be accommodated in these new developments. A key factor in planning these new development areas is integrated public transport by Metro in part but mainly by tram.

Helsinki’s tram network is one of the oldest electrified tram networks in the world. It forms part of the city public transport system organised by Helsinki Regional Transport Authority and operated by Helsinki City Transport. The trams are the main means of transport within the city centre and 56.6 million trips were made back in 2004, which is more than those made with the Helsinki Metro.

The Finnish capital has 12 tram lines and six more on the way | pic: Creative Commons

The first tram network was established in 1890 and electrification took place in 1900. In common with many other European cities, the tram system was under threat from buses in the mid 20th century and the city decided to close the system in the early 1960s. However this decision was reversed during the early 1970s and by 1976 the network was being expanded again. Today the tram is a key part of the city’s infrastructure.

The city has a current total of twelve lines with a further six lines planned over the next few years. As well as owning almost 70% of the land area of the city, the Helsinki authorities also own the public transport system and critically, the energy company that supplies power for the tram network. This degree of ownership of the core elements of the system means that it is relatively easy to extend the network and guarantee connections to new housing areas without having to haggle with different land owners, developers, public utility owners and contractors.

Another aspect of infrastructure provision in Helsinki is the way in which it seems to happen efficiently and painlessly. Not for them the contractual disputes, delays in implementation or flaws in construction which are leapt upon by a triumphant public and trumpeted in the media elsewhere.

Perhaps it is in the dour uncomplaining Finnish character to just let other people get on with things in the knowledge that they will eventually be successful. Or perhaps they are just used to doing infrastructure provision really well.

Original article and comments

This short article was originally published in the Guardian Edinburgh under the title ‘Spotlight on trams: Bordeaux’. The Guardian has given up its local experiment so this post, together with a similar article on infrastructure in Helsinki may disappear at any time from the Guardian’s pages – hence they are republished here.

In the first of an occasional series looking at the experience of trams in other world cities, guest blogger Willie Miller finds that Bordeaux’s trams haven’t just moved people around, the ‘mobile social structures’ have changed the very development of the place.  Bordeaux is a vibrant city of 250,000 people serving a metropolitan catchment area with a population of 1.1 million and is one of the largest urban areas in France.  The city and its region are of course well known for wine but this is also a city that makes things: optical and laser research and production, aeronautical and defence industries as well as pharmaceuticals, food and electronics.

It is also a significant administrative centre and a city attractive to tourists on the basis of the wine industry, the adjacent seaside resort of Arcachon and the city centre which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The built-up area has grown swiftly in the past decade and urban sprawl was considered to be a significant problem. In common with many other European cities, as Bordeaux expanded its periphery, industries around the core of the city declined most significantly along the banks of the Garonne.

The first Bordeaux tramway dated back to 1880. In 1946 the public transportation system had 38 tram lines with a total length of 124 miles carrying 160,000 passengers per day.

This system was abandoned in 1958 as a result of anti-tram arguments including the notion that trams hindered the flow of cars through the city.
Political change

In 1995 the city elected Alain Juppé as its new mayor. He recognised the need for action to counter the strangulation of the city by transport problems and, together with a number of other initiatives, the city adopted the tramway plan in 1997 with the support of Central Government in 2000 as a Public Interest Project. This is a very European example of a politician supporting a major project rather than disowning it. The tramway network currently consists of three lines built at a cost of EURO 800,000.

The first new line was opened in December 2003 and further extensions have increased the route length to just over 27 miles with more routes planned. The system is notable for using a ground-level power supply system in the city centre to placate the views of conservationists who considered that overhead wires would threaten the integrity of the World Heritage Site. The system is operated at the moment under a five year contract by Keolis, the largest private sector transport group in France.

The overall transport system (bus-tram-rail) sees some 300,000 passenger journeys daily of which 165,000 are on trams. On average, 45% of journeys on the combined bus and tram network of the TBC are by tram. In 2008 the trams carried 54.7 million passengers. The Bordeaux tramway is one of 16 towns or cities in France running a tram system integrated with bus and rail.

Wide impact on structure
The impact of the tram on the city should not be seen just in terms of moving people around. It has had a much wider impact on the structure of the city and the way in which new development is allowed to take place. On the periphery of the city, the three tram routes define growth corridors along which development can take place. The new routes have defined new parts of the city where people live and work.

Tram stops become the focal points of new squares, the centres of new mixed use areas where employment and living space are co-located or the best way of getting to some of the city’s remarkable new spaces such as Michel Corajoud’s breathtaking Mirior d’eau opposite the Place de la Bourse on the banks of the Garonne. The tram has also allowed many traditional city squares to become areas of calm like the spaces around the Cathédrale Saint-André de Bordeaux or around Richard Roger’s Palais de Justice. Many of these spaces sit atop underground car parks so while the car can still penetrate the inner historic core, there is precious little evidence of its presence.

In Bordeaux the tram infrastructure enables easier orientation within the city. The tracks, overhead cables and stops are now permanent features of the city’s streets – predictable and stable unlike bus routes. So the tram informs and helps people to formulate a clearer image of the structure of their city. It is a feature of their communal public space.

Tram stops in the city are typically focal points in the urban fabric where local shops, bars and cafes cluster or where students meet on the way to university. This perhaps sounds like UK Regeneration speak – and it probably is – but the defining of city spaces by public transport is a part of European urbanism that predates Lord Rogers and his Urban Renaissance by a century or more.

Mobile social spaces
Bordeaux’s trams are also mobile social spaces in a way that buses can never be – the arrangement of seats and standing space seems to encourage conversation. The tram is smooth running so that café au lait need not be spilled and the discussion started at the tram stop can continue without interruption.

Trams in Bordeaux have also created more walkable streets. There is little if any evidence of a city centre traffic problem whereas before their reintroduction, there was traffic chaos. Generally, trams attract heavier usage than buses so their introduction and development has created a virtuous circle of improved diesel-free environments for pedestrians, more walking and increased use of public transport.

The brave steps that Bordeaux took at the end of the 20th century to reconfigure its transport system have effectively restructured the city and provided a new network of communal public spaces and a pedestrian priority city centre of which it can be justifiably proud. It is an excellent example which many UK cities should follow.

Original article in Guardian Edinburgh

As a follow on from the post here almost two years ago entitled Terrain Vague: place and landscape and Stephen Gill’s photographic work in the Lower Lea Valley, this video which has been around for a few months on Vimeo, draws attention to the destruction of land, common land, allotments and football pitches which are being cleared to make way for the 2010 Olympics. The story moves through the various people whose lives are being disrupted by the proposals and who point out that this land is not simply unused but provides an escape from the city.

As Iain Sinclair and others have pointed out, the breathtaking intellectual thinness of the proposed Starbucks landscape of the Olympics compares badly with the richness of the existing complex environment. This is not a plea for doing nothing – it’s more a wish that in the rush to create, to ‘deliver’ and to ‘drive forward a vision’ towards this dubious prize, designers, planners, procurement officers or whoever should work with what is there rather than scrape it away and produce just another piece of second rate UK property development. Post-Olympics the communities can have most of this back – except that there will be nothing worth having in comparison to the richness of what is already there.

Many of the issues raised here resonate with the work we did in Sheffield on the Council’s Rivers and Waterways Strategy, especially in relation to the disregard that development agencies have for existing character and their blindness to the ways in which this can be used to create contemporary environments that are rich, exciting and beneficial to local communities. The Sheffield – City of Rivers report is available below: (should be browsed fullscreen).

Public Policy

The Scottish Government wants to create a more successful Scotland by increasing sustainable economic growth. The Government acknowledges that a high quality environment is an important part of achieving this. Highland Council’s ambitions for its population are expressed in the Single Outcome Agreement, and link back to the Government’s aim of creating a wealthier, fairer, healthier, smarter, greener and safer Scotland. The Single Outcome Agreement aims to promote sustainable Highland communities, safeguard the environment and create a competitive, sustainable and adaptable Highland economy. It also aspires to a healthier and fairer Highlands with better opportunities for all.

These aims have implications for the type and form of place that Inverness should become. For example, how successful is Inverness in catering for a broad range of expectations? How well are the Single Outcome Agreement’s ambitions being met? How well does the city cater for everyone’s needs? Is any section of the community disadvantaged? Retention of the local population, in particular the 16-35 age range, is important for Inverness and the surrounding Highland communities. However, it is this age group that tends to be attracted elsewhere – so it is important to provide what is needed in order to attract and retain them.

A new city vision

One way of shaping a city future is by agreeing a vision which describes the necessary ingredients of a settlement in terms of quality of streets, buildings, spaces and sets out an image of the kind of city that Inverness could be. Over the next few months, Highland Council will be facilitating a visioning exercise for the City of Inverness. This is part of the process of preparing the new generation of planning documents for the area. It is is a different way of planning. It involves working with everyone with a stake in the future of Inverness and develop a shared vision. We will be doing this at a series of special Future City Events from Wednesday 20th January to Friday 22nd January 2010 for people from local communities, businesses and the public sector.

The City Vision team
We have been appointed by Architecture and Design Scotland to work with Highland Council staff in preparing the spatial content of the Vision. Nick Wright Planning has been commissioned to work with the residential and business communities in Inverness in the lead up to the Future City Events as well as consult widely with a range of public sector agencies. Highland Council have set up a blog which records the process and provides a wealth of background information. The British Council has run the Future City Events have a webpage here which describes the process.

• inform the forthcoming Local Plan process, in particular the Proposed Plan stage
• identify and set out the key components required within the SLA and provide an overall structure within which individual masterplans can be prepared

This report proposed a strategic framework showing how the land-use elements of the Dunfermline SLA – housing, employment, community facilities and infrastructure – could be accommodated on the city’s western flank between 2011 and 2026, in a manner which results in high quality, sustainable and distinctive place-making.

Key elements

The starting point for the form of the strategic framework was the development of walkable neighbourhoods based around mixed use local centres. Walkable means preferably within five minutes walk of the local centre and or public transport facilities but this could extend to a ten minute walk. Four new neighbourhoods are proposed in the period to 2026 – a large area to the south west of the city and three neighbourhoods to the west, north west and north.
Integrated with this set of walkable neighbourhoods is a new public transport system based on an integrated street system linking the new areas (rather than a remote segregated system). The eventual form of this transport system has not been determined at present but it is likely to be either a Bus Rapid the strategic framework Transport (BRT) or Light Rapid Transport (LRT). There is also a requirement for a new western distributor road for the city which would be integrated with the BRT or LRT in part.

The protection of the historic landscape of the city and the protection of the integrity of a green belt between Dunfermline and Crossford has been an important factor in the development of the framework. At the outset, it was considered that a series of neighbourhoods had a potentially better fit in sensitive landscape than a larger settlement form. Care has been taken with the siting of these neighbourhoods and their associated landscaping although it should be stressed that by designating an SLA in the sensitive landscape of west and south west Dunfermline, it was inevitable that some conflict would occur between different interests.

These new neighbourhoods have to perform a number of functions in relation to the existing urban fabric of Dunfermline. For example linkage to the existing fabric is important as is the provision of facilities in the new development which enhances the quality of life in existing areas. It was also seen as important to provide only local retail facilities and not compete with the centre of Dunfermline. The provision of employment space in local centres or in associated mixed use areas is also seen as desirable.

Finally it was necessary to accommodate the quantum of development specified in the SLA namely for:

• 4,200 new homes up to 2026
• 80 hectares of employment land
• capacity for further housing and emploment growth post 2026
• a high school
• 3 primary schools

Other facilities that the development industry might be expected to provide are:

• education, sport and healthcare facilities
• local shops and services
• employment opportunities
• public transport facilities and services
• strategic and local transport improvements
• walking and cycling improvements
• affordable housing
• public art and landscape enhancement

Integrated in these new neighbourhoods are high quality design, low or zero carbon developments and neighbourhood-wide Combined Heat and Power (CHP).

Team

The study was carried out through extensive client-side workshops and collaboration. The team was WMUD, Kevin Murray Associates, Nick Wright Planning and MRC McLean Hazel.

• to enrich the quality of life of people who live and work in Rotherham, and to improve the experience of visitors
• to promote nature conservation and biodiversity
• to stimulate investment and regeneration

The policy context

Rotherham’s rivers and waterways figure prominently in regional and local planning policy, and across a wide range of other policy areas. However, while the waterways are generally deemed to be valuable assets, there is little evidence that the poor quality and condition of many of the borough’s rivers, canals and waterspaces has been acknowledged. This confirms the clients’ perception that a strategy is required to focus attention on the waterways and to devise a cohesive strategy and plan for action.

Although the potential of Rotherham’s waterways remains unfulfilled, it is clear that they can make an important contribution to the quality of life in the borough, to biodiversity and to regeneration.

Waterways in the landscape

Rotherham’s waterways have played a pivotal role in the Borough’s rich and fascinating, determining the location of settlements and sites of industry. The canalisation of the river Don in the mid 18th century made Rotherham an important inland port, and encouraged the growth of industry, even though the waterway was soon superseded by the railways. Though the borough only covers a small area, it is surprisingly diverse: while the Don and the Rother became archetypal industrial rivers, the attractive streams in the limestone country to the east feed into the Trent catchment. Ancient ponds are a feature of Rotherham, as are planned landscapes with water features, as at Wentworth.

This diversity is still reflected in the condition of Rotherham’s waterways today, which present a challenging mix of assets and liabilities. The consultant team has analysed the waterways and waterspaces by type, function and context, and we have also identified a series of distinct character areas.

Rotherham’s waterways appraised

We tested and developed our analysis in a series of consultations and at a stakeholder workshop. These events confirmed the mixed “report card” on our site visits and research. There was unanimous recognition of the potential of Rotherham’s waterways, and a broad consensus that recent successes (Rother Valley Country Park, Blackburn Meadows, Chesterfield Canal improved water quality etc) had raised public awareness of the value of water and its potential to contribute to a better quality of life. The Cuckoo Way and Roche Abbey are examples of little known delights in the borough. At the same time, the urban Don and the lower Rother still appear to be neglected and under-used places, and recent events have highlighted the threat of flooding and the presumed effects of climate change. The potential is unmistakable, but the problems are big and structural and the barriers to progress sometime appear formidable.

Developing the strategy

The report draws on this analysis to map out a vision and strategy for Rotherham’s waterways. Achieving the vision will require action to nurture, restore, celebrate and care for Rotherham’s unique network of rivers, canals and water spaces.

The report frames a series of strategic objectives and identifies six broad priorities for action: river restoration, major regeneration projects, the Chesterfield Canal, nature reserves, the access network and community projects.

Given the sheer scale and diversity of the challenges, it is not possible or desirable to draw up a detailed blueprint at this stage, but the consultant team has drawn up a set of 11 guiding principles, to be applied as appropriate as new projects are brought forward.

This section concludes by highlighting some of the places and ideas that have helped to shape the Rotherham Waterways Strategy, and which should act as sources of inspiration in the future. In particular, we acknowledge our debt to Emscher Landscape Park in Germany’s Ruhr region, which is the best example in Europe of the transformation of a polluted and semi-derelict post-industrial landscape.

The action plan

The themes of the strategy are drawn together in Section 6 which begins by recommending that the key themes of the action plan should be: New Life for the Urban River valleys, the Chesterfield Canal, the urban waterfront, riverside communities, Rotherham’s Hidden Gems, caring for the waterways, and celebrating them.

We also recommend the formation of a Rotherham Waterways Partnership (with a maximum 5 years’ life) to drive forward the initiative, and the appointment of a project manager.

We have drawn up an illustrative 3-5 year action plan, which distinguishes between project development activities (where the partnership should take a lead role) and influencing the work of others to ensure that benefits for the rivers and waterways are achieved. We have estimated that the partnership would require a budget of around £850,000 over 3 years to take forward this work programme.

The success of the partnership will be determined largely by its ability to engage effectively with other partners, locally and at the sub-regional, catchment and regional levels. We have identified some key connections, including with Sheffield which is also developing proposals for reviving its urban rivers.

Finally, we have stressed the importance of knowing what success looks like. A simple performance management framework is required for the partnership, which should be the subject of an independent review after three years.

Key decisions and choices

The issues and choices will be a key theme for the next stage of the study and we have set out some of the strategic choices that need to be addressed:

• should Glasgow City Centre North continue to be a location for industry in the city, or should the strategy encourage a shift to higher value uses such as offices and housing?
• is it desirable or practicable to try to provide “local jobs for local people” in the study area, or should we be encouraging a step change in the local economy?
• could all or part of the study area be reinvented as a new community, with a mix of housing by type and tenure, parks, transport and social infrastructure that will attract people to live in north Glasgow?
• are we trying to create a destination in the city or should we be aiming for an attractive, popular and sustainable city neighbourhood?
• to what degree should the strategy be shaped by economic goals, or should we also be pursuing social, environmental and cultural objectives?
• should the strategy be predicated on incremental change, albeit with a clear direction of travel, or should the partners aim for more rapid and radical change, for example, the transformational projects described above or the creation of a new university campus/innovation park?

Must-do actions

These and other choices will be identified and discussed during the strategy formulation phase, but the process has already revealed a number of areas where urgent action is deemed to be essential. Progress on these themes can be seen as an essential pre-condition for sustainable regeneration and they include:

• Mobilising community and stakeholder support: Every effort should be made to align the public sector stakeholders and resources, and the success of the project will also turn on its ability to command the support of local communities. Change projects also mean thinking about the needs and expectations of people who are not in the study area at present, but who you are seeking to attract – to live, work or visit.
• Animating the canal corridor: The canal is the study area’s unique asset, and a key source of distinctiveness and competitive advantage, but an under-used waterway can become a liability and place that people avoid rather than an attraction. For this reason, any positive future scenario will be predicated on the presence of a lively and attractive waterfront, and activity on the water; there is a need for early action to animate the waterspace and encourage people to visit Glasgow’s little-known canal.
• Improving public transport: For a variety of historic reasons, the study area is poorly served by public transport. Radial routes pass through the area, north and south, but bus services do not penetrate into the heart of the area. This only serves to compound a sense of isolation, and local business recognise it as a weakness. Sustainable regeneration can only be achieved if Glasgow City Centre North is reconnected to the city centre and adjoining neighbourhoods, and all the best European models treat connectivity as a non-negotiable requirement.
• Improving pedestrian access to and through the study area: Most pedestrian routes in and out of the study area are obscure and unattractive, and sometimes hostile. Port Dundas, for example, is easily walkable from the city centre but it is not a good experience. The study area often feels deserted: even at the busiest times of time there are few people on the streets. Over time, radical solutions may be required to remove barriers; in the short term, a plan to make pedestrian routes safer and more attractive is imperative.
• Enhancing the public realm: Although parts of the study area have a rich character and heritage, the quality of the public realm is almost uniformly poor: The canalside around Speirs Wharf is the only exception. The strategy must include a long-term plan for strengthening and enhancing the public realm and creating high quality urban spaces, but a short-term early action plan should also be devised – focusing on areas with the potential for rapid improvement, for example, by cleaning up derelict land, improving recent development sites and influencing new developments.
• Raising design standards: Recent investment in the study area is a source of some encouragement, but the design quality of projects post-Speirs Wharf has, almost without exception, been very disappointing. The City Council has a responsibility to ensure that future developments set a higher standard for architecture and urban design. One of the most disappointing features of recent projects has been the way in which anodyne buildings have eroded the distinctiveness of the study area without injecting style or quality into the townscape.

Implementation

We have advocated a twin-track approach to the next phase of the study. In parallel with work on the strategy, a second workstream should focus on implementation: producing a plan which will focus on the “how” and “when” of the regeneration process. Some of the work has already been undertaken in this study: Section 6 contains sets out a detailed and authoritative account of market conditions in different parts of the study area, although a more fine grained market appraisal will still be required to shape and inform proposals for specific sites. We have also gathered information on property and site ownerships, which are likely to be a key factor in determining the feasibility of particular proposals as well as the timing of developments.

It is already clear that only limited amounts of land are owned by the Council or key partners such as British Waterways, and that the pattern of ownership in the study area is fragmented. Experience suggests that this is likely to be a significant constraint on the partners’ aspirations, and much will therefore depend on the Council’s willingness and/or ability to create the conditions for change.