Theme 1: the importance of the local community

A Community Co-operative:
There is much local interest in the future prosperity of the villages, not only from local businesses and retailers but from residents in general. This is an ideal footing for the establishment of a local community co-operatives to help new projects to get off the ground. Community Co-operatives have been shown to be effective in providing local services in marginal market circumstances where local residents want better facilities than the Council might be able to provide or which cannot survive in normal market circumstances.

It is important that public agencies should gently assist and support the setting up a local co-operatives rather than dominating and micro-managing the process. To work effectively, co-ops need to be strongly community based rather than be the creation of the Council. A local co-op will need support to find, acquire or rent premises, find suppliers, pay for marketing, ordering, budgeting, logistics and recruiting of volunteers. Highlands and Islands Enterprise have considerable experience of working with local communities to establish such ventures and should be involved in the process of setting this up.

Local support and project champions:
Linked to the ethos and practice of community co-ops is the need to encourage projects to be initiated, developed and supported by local people. The force for change should come from the local community rather than being imposed by the public sector. There is a culture of high involvement of the public sector in Orkney matched by a sense of dependency by the community – an expectation that the Council will be responsible for or be involved in the majority of change in the village. Change in the villages is very driven by public sector finance and therefore subject to the same budgetary shortcomings that most local authorities have to work with.

What is required is for local champions and groups to take responsibility for projects rather than relying on the public sector to do so. Community based projects or initiatives by local companies can be far more effective than the public sector in obtaining finance and promoting proposals and schemes that work for the town and with which the local community feel a sense of ownership.

Theme 2: the appreciation of place

These villages and the surrounding landscapes are worthy of the highest standards of maintenance and enhancement. Having a diverse economy contributes to securing a better sense of place. A committed and involved business and residential community is equally valuable. An understanding of the physical assets of the town and its setting is the foundation of place and placemaking.

The specific areas that have to be addressed are education, awareness and appreciation of local circumstances and context – forming a sense of what makes Orkney special and ensuring that this is not watered down by inappropriate, out of context or rootless interventions. Improving place awareness in the local community is a major project but some of the tools which can be used to achieve better standards of placemaking and design are readily available. They are:

• the introduction of compulsory design statements for all development in and around the villages
• the production of guides for a range of different subjects and/or for specific areas of the town such as the new ribbon or linear housing development areas
• the introduction of specific briefs for important, large or prominent sites or for the creation of new greenspace and its integration in settlement form
• new approaches to the design of roads infrastructure which adopts the Designing Streets standards and 20 mph limits within these settlements

But one of the most important conclusions from undertaking this work, and it is reflected in many other projects in 2010, has been around the issues and blockages created by conflicts between the different historical professions of architecture, planning, landscape, housing and roads engineering which translates into disagreements and lack of shared objectives between different Council departments and ensure that the outcomes are sub-optimal. This results in frustration for local communities and confusion about overall objectives.

Positive strategic role

There is definite potential to undertake significant development on the study area – and to influence regeneration in the surrounding areas in the northern part of the Borough and in adjoining boroughs, and possibly even at a London level and beyond. The full scope and scale of transformation is dependent on a number of factors, including the ability to capitalise upon opportunities and address some very real constraints.

Constraints

There are a number of key constraints affecting development of the site particularly:

• The rail and canal corridors form barriers to north-south movement within and beyond the site. Whilst development could possibly be built over the railway, this is unlikely to be viable for the canal.
• Safety concerns around the gasholders are likely to prevent residential development on portions of the site as long as the gasholders are in place (until at least 2016).
• The single vehicular connection to the site makes it isolated, both in terms of public and private transport. It also places significant physical constraints on the quantum of development.
• The existing Sainsbury’s store may or may not wish to move from its current site – it could possibly be redeveloped as part of a larger, denser development.
• Crossrail are seeking to use part of the southern portion of the site as a temporary bus garage during construction works, to 2017.

Recommendation

The recommendation is to pursue as ambitious an option as possible in partnership with the key landowners, and to continue to build up the parallel case for a station. We see this option being represented as a composite of C and D at this stage, beginning in the eastern part of the site, and extending westwards over time as the gas holders are decommissioned. This composite is more ambitious than options A and B, but is more feasible than option E. It could also provide a basis for including part of option F if the opportunity presents itself.

Scenario development
Given that this stage in the process was upstream of generating any real development proposals, it was necessary to explore a wide range of possibilities in an open, value free way. Therefore, rather than ‘design’ a selection of alternative indicative schemes, the method at this stage was to explore and develop a range of scenarios (future circumstances) with associated development typologies (physical place outcomes). At this stage of feasibility testing we considered it important not to prejudge any outcome, nor to have premature preferences that may preclude creative options be explored. Also, we found it particularly important to be open-minded about both cost-value parameters (these changed even in the short time of the study) and about a potential Crossrail station – even though this has been a desired outcome of the Council – because it is not in itself a ‘given’ component.



The scenario approach used enabled different kinds of future circumstances and outcomes to be constructed, explored and developed, then further reviewed and tested for feasibility and desirability. This method was wide-ranging including scenarios various people acknowledged were more or less desirable. It was not simply a wish list of a few idealised end-states. These scenarios were explored in a future situation (2025) well beyond the limits of current policy, and also without community involvement at this ‘upstream’ stage.

Our view is that this open, relatively creative approach demonstrates a wide range of possibilities. Importantly, it generated a wide range of relevant issues for further testing, review and, where appropriate, policy action and dialogue with landowners and statutory bodies.

The study team comprised Kevin Murray Associates (lead), Willie Miller Urban Design (WMUD), Alan Baxter Associates, Battle McCarthy, Colliers CRE and Gardiner & Theobald.

Local distinctiveness has been described as an elusive concept. Essentially, it encompasses the unique physical, social and economic characteristics of a place and the interaction of people with those characteristics. There is increasing concern that the homogenising effect of the property development industry, retail trends, the underfunding of local councils and a mature tourism industry is affecting the individuality of places. Consequently, towns and cities as well as villages and rural areas are perceived as increasingly similar and visiting them may no longer provide a unique experience .

The search for economic advantage has fostered an interest in local distinctiveness, both as a means of ensuring the prosperity of a place through focusing on what is different, and as a means of supporting and enhancing the qualities which make the place special for local people.

Context
The term Local Distinctiveness was coined by Common Ground in 1983 . Significantly this was a period during which there was a widespread feeling that towns and cities were not changing for the better. This was reflected in the rise of the conservation movement, the growth of NIMBYism as well as the mainstreaming of postmodernism in architecture and its adoption by developers.

In the context of urban design, local distinctiveness chimed with the writings of key individuals such as John Betjeman, Ian Nairn, Gordon Cullen, Jane Jacobs and Christopher Alexander. Today it is synonymous with contextualism, conservation, the work of the Prince’s Foundation and even the New Economics Foundation (NEF) through its Clone Towns campaign and its findings about the economic benefits of local markets.

Definition of local distinctiveness
Local distinctiveness is closely linked to the environment, the economy and the social ambience of a place and has been defined as that which makes a place special, differentiating it from anywhere else. Local distinctiveness is the essence of what makes a place special to us. It is the sum of landscape, wildlife, archaeology, history, traditions, buildings and crafts – everything that makes somewhere truly unique.

Canterbury is a good example of a distinctive places but what exactly is the nature of the distinctiveness? Cathedrals exist as landmark features in many European towns. While they may be the reasons why towns are visited they may not be what make these towns distinctive. In Canterbury, the Cathedral is a landmark but it is also locally distinctive because of its links with:

• the murder of Thomas à Becket (national historical event)
• Chaucer’s tales of pilgrimages to Becket’s shrine recorded in The Canterbury Tales (early example of written cultural history)
• the continuing use of the medieval pilgrims’ inns (early tourism infrastructure) by town centre businesses (conservation of the built environment)
• the specially written play Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Elliot (interpretation of national and local history)
• Michael Powell’s extraordinary 1944 film A Canterbury Tale that re-invents Canterbury as a romantic city and a city of the imagination at the heart of English art and culture
• the continuity of the close relationship between Canterbury and the State (eg the signing of the Channel Tunnel treaty in the Chapter House)
These factors combine with other distinctive elements of built heritage, such as St. Augustine’s Abbey (World Heritage Site), the medieval city and its walls, to create a package of local distinctiveness which cannot be found anywhere else. Rarity, authenticity and enduring value are, therefore, key features of local distinctiveness.

Non-cultural local distinctiveness
Special landscapes and natural areas, eg the Lake District and The Fens, are also locally distinctive and are the result of a complex history of intervention by man with nature, interpreted by writers and painters and animated by local customs.

Manufacturing processes can be locally distinctive too – eg artefacts such as furniture, glass and pottery. Locally harvested delicacies, such as Whitstable Oysters, and manufactured food products, such as Forfar Bridies, are also distinctive but may be insufficiently strong in their own right to constitute ‘local distinctiveness’.

It is a combination of factors which makes local distinctiveness — local culture, events, traditions and the built or natural ambience in which they occur.

The fragility of local distinctiveness
Local distinctiveness is easily lost – it is elusive and fragile. Examples of subtle changes which can affect local distinctiveness and ultimately destroy it include:

• gradual erosion of the built fabric by minor changes and inappropriate development which cumulatively destroys the character of a place
• destruction of the intimate feel of a place by modern infrastructure, eg road widening schemes, large scale new developments
• the homogenising effect of conservation
• changes in local economies, commercial rates, rental levels
• globalisation of high streets driving out local shops
• gentrification , lifestyle changes and fashion
• environmental health regulations restricting the sale of local produce
• cost-cutting measures leading to closure of facilities
• lack of maintenance of important public spaces including vandalism and graffiti
• loss of local pride
• change in ownership of buildings especially pubs and shops
• loss of a unique dialect or language
• lack of an agreed vision for a place

Even if none of the above has occurred, congestion and disturbance can destroy local distinctiveness, merely because the place was not originally designed to accommodate large numbers of people. Planners and urban designers need to take these factors into account in writing local policies and in approaching strategic frameworks and masterplans.