The Big Town Plan

Being a local government junkie, of course I couldn’t miss the first in a four part series by Kevin McCloud called The Big Town Plan.  It centres on design and regeneration in the Yorkshire town of Castleford (Wakefield MDC).

I love McCloud’s gushing enthusiasm for design and the difference it can make in people’s lives.  Kudos to Channel 4 for producing a programme about the process of regeneration and stumping up some seed money for the project and sticking with it over a period of four or five years from concept phase to delivery.  Congratulations to architect Renato Benedetti for designing and constructing a visually stunning pedestrian bridge (the first project featured in the series).  And special recognition should go to the community champions who persistently pushed for the project as it (inevitably) hit snags along the way.

Yet somehow watching the show, I was left with a feeling of unease.   I wasn’t quite clear of the purpose of this bridge (albeit beautiful) that connected around 300 homes to the town centre.   I watched community champions embrace a project that seemed doomed from the outset.  A floating bridge on a raging river with force enough to dislodge barges and transport minis underwater?  Sounds like a bad, unsafe idea to me.  The council officers and the Environment Agency thought so, too.  But the community champions had been given power to decide and they chose to go with the firm who worked with and listened to them.  In one scene, I witnessed a glum council officer pleading reason and then backing down in the face of strident opposition by a community champion.  I had unpleasant flashbacks to my council officer days and all those consultation meetings where I was berrated by, often understandably, angry citizens.

Maybe the community champions were right, though.  The original design had to be scrapped – but the more expensive fixed bridge that took its place was more beautiful and more sound – and it was designed by the originally chosen architect.  The one who listened.

The programme last night left me with a sense that this could well be a great white elephant, a bridge to nowhere – which is a shame.  It was a classic case of reporting on process and outputs, with little real regard to the outcomes.   Reading more about the project on Channel 4’s website showed how the bridge project fits into the bigger picture of regeneration and re-development for the area:

‘Many people couldn’t see the point of having a new bridge,’ says Wendy [Rayner, one of the community champions]. ‘Now it’s become a focal point. People come to take photographs of it and from it. They bring their kids and eat sandwiches on it. It’s bringing people in from outlying areas. Once you’re across and by our houses, you’re out into open fields. You can follow the river round to the bird sanctuary and nature walks.’

Now, thanks to a clean up program by the Environment Agency and local volunteers, the river water is clean enough for trout and salmon (bringing one seal upstream in search of supper earlier this year!).

Although the bridge marks the completion of the schemes that make up Kevin McCloud’s Big Town Plan, for the townspeople it is just the starting point. Peter Box, Leader of Wakefield Council says: ‘It’s lifted people, and given us far more confidence about ourselves. It’s the beginning of a further 15-20 years of regeneration over 3-4 miles of riverside, including housing offices, leisure and marine facilities. There’s a new focus on the whole town, a huge amount of house building, more investment coming in and people fighting over the same areas for development.’

Hopefully, in the remaining programmes there’ll be a greater focus on how the project has changed the community and changed lives.  You can read more about the whole series on David Barrie’s excellent blog.