award for public realm
EC1 Public Spaces
— Building a Lasting Legacy
Islington: deserted market street has been transformed into public open space
The EC1 area of the London Borough of
Islington is an inner city neighbourhood
of 4,800 homes included in the New Deal
for Communities (NDC) programme bec­
ause of its high levels of deprivation.
In 2001 the EC1 NDC was awarded £53
million of government regeneration
money to be spent over ten years in a
co-ordinated drive against the area’s
multiple deprivations. Evidence of decline was especially obvious in a lack of
public space provision, poor-quality
housing, negative perceptions of safety
and secur­ity, low-grade play space and
leisure fac­il­it­ies and underused commer­
cial premises.
The focus of the EC1 Public Spaces
scheme is a public space strategy (PSS)
through which 16 different projects have
transformed vandalised playgrounds, a
deserted market and traffic-dominated
streets into new public open spaces in
partnership with local communities.
“The most important aspect of this
project is the ongoing community engage­
ment and partnership working,” main­
tains Isling­ton principal planner Helen
Fallon. “Tog­ether, Homes for Islington,
ECI NDC and the council ensured that the
objectives of the PSS were delivered as
part of the public realm improvements.”
The projects mitigate climate change
impacts through extensive tree planting,
sustainable drainage systems and con­
version of redundant highways to green
space. The initiative has reduced traffic,
encouraged walking and cyc­ling and
improved commercial activity and social
cohesion in the area.
Higher levels of safety have led to sig­
nificant increases in use, especially by
children. Community morale has risen as
residents not in employment or education
became involved with projects offering
training. Some participants found jobs as
a result.
The professional work generated has
attracted recognition in a number of
awards. The three main stakeholders
agreed the planning concepts for the PSS
and engaged with the local community
over the details and priorities. The model
has proved flexible eno­ugh for it to be
used elsewhere.
Its main characteristics are community
consultation and involvement at brief and
design stages, a place-based approach to
sch­emes, joining together funding streams
and integrating works to the entire public
realm of parks, streets and estates. The
PSS was deliberately written to cover a
broa­der range of proj­ects than could be
delivered before the NDC is wound up, so
it can be used to identify future pro­jects
as funding becomes available.
For every project, a multidisciplinary
team and steering group of members and
residents was formed, each with a co-ord­
inator to deliver an ambitious programme
in a relatively short timeframe.
[[1l]] The RTPI Planning Awards 2010 in association with Planning
Key participants
London Borough of Islington
Karen Sullivan, head of spatial planning and
transport; Eshwyn Prabhu, team manager;
Helen Fallon, principal planner; Rochelle
Friend, principal planner; Paul Taylor,
transportation manager; Toby Bowden,
senior engineer
EC1 New Deal for Communities
Kirby Swales, chief executive; Neil Best,
director of programme performance
Homes for Islington
Andrew Idiabana, EC1 project officer
Transport for London
judges’ comments
“Each of these schemes, though modest in
itself, makes a useful contribution to
improving the local physical environment
within individual estates, streets or blocks.
Taken together the whole strategy makes
a significant contribution to achieving the
social and economic objectives of the New
Deal for Communities programme. The
public space strategy contributes to
sustainable development locally through
greening the area, creating sustainable
drainage, reducing water run-off, improving
air quality, reducing vehicular intrusion and,
more widely, by enhancing the attraction of
EC1 as a residential environment. The
quality of professional work involved is of a
very high standard.”
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