S5E03: Then, now, next: lessons in building lasting communities
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What is placemaking and why is it essential for thriving communities?
This is Talking Infrastructure, the podcast brought to you by Global Infrastructure Consultancy, ACOM. This time, we've taken the podcast on the road. This is the first of two we've recorded with our panel of experts in front of a live audience at the UK's Real Estate Investment and Infrastructure Forum, more commonly known, of course, as UK Reef. I'm Toby Sadler. Welcome to Talking Infrastructure. The panel took over the AECOM Cafe venue at UK Reef. The title, Building Places to Last, Placemaking and the New Towns Agenda. At its core, we were discussing what makes a thriving community and not just a housing scheme. Infrastructure-led planning and placemaking first design were front of mind, but also the question of how do we pay for it all?
We looked at public-private partnerships and asked how a then, now and next lens can help us learn from and not repeat the lessons of the past. On the panel, we had Patrick Clarke, Master Planning Lead at ACOM, Angela Barnicle, Director of City Development at Leeds City Council, Rob Chesworth, who's Head of Strategic Land at the Crown Estate, and Cathy Francis, Director for New Towns, Infrastructure and Housing Delivery at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. I've started by asking Patrick Clarke to define what the term placemaking means to him.
Yes, thank you, Toby. As I said, I'm Patrick Clarke, Master Planning Leader at ACOM, working on a range of large-scale new communities on Brownfield, but predominantly on Greenfield sites, between sort of three and a half and 10,000 homes. And I've sort of learned a fair bit from that experience. And placemaking is absolutely fundamental, in my view. It's a very broad term. It's capable of being defined in different ways and different contexts. But it engages with the social, the economic and the environmental pillars of sustainability. And it also places significant emphasis on working with communities to design with them rather than for them. I think just looking specifically at a Newtown context, I think it operates at two levels.
Firstly, I think there's a macro level. So thinking about the scale of these places, a new town of 10,000 homes is 25,000 people. It's a whole new sort of market town scale of development with all of the land uses and activities that that brings. And also often that development is taking place alongside an existing place. So increasing the size of that from 50 to 75,000 people. So at that scale, there's the opportunity to make a real difference to what you might describe as sort of strategic, authority-wide sub-regional challenges, whether they're around sort of economic development, the revitalisation of town centres, the energy transition and moving away from car-based living to sustainable public transport, active travel. And then alongside that, I think it's the very important micro side, which is thinking about the grain of places, the character, the identity, the layout of the streets.
the open spaces, the landscape, the design of the homes to create places where people really want to live and feel satisfied in their lives. So I think the challenge for me is we've got to do both of those challenges, the macro and the micro well, and we've got to do them graphically at pace. Perfect. Angela, I'll come to you next. Macro, micro, does that resonate with you in terms of your definition of placemaking?
Yes, in part. And for me, placemaking is all about creating a place where people belong. And belonging is different for different people, isn't it? I mean, I'm a geographer by profession and a commercial practice surveyor by training. And we were always taught that there are three elements to really good regeneration and placemaking. First of all, the physical. It has to create environments where people do feel that they do belong and they could get to, and importantly, get out of as well. Secondly, that social regeneration. It's not about displacing a community. It's not about regeneration. It's about making sure that communities that are here already feel that they can participate in the opportunities that new communities are bringing alongside them. And then thirdly, about that economic. So making sure that our people all have the skills available to them to reach their potential of life.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is placemaking and why is it essential for thriving communities?
0:02–6:31
2
How do macro‑scale (regional) and micro‑scale (street‑level) design interact in new towns?
6:31–12:22
3
Why is community involvement crucial when planning housing and infrastructure?
12:22–18:54
4
How can public‑private partnerships accelerate delivery of large‑scale housing schemes?
18:54–24:48
5
What lessons do historic developments like Welborn Garden Village teach about long‑term legacy?
24:48–30:47
6
How should planners address infrastructure gaps such as schools and health services in new developments?
30:47–36:51
7
What innovative financing and policy tools are needed to meet the 1.5 million‑home target?
36:51–43:48