Morning:
14°c
Crossrail, the Olympic park, the East London line extension: London's grands projets would appear to have come into their own in the new era of Keynesian spending on public projects.
So it is that vast cities obsess about major rail projects, skyscrapers and one-off mega-events to save us. Yet London needs to think small to stave off the neighbourhood consequences of the recession. For most of us, most of the time, it is the quality of life around our homes and offices that is most important.
Scruffy streets, graffiti and that London favourite, the abandoned stained mattress, can blight otherwise pleasant neighbourhoods. And the recession presents a unique opportunity to tackle those problems.
One of the hidden benefits of the now-ended economic boom was the way it gradually improved the physical condition of the capital. Some areas, such as Docklands and the South Bank, were redeveloped by central and local government.
Places such as Clerkenwell, Shoreditch and Battersea have improved beyond recognition with little or no public intervention, as developers and property owners gradually revived left-behind neighbourhoods.
Increasing wealth led to street-by-street gentrification and improvement. Films set in London in the Sixties and Seventies still provide a baleful reminder of how much derelict and slum property remained only 40 years ago.
There is a serious risk that a prolonged recession would not only stop this organic improvement but might set the process into reverse. Moreover, the economic assault on retailers will soon leave empty shops all over the city. As if to advertise the threat, the former Zavvi (former Virgin) store lies dark and derelict at the heart of Piccadilly Circus.
Much worse may lie ahead for local shopping centres and suburban parades in locations such as Uxbridge, Streatham and Romford. The West End is, after all, benefiting from the spending power of additional tourists tempted to London by the enfeebled pound.
Woolworths will be only the first of many high street failures as the recession deepens. Empty shops and boarded-up sites will blight remaining businesses and worsen residents' quality of life.
One way of countering this threat would be for the Mayor and the boroughs to commit themselves to a concerted programme of re-investment in streets, particularly those that provide local shops. Compared with mega-projects such as Crossrail, the Tube reinvestment and the Olympics, the costs of streetscape improvements are minimal.
The benefits of spending modest sums on streets can already be seen in several parts of central London.
Kensington & Chelsea has been a leader in making this kind of investment. Kensington High Street was thoughtfully redesigned to remove clutter and make it more attractive. Exhibition Road will be tackled next.
The City of London has in recent years embarked on a major programme of improved pavements and sumptuous street design. Camden has relaid pavements and re-surfaced Fitzroy Square while Westminster is currently tackling Shaftesbury Avenue and Lisle Street.
In outer London, boroughs such as Croydon and Newham are making massive efforts to improve their town centres, including spending on design.
But there needs to be a city-wide initiative to target streets and squares with better paving, interesting lighting effects and a war on clutter. The Mayor last week announced the locations for his tree-planting initiative. But why stop at trees?
There are too many unnecessary street signs, battered bins, potholes, graffiti, chewing gum and long-term litter that could be removed. Paving stones can be beautiful rather than merely utilitarian. Many street problems can be solved with modest sums of money.
London is home to many of the world's best architects and design students. It should, surely, be possible to harness their creativity. Out-of-work architects could turn their attention away from unbuilt towers to the city's streets.
Colleges could be asked to encourage student projects to come up with bright ideas for neighbourhood design improvements. Perhaps there could be local community improvement teams, organised by the boroughs, taking people temporarily off the dole to beautify streets and estates.
Boris Johnson is the ideal Mayor for galvanising this kind of civic engagement, though most of the action would be delivered by the boroughs. As the recession worsens, the boroughs might also look at schemes to bring empty shops back into use on a temporary basis.
What is needed is an easy-to-understand scheme whereby the owners of unused shops can do a deal with the council to have them occupied by new businesses for a strictly limited period, say 12 months. People who wanted to set up a clothes shop, gallery, restaurant or other enterprise could then have a year-long trial in low-cost premises. The cost of business rates could be split between the owner and the temporary occupier.
Everyone would benefit from an arrangement of this kind. It would also kindle new businesses. The number of empty shops would be minimised and streets would stay lively - thus benefiting the remaining shops.
What is required is a scheme that is easy to understand, simple for new businesses to use and which gives certainty to property owners. The Mayor and the boroughs should also put pressure on landlords to move away from the traditional upwards-only rent reviews, at least until the economy recovers.
While it is not possible for councils to reduce the business rates of businesses in distress, they could do other things to promote footfall and trade.
A thought-through approach to such things as neighbourhood marketing campaigns, Christmas lights, local maps and street wardens can all help. London really is a city of distinct "villages", so why not help businesses in, say, East Ham or Vauxhall to promote themselves across the capital?
What the city must avoid is a perception that decline and decay are inevitable. The Mayor and the boroughs should, if necessary, use their financial reserves and borrowing powers to reinvest in streets, parks, squares and estates.
Improved design and beautification is, happily, not a luxury. If the capital's residents and businesses came to associate the recession with a concerted effort to improve the quality of the environment, any benefits would be multiplied. Frankly, what have we to lose? The worst that could happen is that life gets a little nicer.
Tony Travers is director of the Greater London Group at the LSE.
Reader views (9)
Those old films which show old London show a time when it was safe to walk the streets without fear of gun or knife crime and where people cared for each other. The reason for this is that people were born, raised, married and died sometimes in the same house!
But things changed private landlords were replaced by councils and when the next generation needed housing it was not made available so they were forced to move out of London only to be replaced by immigrants be they from Bradford or Tim Buk Tu they got treated better than those born their.
As for the slums well I started in houses in New North Road which were classed as slums now they go for millions of pounds! Well, reality will eventually kick in and a lot of people will wake up one day to find they have a property worth only a fraction they paid for it.
As for Boris being an ideal Mayor well given the way the penny whistle project has been called in by the government and the way the scheme at Wandsworth was nodded through without regard to soil contamination I would put Boris in an Ideal position.
Ideal maybe,if you are a Tory Council who now has a Mayor who is like putty in their hands given he Know Nothing as he "Dont Do Detail."
- Melvyn Windebank, Canvey Island, Essex
Shame we don't do what is common sense or blindingly obvious in town planning here.
- Barry L Smith, London
Around a third of the shops in Whitton High Street, in Richmond Upon Thames, are now either boarded up or charity shops.
One row of six shops in a prime locations is now being vandalised and covered in graffiti. Yet the council wont use its powers to make the landlord secure the premises - people can just walk off the street into the buildings to smash them up.
The rest of the high street is looking tatty because the council does not maintian the street furniture. For example, the council does not have a budget to paint the lamp posts so there are hundreds of lamposts with paint peeling off
- Jon, Whitton, Twickenham
I agree 100% with this article. I live in a great corner of London next to the British Museum. This is an area which is a major focus for international visitors. The pavements are filthy..they are never washed as we are in Camden...areas adjacent are but come under Westminster. Camden also fail to keep listed buildings which come under their management decorated to any reasonable standard. The roads are full of holes as they collapse due to the weight of the bendy bus! As the old traditional bookshops go the area is inundated with trashy tourist shops.
Its hard to think of any other major city which would allow such neglect and terrible management.
I realise that a lot of work needs to go into doing something about all this.There needs to be some meeting point for the various interested parties to contribute to this objective...does this exist?
Regards Michael Storrs.
- Michael Storrs, London UK
Tony Travers must think people have a short memory with his latest article but he is one of the major supporters of the £16bn Crossrail project when campaigners were pointing out the cost, the environmental and social destruction to London from a transport scheme that repeats the central line. London is besieged by planners turning beautiful parts into office block after office block. These wretched negative developments cater for companies that could be going bust or propped up by taxpayers money - both appear to be the same thing in the eyes of this ridiculous Labour government. Local people have been calling for simple improvements like better traffic, improvements on the tube not Crossrail or other pointless big company led projects. So please do not patronise the people who have been calling for these basic improvements while also asking for a big rethink on the plans to turn London into the new slums of China. Show us the articles you wrote asking all these questions about these projects before they were funded?
- V Keller, London UK
Wouldn’t it be great if our politicians were blessed with such good and detailed understanding? Tony for Mayor!!!!!
- Ade, London
I wholeheartedly agree with Mr Travers but don'y hold your breath for incompetent bureaucrats in City Councils to do anything good.
We may have some good architects but they seem to be in the minority. If you want to see what made London a great city you have to look at what the Victorians did not at anything done since the second world war.
The indescribable ugliness of post war buildings is a desecration. Where there was a chance of good coming we got landed with the disastrous WestWay and its even more disastrous surroundings.
First you have get rid of the rampant mediocrity amongst City Councils and then wean them off spending millions where thousands would do the job.
Otherwise you are swimming upstream.
But good luck.
- Minnie Ovens, London, UK
If Tony thinks Shoreditch is 'improved beyond recognition' then he clearly does not live or work in the area. It has become a tawdry substitute for Blackpool, attracting truly dreadful non-locals at night and making life totally miserable for those of us who have the misfortune to be local residents.
- Paulus, London UK
An excellent article Mr. Travers. I have posted dozens of comments condemning the overspending on olympic venues. The 2012 games should be "scaled down" in view of the recession, and spending diverted to providing decent homes, schools and parks. Olympic sized stadia are not going to be used/enjoyed by people living in run down areas. They would prefer (and benefit from) decent housing, schools and environment. These would be a more acceptable legacy than one of astronomic debt incurred by an organising committee who, for political vanity have allowed spending to spiral totally out of control. Those who falsified the original costing for the games must be named and shamed.
- R.F., Yorks, UK
