The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 4,200 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 7 years to get that many views.
The UCL course Community participation in City strategies starts again in January 2013 and a revised plan is now available here.Community Participation in City Strategies 201213
If you wish to join the module please get in touch at the earliest opportunity.
Students of UCL – mainly from the School of Planning – continue to work with neighbourhood groups across London, supporting their activities with research, mapping, surveys and in making sense of the planning system – including the new “Neighbourhood Plans” introduced by the Localism Act 2011.
A meeting for students interested in joining this initiative in 2012/13 is taking place at 1430h on Wednesday 7th November in Wates House 517b. If you would have liked to take part but can’t manage that time—it’s reading week—please get in touch with Michael Edwards because another meting will take place in the following weeks.
A taught module for UCL Masters Students Community Participation in City Strategies, led by Michael Edwards, Jennifer Robinson and Richard Lee, starts in January 2013. This module stared in 2012 with a ‘dissemination’ grant from the UCL Public Engagement Unit which supported earlier work on the London Plan, and is now supported by UCL Geography and UCL Bartlett Planning. Students from all parts of UCL are welcome and members of external community groups can arrange to join the course too.
People interested in participation processes are urged to attend at least part of the forthcoming public hearings (“Examination in Public”) at City Hall which will debate the Mayor’s latest proposed changes to the London Plan – including a major reduction in emphasis on social housing. Hearings are Monday 19 November from 1000h; Thursday and Friday 22 and 23 November from 0930h.
http://www.london.gov.uk/london-plan-eip
UCL continues its work with the Just Space Network and the following activities are under way.
1. A taught module for UCL Masters Students Community Participation in City Strategies led by Michael Edwards, Jennifer Robinson and Richard Lee. This benefits from a ‘dissemination’ grant from the UCL Public Engagement Unit which supported earlier work on the London Plan.
2. Preparations for some public seminars in collaboration with King’s, other London universities and the JS Network – about alternative strategies for London planning. Details shortly.
3. With the (non-financial) support of DCLG, the Bartlett School of Planning is making contacts via the Just Space Network to help students who want to offer voluntary help and support to community groups in or near London on neighbourhood planning. Interested students or recent graduates should contact Michael Edwards at the Bartlett. The Just Space Network Protocol on university/community cooperation is being used to guide this work.
Our two years of work supporting the Just Space Network and its member groups in pushing for changes to the London Plan is now drawing to a close – a close in which we
* sum up what has been achieved (a lot in some ways: it is a major landmark in popular participation in metropolitan plan-making)
* consider strategies for the future
* set a stronger course for the future of university / action-group collaboration.
To this end we held a conference on 9 June, led by community groups with some academics and students coming from across London to respond and to help think how research and teaching agendas can be changed. More details and results are now at
http://justspace2010.wordpress.com
The universities involved now include Birkbeck, King’s, Westminster… and a series of further initiatives are in the pipeline
A proposal has been approved for a new masters-level module Community Participation in City Strategies to be offered in 2011/12, in the January term, based in UCL Geography, and with the input of Prof Jennifer Robinson, Michael Edwards (Bartlett) and Richard Lee (Just Space Network). Alongside it an application for 2 years of funding support (to resource the community group inputs) from UCL’s Teaching Innovation Fund failed so we are continuing to search for financial support to resource the community inputs properly. Read the rest of this entry »
After a very strenuous summer in which Just Space Network and its member organisations took part in many of the 30 days of hearings on the new Draft Replacement London Plan, we are now trying to crystallise our records and memories. Some UCL students are helping by generating texts from the audio record of proceedings and finally on 10 November we have some files to listen to… The story continues (to avoid duplication) on the Just Space Network web site. [ Switch to that here ] Read the rest of this entry »
In May 2010 the GLA publishes a paper justifying its practices in not exploring radically different scenarios in its planning, or investigating radical alternatives. The paper is linked here.
Students and staff at UCL in London have been collaborating with community and voluntary organisations in London on the development of critiques of, and alternatives to, the Draft Replacement London Plan, recently prepared by the new Mayor, Boris Johnson. This cooperation has been supported by a grant from UCL’s Public Engagement Unit and is reported in this web site – which in effect has been a working tool. The result of thecollaboration is submissions by the various groups—now 23—which have drawn to a greater or lesser degree on the UCL work and on discussions designed to improve the integration of the submissions. The submissions themselves, which represent the views of the groups (not the views of UCL), were submitted to the Mayor in January and are collected on a separate web site
http://justspace2010.wordpress.com
Read the rest of this entry »
12 January is the last submision date for comments, objections, to the draft London Plan. The groups and individuals involved in the Just Space Network are finalising what they want to say – individually and jointly. Drafts placed here (on the right) can be read and commented upon by others in the remaining days so please do send in your drafts (see contact page for email address). Please also read through what is here and make your comments, even if you have not taken much part in the preparatory research: you may be able to help with clarity or with supporting evidence. [ There were 43 visits to this site on new year's day, after a very quiet week. ]
