UCL Just Space

Update January 2012

Michael Edwards — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 15:37:00 +0000

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.

9 June 2011 conference

Michael Edwards — Thu, 19 May 2011 10:32:32 +0000

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 new postgraduate module in UCL starting in January 2012
a series of seminars starting October on alternatives for London
a ‘protocol’ on how to get the best out of university/comunity cooperaton

New course for next year

Michael Edwards — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 14:45:51 +0000

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.
This module will be open to any UCL masters level student and might also usefully support people developing PhD research ideas in the field. We hope that some of the members of community action groups will join the sessions as well. The proposal is summarised as follows:

The course will present an international overview of the politics of long term strategic city planning, focusing on the role of community participation. It will use an innovative teaching model based on community participation in developing an analysis of the London Plan. Students will read widely on the politics of spatial and strategic planning, and engage in developing a detailed analysis of the London Plan. The seminars will involve representatives from community organizations who have been active in making submissions to the London Plan Evidence in Public (EiP) process. Group work will be based on analysis and interpretation of data from the London Plan EiP process. The assessment will be based on production of written and web-based materials on an evaluation of the London Plan process, to be published in association with the Just Space network http//justspace2010.wordpress.com

Lectures and seminars will form just over half of the (15-credit) course, with smaller group discussions of reading materials and case study materials and attendance at a community-led meeting. There will be opportunities for students to prepare and present overviews of aspects of the London Plan, and to prepare and present case studies of experiences of strategic planning in other cities. There will be four sessions devoted to problem-based learning, where independent and group-based work will be facilitated towards preparing an analysis of aspects of the London Plan process. Students will receive training in research skills such as transcription, interviewing, and analysis of planning and policy documents. The coursework assessment will be an integral part of the classroom teaching.

Later: in January 2012 this course is now running. [ more ]

Digesting / recording the EiP

Michael Edwards — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 16:01:16 +0000

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 ]
This page (originally a record of a UCL meeting 18 October 2010) brings you up to date on what we were doing as at mid-November 2010.

That was an excellent meeting on 18 Oct and augurs well for the year. This note is designed to recap in enough detail for people who couldn’t attend.

1. Course credit. Most of the meeting was spent on the London Plan work. UCL students may wish to do this or other community-related work this session, either in addition to or within their study programmes. A note about the formats available for getting recognition for such work was circulated and is attached at the end of this post.

2. London Plan work so far.
Richard Lee, coordinator of the Just Space Network (JSN), explained that since 2006 a variety of London-wide and local campaign groups had come together to support each other and seek to find common ground on planning issues. In the 2007 London Plan revision the JSN had a strong presence in the Examination in Public (EiP) and ensured that a wide range of groups and interests were represented and heard. One valuable achievement had been to negotiate a “hot seat” at the hearings which could be occupied by a variety of speakers from a variety of groups on each topic.

In 2009 the new Mayor, Boris Johnson, had published for consultation a ‘completely new’ Draft Replacement London Plan (DRLP) and the JSN was very active in preparing critiques of the draft Plan, making submissions about it and then appearing at the hearings which occupied 30 days between June and October 2010. Students and staff at UCL, supported by a grant from UCL’s Public Engagement Unit, had contributed to this process, principally by…
• helping prepare summaries in plain language of the plan’s provisions
• contributing in two important preparatory meetings of the JSN
• researching topics and supporting groups in their critical evaluations and drafting of objections
• summarising the submissions made by JSN and its member groups
• in one case actually appearing to give evidence on behalf of JSN (on the adequacy of the Integrated Impact Assessment on day 1)
Most of this UCL support work is documented at http://ucljustspace.wordpress.com (this site)
The submissions made by the JSN are mostly available on http://justspace2010.wordpress.com (though it’s not up to date)
More links are contained in the next steps attachment below.

A writeup of the work in the form of a book chapter by Michael Edwards has been published (royalty going to the JSN funds) and can be downloaded: Do Londoners make their own plan? in K Scanlon and B Kochan (eds) London coping with austerity, LSE London Series, chapter 5. Eprint http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/20241/ The whole book will shortly be a free download at http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/LSELondon There’s also now a lot of stuff on his (my) blog http://michaeledwards.org.uk

3. London Plan: next steps
Richard and Michael then explained, after a good deal of discussion on the work so far, that the JSN would benefit a lot if the experience of the EiP—and especially the JSN contributions—were documented and students were invited to take part in this process in respect of about a dozen key topic areas. The proposal is that one or more students take on the job of listening to the audio recording of each discussion, transcribing the JSN contributions fully and summarising the other contributions. The resulting texts, and some summary / synthetic materials, would then be published as a report/book in which the student authors would get full credit. An additional stage of work which could enrich some or all of the topic reports would be for the student to interview the community group members who had taken part in the EiP to add their perspectives.

The scope envisaged for this work is outlined in another document, not an attachment here because it contains individuals’ names. Email if you want a copy.

The timescale envisaged was that the transcribing work should be done in October/November; then there would be a JSN meeting in the first week of December at which the proposed interviews might be done. Then the aim would be to present/publish the results for a meeting in January of the Urban Salon – which is a London-wide monthly colloquium of unversity geography, planning and architecture people. http://www.theurbansalon.org/ [Severe delays caused by the GLA in releasing the sound recordings has lost us some weeks, however. ]

Many of those present signed up, either tentatively or firmly, to do a chunk of this work.

Michael Edwards ordered the relevant audio recordings from City Hall, then converted them from WAV to smaller mp3 (podcast) format and make them available. In the mean time people could start getting to grips with their topics, following suggestions in the attachment. The audio files are now (mostly) to hand and I have uploaded it here so that people can listen and get the feel of it.

4. Practicalities / Action
Richard is now going on a (well-earned) holiday for a month so Michael will be the hub for communications unless/until any other arrangement is made.

It was agreed that it could be useful to have a weekly optional drop-in / clinic session at which we could sort issues out as we go along – probably at 1730 on Mondays for an hour of so. Is this OK? Some of the people who could not come yesterday may NEVER be able to do Mondays so let me know if some other arrangement will be better.

It was agreed that Michael should draft some guidelines for the presentation of the transcripts (circuated by email out of respect for data protection).

June Taylor knows some helpful software to control audio while transcribing. ExpressScribe – it’s quite simple to use & you can download it for free from http://www.nch.com.au/scribe/index.html – it uses wav files so there might not be any need to convert them to mp3.

Linking your university work to the priorities of community groups

Note on the possibilities for formalising such work for UCL credit

Many students have aligned their work with support for community groups simply on principle or to develop their stance politically and professionally – and have not tried to link it to the formal assignments they do as part of their degree.

This is a reminder, however, that the following possibilities may arise / apply:

1. Dissertation topics can arise out of research questions thrown up in engagement with local or other campaigns and groups. We can show some good examples.

2. Individual or group project work which you have to do as part of your studies can always be strengthened by effective communication with people in the area where you are working and can sometimes be of real practical help to local people.

3. Undergraduates may be able to devise and then execute individual studies and submit them under the “Project X” label and thus get credit. There is no pre-determined format for such projects providing you can get a supervisor to agree your plan. *

4. Similarly masters students may be able to register for an “Individual Study Project” as one of their modules. Check your programme rules.*

* In respect of 3 and 4 you are welcome to discuss with Michael Edwards in the first instance if you wish. m.edwards@ucl.ac.uk

Bartlett, 18 October 2010 revised 11 November.

Alternative scenarios

Michael Edwards — Thu, 13 May 2010 09:00:16 +0000

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.

UCL and community action groups work together

Michael Edwards — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 17:02:25 +0000

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

This initiative builds on the Just Space Network which was formed by London NGOs and local groups to coordinate actions for the previous version of the Plan in 2007 and will continue at the Examination in Public (EiP) of the Draft Plan which runs from late June until October 2010.

About a dozen postgraduate students and staff from UCL (so far all from the Bartlett / faculty of the built environment) helped summarise the provisions of the draft plan, make comparisons with the previous plan and gather evidence to support the representations being prepared by the groups. These groups range from local residents’ and tenants’ action groups in various parts of London through to established NGOs like the Council for Voluntary Servce and Friends of the Earth and some London-wide organisations representative of diverse ethnic groups and of other ‘equalities’ categories which tend to be marginalised in planning decisions.

A full list is : London Forum of Amenity and Civic Societies; London Tenants Federation; Hayes and Harlington Community Forum; King’s Cross Railway Lands Group (KXRLG); London Gypsy and Traveller Unit; Race on the Agenda (ROTA); London Voluntary Service Council (LVSC); Women’s Design Service; Camden Tenants Federation; North Finchley Agenda 21 Environment Forum; London Civic Forum; Friends of the Earth; Black Neighbourhood Renewal and Regeneration Network; Age Concern London; Third Sector Alliance (3SA); Spitalfields Community Association; Better Transport campaign; Development Trusts Association; Friends of Queen’s Market; Haringey Fed of Residents’ Assns; Inclusion London; London Play; Regent’s Network; Capital Transport Campaign.

Here are some of the responses to the collaboration so far:

Alison Blackwood of the London Voluntary Service Council LVSC writes: “I found the project incredibly useful – apart from Harini’s help, there was also the analysis of all the different parts of the plan and the impact assessments. The level of discussion at our meetings was really detailed because so much work had been done by the students. I used this work in my own responses and thought it gave them an additional insight and authority that they would have lacked if the project had not gone ahead.

I know it was also useful to many other voluntary and community sector organisations who used our draft responses, or the website, as a basis for their own responses to any or all of the three papers out for consultation at the time. I received e-mails or had telephone conversations in relation to this project from groups including North London CVS network, Black Neighbourhood Renewal and Regeneration Network, Race on the Agenda, London Resource Network, School for Social Entrepreneurs, Age Concern London, bassac and Greater London Volunteering.”

Juliana Martins, postgraduate at UCL, comments ” … I believe my participation in the Just Space project was very fruitful for me. It was an opportunity to study the London Plan and to learn about different perspectives for the economic development of London. My involvement also allowed me to meet people that lead important community organizations and to get to know their concerns about London. Finally, Just Space presented a very interesting opportunity to engage in a key planning process and to contact with the public participation system in the UK.

In terms of future developments for Just Space or similar projects, one possibility would be to create an “engagement unit” within the Bartlett School of Planning that would coordinate these projects in a more formal structure. This unit could be responsible for advertising these projects, organize related seminars, promote the development of dissertations within the Masters courses, among other things. The main advantage would be to have a contact point and to create a more continuous project that would, I believe, encourage student participation.

Julienne Chen, postgraduate visiting UCL from Amsterdam, wrote “… I think it’s a great project, … and was tremendously helpful in gaining a more in-depth understanding of the London/British planning system, the real and up-to-date concerns of involved parties (that we don’t read about in textbooks) and evidence-based policy (which is a new concept for Americans). It was also a good avenue to get involved in something UCL-based that is productive and extends beyond the school’s academic boundaries – also lots of potential as a seed to breed inter-departmental collaboration in the future.

I think it could attract more students if there was slightly more organization in terms of expressing tasks, meetings, vision, timelines but I think there will be lots of material from this time (and the helpful website) that is needed to produce something like that. I’m more than happy to help with some kind of graphical representation/road map that could be easily modified for future iterations. For instance, I think because there were so many meetings with different students present, it was a little difficult to figure out who was doing what, what were the most important pieces and what still needed to be done. I also wonder about engaging more community organisations in addition to students and staff.

What I did – Attended one of the Just Space meetings. Helped draft and layout the report on the FOE/Just Space meeting in Nov. Wrote evidence pieces on mixed-tenure housing and regeneration effects. Summaries of representations and tabulation of issues and groups.

Bernard Bourdillon of the London Gipsies and Travellers Unit said: “… LGTU did not learn anything significant in relation to the technicalities of its core business from UCL or jsn. This is NOT a case of straight knowledge transfer. But the network and UCL’s involvement did allow LGTU, for the first time, to make connections with other tenants’ organisations (probably more than 95% of London Gypsies and Travellers, whether in houses or on sites, are tenants), with environmental organisations (the Westway traveller site is one of the most polluted residential areas in the UK), and with others who have been through the EiP process recently.

For me the most interesting new information and understanding was around the London housing system – from meeting with Duncan Bowie and the London Tenants Federation. Next was the guidance on the EiP structure from the old hands.

June Taylor, UCL postgraduate, among many comments, writes: ” … the meetings were all intellectually stimulating, as was the process of working on the paper. …taking part in the process encouraged me to look at the draft Plan, and the discussions gave me more of a feel for its contents than i would have had otherwise. attending the meetings also gave me some interesting insights into how different organisations operate and how they relate to one another in coalitions, the ‘internal politics’ of representing diverse interests and the tensions within the plan-making process, and helped develop my professional self-confidence. all of this seems like job-useful professional development, so for me being involved in the process has been a success…

To review the submissions made by the member-groups, and for many other useful links and documents, go to http://justspace2010.wordpress.com

Deadline for responses approaching…

Michael Edwards — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 12:13:35 +0000

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. ]

Critiques of the plan are developing…

Michael Edwards — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:50:59 +0000

A heavy period of Just Space meetings (organised with LVSC, FOE, PAL, GLA) and other events culminated in a dense and productive meeting at UCL on Thursday 3 December – detailed results in the minutes, here on the right. Some very useful papers prepared for this meeting, comparing the old London Plan 2008 with the Draft Replacement London Plan 2009 are now available here (on the right) and others will follow. There is a lot of consensus which will form the basis for a Just Space submission to the Mayor, alongside the specialist and targetted submissions of individual members and groups.

There was also a useful agreement on the need to develop very short and simple versions for wide distribution. Is anyone interested to help with this, especially with versions aimed at young people? Get in touch.

Critiques of the strategies building up…

Michael Edwards — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:44:46 +0000

The cooperation between UCL students and the community organisations in Just Space is generating critiques and commentaries about the draft plan, with – most recently – a summary and critique of the “Integrated Impact Assaessment” (IIA) just added to the array of documents (see listing to the right).

Next Just Space event is a joint meeting with FOE on issues of community rights (Wednesday 25 Nov) and then in the following week the second meeting between the UCL team and the Just Space Network members (see ‘events’ list on the right.

[Image above is from studies of parts of London which play 'central' roles, by Mike Batty of UCL. http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/towncentres/cd/tcmap.htm ]

Progress 7 November

Michael Edwards — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:48:37 +0000

A very good meeting on 5 November brought a dozen representatives of groups and another 12 or so UCL postgraduates and staff together for three hours discusssion. Some of the UCL team had been able to prepare summaries, or comment on Just Space (RL) summaries in time for the meeting. Minutes are in preparation and a next meeting will be on Thursday 3 December. This web site now has all the documents tabled on 5 November as ‘pages’ over on the right + minutes.


The organisations in Just Space Network represented included:
London Gypsies and Travellers Unit (Bernard Bourdillon, planning advisor)
London Forum of Amenity and Civic Societies (Peter Eversden)
Friends of the Earth (Jenny Bates – regional projects, London)
Abdus Shuman – and Lionel BNRRN, Black Neighbourhood Renewal and Regeneration Network
London Civic Forum (Deirdre McGrath)
Hayes and Harlington Community Forum (Robin Brown)
London Tenants’ Federation (Helen Cagnoni)
Planning Aid for London (Kerry Wilkins)
Ewan Kennedy – Race on the Agenda (ROTA)
Shoreditch / Tower Hamlets (Lucy Rogers)
KXRLG (Marian Laragy)
Hayes and Harlington Community Forum (Robin Brown)
Apologies were received from LVSC (Alison Blackwood)