Added Monday 5th: here is a fuller programme of the week: DXgmhtBX0AAmcWl.jpg
Added Wednesday 7th: the event happened, thanks to a brilliant gathering of students, staff and community people. There is a slide show at JustSpace.org.uk and a report will follow. Read the rest of this entry »
Follow this link to see what the Engineering Exchange is up to with community projects
http://www.engineering.ucl.ac.uk/engineering-exchange/news/msc-cohort
Later: the Just Space response to the draft London Plan – embodying many UCL student inputs – is now finished 2 March. Download
UCL students and researchers are active in supporting the process this winter in which Just Space is supporting its member-groups in responding to the consultations on the draft new London Plan. At a major all-day conference at City Hall on 20th January 2018, opened by Deputy Mayor Jules Pipe and 9 members of the GLA planning team, 8 students played important roles like taking notes in workshops, while research and development work by others (students and staff) was presented or embodied in documents. Reports will appear over the coming days. One journalist from Novaramedia tweeted…
The culmination of a term-long action research project by MSc Urban Development Planning students, conducted in collaboration with Just Space, the event involved the presentation of four inclusive social impact assessment tools, each grounded in the current struggles of a community group or collective.
An issue of growing concern for London communities is the rent and displacement pressure on jobs caused by rampant land price escalation for speculative housing development. Industrial estates, workshops, shops and high street premises of all kinds are being converted to housing at speed. Businesses and non-profit activities face dwindling space availability, rising rents and often such short insecure leases that they can’t invest in equipment confidently. It’s become clear to Just Space that neither the GLA nor the London Boroughs have a real grasp of the detailed economic workings of the city outside of the centre and a few key sectors. UCL has been supporting Just Space in its work on this and two new bodies of research have now appeared:
An entire class of students in the School of Planning Masters module benvgPD3 From Strategic Vision to Spatial Plan undertook meticulous studies of economic activities in large blocks of north London, between Dagenham in the East, through Ilford and Romford to Southall in the west. The project was taught by Elena Besussi, Pablo Sendra and Michael North. The student reports are now available on Google Drive (copyright of the authors) at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B-3peQ2Q2zeOemIzODVwNXBYN3c
In parallel, and with some connection, Jessica Ferm, Michael Edwards and Ed Jones did a small research project, surveying, evaluating and making recommendations about the methodologies used in local economic studies by community groups, local business groups, boroughs and GLA. This was supported by a grant from UCL’s “London 2034” fund administered by the Vice Provost for London. The summary press release from the project and the full report are both now available. Revealing local economies in London: methodological challenges, future directions, Download eprint http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1566799
The School of Planning has played a pioneering role in collaboration with community, activist and similar organisations in London, at all scales from small neighbourhoods to London-wide campaigns and federations.
This is all enabled through a partnership with JustSpace.org.uk which is a unique mutual-support network of community organisations committed to helping more Londoners –especially in working class and excluded communities– to participate in planning processes and have more influence on policy.
There is a report of the last few years’ activity here.
Here is a report on activity in the last year or so. It is a draft and we invite participants in the activities to contribute comments, illustrations and links for an enriched edition.
The report summarises a large number of projects and outputs, concluding:
We are particularly pleased that
Download the report (as a Word document) UCL colllaboration with community groups
2017: One of the groups of students in the UCL masters module Community Participation and City Strategies prepared a report Opportunity For Whom? How Communities Engage With Land Value Capture in Opportunity Areas The report can be downloaded here LVC_Group_Report 2017
The authors are Amy Curtis, Jessica Cargill ompson, Lidija Honegger, George Ka a, Wenlin Liu, Alessia Montero, David Mountain, Johanna Salmi and Naomi Seow. Tutorial support was by Jennifer Robinson and Joe Penney. Many Just Space member groups contributed views and experiences.
Note change of venue on Wednesday below
As in past years, there are opportunities for students to undertake activity with community organisations in London at various geographic scales. This is additional to, and separate from, the project work with community groups which form the basis of Masters Modules in the Bartlett School of Planning (BENVGPLD and BENVGPD3), a joint module between Planning and Urban Studies (URBNG007) and others in the DPU and Engineering.
The contribution of JustSpace members and groups to these collaborations is supported financially by the School of Planning; Michael Edwards is the staff member responsible for overall coordination.
If you think you might want to offer some time as an individual (i.e. not as part of one of the named modules) please try to come to one of the following briefing meetings, one an afternoon event and the other after the end of classes in the evening.
Tuesday 11 October 1815-2015h in Central House room G01.
Wednesday 12 October 1430-1600h in room LG04 at 26 Bedford Way – UCL Geography Department. This is a change of venue and time.
Anyone thinking of engaging with community groups in their university studies or research should first familiarise themselves with the Just Space Protocol which is full of good advice on how to avoid the pitfalls and ill-feeling which can arise if you get it wrong, and how to get the best from these collaborations by doing it right. Read online or download here.
As the new Mayor and his political and professional team work on a new London Plan, Just Space has sent them the document Towards a community-led Plan for London: policy directions and proposals. This 75 page document is the product of more than a year of work by local and city-wide community and activist groups which have met in working parties and 3 big conferences. The work of numerous UCL student groups and staff have supported and informed many aspects of the evidence in the document. It is available as a free download here.
Also on the JustSpace.org.uk web site are earlier documents and conference reports including a lot of video recording of workshops and debates.
