Don't complain, organise!
Demolition of the McDermott Tower in Ballymun, Dublin
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Melanie Thompson gives a step-by-step guide to tackling bad buildings and campaigning for change in your locality
If you’ve ever struggled to push a baby-buggy through dingy, graffiti-covered car parks, or been dismayed by a council decision to knock down Victorian cottages to make way for a shed-like superstore, now is the time to take action.
People can get very hot under the collar about proposals to tear up the countryside for motorways or wind farms but we rarely see rooftop protests or council office sit-ins over soul-destroying urban architecture. One woman who called to the Channel 4 poll to nominate the Greyfriars bus station in Northampton for demolition, had plenty to say about its inadequacies, but had never thought of trying to do anything about it. Like most people, she didn't know she could.
Five steps to changing your environment
1 Let it all out
If there’s a building you really hate, allow yourself a ‘Prince Charles moment’: get it off your chest. Tell people how much you hate the ‘monstrous carbuncle’ and what you would like to have in its place.
Find out what your friends, neighbours and colleagues think.
If you see the same people regularly – waiting for a bus, perhaps – say to the person next to you: 'This place should be knocked down, don’t you think?'
Whenever you find someone who shares your views, say: 'I’m thinking of starting a campaign to get rid of it. Are you interested?' Note down their name, phone number and e-mail address, if they have one.
Find out if campaign groups already exist in your area. There are also numerous government-backed regeneration bodies which might already have an interest. Check your local library for details or visit the home and community area on the DirectGov website. If it seems that nothing is being done, start a campaign of your own. Arrange an informal meeting with others who share your views to decide what to do next.
2 Review the options
Bad buildings create bad environments for occupants, passers-by and visitors, and can cause pollution. But there’s little sense in campaigning for demolition if that will create more environmental damage. There are three main options:
- renovate or refurbish and then reuse
- demolish
- deconstruct.
The innovative and successful renovation of Bankside Power Station to create the Tate Modern
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Renovate
Just as we are learning to recycle our newspapers, bottles and tins, so we should appreciate that there is much to be gained by refurbishing and reusing buildings. Birmingham city centre’s Rotunda, for example, a 21-storey cylindrical former office development, is being transformed into prestigious apartments, which are close to shops, the mainline railway station and workplaces. Some may still think it’s a blot on the landscape; for others, though, it will be a highly desirable home.
Refurbishment has obvious environmental advantages: it’s more efficient to reuse what’s already there than to knock it down and start again but you'll need to be brave enough to withstand the strong views of those who simply want to tear the building down.
Demolish
Some buildings are just not worth saving. If they are structurally unsound as well as casting a gloomy shadow on an area, then demolition is a quick and clear-cut solution (demolition companies reckon that about 90% of their work comes from knocking down offices or commercial properties that were built in the 1950s and '60s).
These days even such drastic action can be achieved with minimal harm to the environment. The demolition industry already does a considerable amount of recycling, for example, crushing bricks to use as ‘engineering fill’ on the site or elsewhere.
A greener way to demolish is to have a pre-demolition audit: salvage and demolition experts visit the building to earmark materials, systems and individual items that can be reclaimed and recycled. These can then be removed before the standard demolition takes place.
Deconstruct
Better still is deconstruction, where the building is taken apart bit by bit so that the pieces can be reused. Deconstruction is kinder to the environment in several ways: a lot of energy is used to make most construction materials and products (known as the ‘embodied energy’); reusing items means not having to use more energy to make new products.
At the moment deconstruction is in its infancy, so it’s not always easy to find buyers for the materials, but reusing them on the site may be a viable option.
You'll need to consult local people about what will be done to the site once the building has gone. There is little to be gained from replacing one degenerate, unloved environment with another. This is the time for some lateral thinking. Can you interest a major developer in the site? Provided their suggestions are a net improvement, you might find that having a developer behind you gets the whole process moving more quickly.
3 Build a campaign
Whatever your objectives, the campaign strategy should be much the same. Your role is not to get the job done, but to direct the full force of public opinion at the people who can make it happen. This is most likely to be the local authority (town, borough, district or county council) but might be central government. Occasionally you may face a private developer but in such cases it is preferable for ordinary citizens to prod the bigger guns into acting on their behalf.
If you have never been involved in campaigning before, you will be wondering where to start. Your first port of call should be a bookshop or library to get hold of a copy of Not in our back yard: How to run a protest campaign and save the neighbourhood, by Antony Jay (creator of Yes Minister). It gives practical advice in a very readable style and describes how the techniques were put to the test by the Appledore Action Committee – a successful campaign against the reopening of a disused quarry.
There are two things every campaign needs: people and publicity. You’ll get nowhere if you try to do everything yourself.
To start your campaign
- Organise a public meeting to raise awareness and gather comments from interested parties.
- Work out who will be affected by the building itself or by the outcome of demolishing or restoring it, such as residents' associations, sports or social clubs and parent-teacher associations. Invite them to the meeting and ask for their help.
- Ask for volunteers and organise them into a committee-based fighting force that makes the most of everyone’s talents and skills.
Publicity is crucial
- Make contact with local newspapers as soon as possible and invite a reporter to the public meeting.
- Ask your local councillor or MP to lobby on your behalf.
- A campaign website and an e-mail newsgroup are good ways of keeping the wider world (as well as existing supporters) up to date.
- As your campaign gets underway, you could generate extra interest by starting a blog or online diary.
Each campaign will follow its own course, but one thing is certain: you will need to negotiate your way around the planning system.
4 The means to the end
The planning system is notoriously difficult to understand. Recently, the government has made changes to the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act to make it easier for us to get involved, but it's still not plain sailing. You will need professional help, which can be expensive.
- If you are lucky, you might be able to persuade a local surveyor or solicitor to join your campaign.
- Campaign groups that don’t have easy access to a professional, can now find help via Planning Aid, a national charity which provides free, independent professional advice to community-based groups.
- Alternatively, contact the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) helpline to find a local planning specialist or someone who can act as an expert witness.
Even with professional help, though, you will need to become familiar with the system. Public information on planning is available at the Planning Portal, and all local authorities have details of the planning process, including online forms, on their websites.
The site of the 2012 Olympics, under construction in Stratford, east London
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In many situations demolition is possible only after the properties have been bought up by ‘compulsory purchase’. This is what will happen in order to clear land for the 2012 Olympic village in east London. The purchaser is usually the local authority or one of the regional development agencies.
In the past, local authorities could only buy up properties for specific purposes (for example, to make way for a new motorway). Councils now have the power to take action to improve local environments – though many of them seem not to realise it. Use this to your campaign’s advantage.
- Don’t expect overnight success.
- Do be prepared to take rapid action when it is needed.
Even if everyone agrees with you that ‘something must be done’, getting positive action can be a long process. In Northampton, for example, the local authority owns the dreaded bus station and is aware of its downsides, but redevelopment is an expensive business. The owners of the neighbouring shopping centre want to expand, and that would be a good opportunity to build a new bus station. However, until the owners are ready to make a move, the bus station remains.
To make matters worse, blighted buildings or areas tend to be owned by more than one person or organisation, and are often let or sublet to others. For example, there might be up to 20 parties with an interest in one short block of rundown shops. It’s unlikely they will all agree to the properties being razed, so detailed and careful negotiation will be necessary.
On the other hand there are aspects of the planning process where time is of the essence. For example, there are various stages where public comments must be submitted within a given timescale. Whatever you do, don’t miss the deadline (though if your opponents are late, you might just win the case!)
5 Neighbourhood watching
It is one thing to act against an existing carbuncle but what about the carbuncles of the future? If ordinary citizens don’t get involved in local development, we have only ourselves to blame if we don’t like the buildings we get.
Keep your eyes and ears open. When the hoardings go up and the orange planning notices are posted, find out what’s going on. If you don’t like the sound of it, go back to Step 1.
Most major developments will get the go-ahead only if the developers have consulted local residents and property owners. Many large, and some small-scale, developments will also require an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), which will be reviewed by the local authority alongside the planning application. However, some councils don’t enforce this requirement adequately, so lobby your councillors or MP to call for a full investigation.
The results of the EIA may not stop the development, but could force the developer to take action to reduce the negative effects – for example, to use landscaping to screen an industrial site from residential areas.
One of the most important actions we can take is to behave like consumers. If buildings were bought off the peg, like clothes, we would soon take our custom elsewhere if we didn’t like the product. It’s not quite so easy to shop around for property, but we can all give customer feedback.
- If your new house has damp patches, or you can’t get the wardrobe into your bedroom because the stairs are too narrow, complain.
- Write to your local paper – bad publicity is a powerful driving force for change.
Finally, if you are involved, in even a small way, with purchasing new commercial or public properties, set aside a small cash pot to pay for a post-occupancy evaluation – a special survey to find the good and bad points about a building. Contact Usable Buildings for more information. After all, we can all learn from our mistakes – but only if we know we’ve made them.