Written by:
Guest Author
Sharing Place: Think Pieces invite external contributors to explore the theme of sharing place from diverse perspectives, and offering a broad range of reflections, ideas and provocations.
In this edition, Architect Ben Derbyshire shares reflections from visiting inspiring shared places on his visits with the Historic England Historic Places Panel, which he Chairs.
Historic Towns, New Society.
Historic England has an advisory role with place-based activities and services available to local authorities and other agencies involved in urban regeneration. A key part is played by the Historic Places Panel which I have chaired since 2022. The panel visits to provide a broad spectrum of independent expertise and advice on the regeneration and revitalisation of historic places. During my tenure we have so far visited Accrington, Dewsbury, Luton, Portsmouth, Hartlepool, Exeter, Stoke on Trent and Barrow in Furness – an extraordinary and privileged opportunity to spend time in and learn from places at the heart of English life.
Panellists are independent, coming from senior positions in public, private and not-for-profit sectors with a strong interest in place-making, the historic environment and urban character. They are selected to represent professional specialisms including archaeology, architecture, conservation, culture and the arts, planning, landscape, sustainability, development economics, retail, transport, community engagement and more.
Historic England’s regional teams engage with our hosts on the focus for visits, prepare extensive and very high-quality briefing and agree an agenda of fact finding, presentations, walk-abouts and deliberation over two days. As chair, I join the regional teams to reconnoitre ahead of visits. Findings of the panel visits are now published within three months (available to read on the Historic England website) and we always follow up afterwards with feedback meetings a year or so later.
Our opportunity has been to better understand the issues faced by the nation’s smaller towns of between 35,000 – 200,000 population. Our visits usually focus on town centres and high streets. Each town is unique and remarkable in its own way with histories evident in surviving heritage, but they also share some common issues.
Vacancy rates of shops, commercial and residential premises can be very high. Crime rates and fear of crime result in low footfall, and this is often compounded after dark by an absence of night-time economy. Economic activity, entrepreneurship and cultural activity are often in decline or sometimes indiscernible. Everywhere, major roads built in the last century sever town centres from the surrounding hinterland of residential neighbourhoods.
On the upside, councillors, local authority officers and key stakeholders are universally committed to positive change. Our visits have exposed us both to brilliant initiatives, but also yet unrealised opportunities. In Hartlepool, the very challenged Church Street is set to become the heart of a production village for new film studios at Northern School of Art. In Dewsbury, an abandoned Victorian arcade will be handed over to a Community Trust whilst one of the finest groupings of nineteenth century warehouses in Britain lie largely vacant. The Luton Culture Trust is transforming the Hat District, and Luton Town FC’s move to within yards of fifteenth century St. Mary’s church in the town centre presents huge opportunities and some not insignificant heritage challenges. There are of course many, many more examples.
This experience, and learning from Historic England’s High Streets Heritage Action Zones programme, suggests that there is untapped placemaking potential amongst the population of the towns we have visited. People – those that came before, live now and those yet to leave their mark – are the well-spring for recreating faltering places. People hold the collective memory, an intangible heritage just as real and just as influential as physical heritage.
It seems clear that Local Authorities need more of the resources, skills and structures of governance to convene, engage and grow the patchwork of community activity that exists everywhere, albeit often fragmented, depleted and sometimes demoralised. The panel has suggested this resource should be deployed as a means of identifying and mapping human and physical resources.
Local groups can map the anatomy of a town, its centres of community, industry, learning and leisure and the connecting systems of movement and communication. Local people can tell where they find connectivity, opportunity and pleasure. They can help create local heritage lists using their own unique criteria. Equally well, they’ll identify blockages, threats and potential danger. The community’s cognitive map can become the basis for further professional development of a town’s green, blue and grey networks – a landscape of layers as an armature for regeneration.
This approach simultaneously enriches a town’s relationship with community groups, whilst accessing the ecosystem of craft, art, music and literature. The same goes for micro businesses of all kinds – in local food production, gaming and technology for example. Religious and sporting activity play a part too. Together this can become an impetus for the lively re-occupation of vacant space. There is nothing more deleterious of heritage than emptiness. Pop-ups and meanwhile uses can become permanent parts of the local economy.
We sometimes recommend setting up an Urban Room. This can be no more than an adapted shopfront providing space for civic activism, where people can engage in the process of urban transformation. The space can accommodate discourse and debate co-curated with local groups such to encourage development that positively contributes to towns and the wellbeing of citizens. Urban Rooms take up a neutral position, not in direct affiliation with the local authority or development interests – ensuring vox populi is heard.
One lesson of the Historic Places Panel is that a focus on people-centred regeneration will be rewarded. Invest in local society, enable the rebuilding of social structures, cultural activity and the local economy and communities will contribute much to the task of heritage conservation even as they go about it.
All images courtesy of Ben Derbyshire.
About the Author
Ben is non-executive Chair of HTA Design LLP, a leading multidisciplinary design practice specialising in housing and placemaking. He is a Commissioner of Historic England. He serves on the London Advisory Committee, High Streets Heritage Action Zone Board and is chair of the Historic Places Panel. Ben is President of the London Forum of Amenity and Civic Societies and is a current member of the NHBC Council. He was President of RIBA from 2017 – 2019 where he oversaw fundamental change in the financing and governance of the institute and the instigation of policies in relation to climate action, professional competence and codes of conduct.
Ben has summarised his long career as a housing designer in a book, Home Truths, published by Hatch Editions and available from RIBA Books in January 2023, effectively a primer for anyone with an interest in the planning and design of sustainable places.
About the WEdesign 2024/25 Series: Sharing Place
WEdesign is The Glass-House’s annual series of free interactive public events, held online and in-person in cities across the UK, where we explore collaborative design in placemaking through discussion, debate and playful co-design activities.
Sharing Place brings people together to propose more equitable ways of sharing our places and spaces, as well as creating places to share experiences, skills and other things we value, through thoughtful placemaking.
Our online events create provocative spaces for conversation and are open to participants across the UK and further afield. Our Think Pieces bring together a series of blogs from a range of voices to explore the WEdesign series theme.
WEdesign in-person events are safe spaces for diverse audiences to come together to explore challenging issues and to work collaboratively to generate ideas and solutions, co-designing propositions for changes to culture, policy and practice through hands-on making activities, discussion and debate. These events are co-facilitated by students from our WEdesign Student Programme, in collaboration with our partner universities in cities across the UK.
WEdesign is supported by the Ove Arup Foundation.
Find out more and book a place at one of our WEdesign Sharing Place events here.
Visit our WEdesign page to find out more about the WEdesign Programme and how we work with partner universities, students and external contributors here.
