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Vers une renaissance anglaise ? Dix ans de politique travailliste de la ville

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Sylvie Nail
, 
David Fée

The Role of the Historic Environment in Facilitating an Urban Renaissance

Rebecca Madgin

Résumé

The historic environment has been increasingly used to facilitate urban regeneration in British cities. This was a policy that originated in the 1970s and gained momentum under Thatcher’s economic and physical regeneration of the urban landscape. New Labour inherited a very different urban situation to that inherited by the Conservatives and indeed urban spaces are now seen as ones of hope rather than despair. However, there are still numerous problems, questions and quandaries concerning demographic and land pressures that New Labour have to deal with before they can secure an urban renaissance. Set in this context this chapter analyses the role that the historic environment has played in revitalising the urban landscape, how it has accommodated several of New Labour’s urban policies, and how this aligns with New Labour’s neoliberal, Third Way ethos.

Texte intégral

1The decision to assign new uses to old buildings reveals the contemporary values ascribed to the historical built legacy. Values are not “inherent in any cultural items or properties received from the past”... but rather depend on the “particular cultural, intellectual, historical and psychological frames of reference held by the particular individuals of groups involved” (Lipe in Cleere, 1984: 2). Since the 1970s the historic environment has increasingly become a valuable component of urban regeneration as it has been restored and re-used to meet a variety of urban agendas. Under the previous Conservative government, historic urban buildings were re-used to attract tourists into city-centres, to increase council tax revenues through the creation of a residential core and to diversify the urban economic base by housing the service sector. Much of this was funded by the private sector. New Labour has continued this through their neoliberal ethos and their predilection for high density, mixed-use, sustainable developments on brownfield land in which city users can live in attractive dwellings, work in creative, cultural and communications industries, and play in a wide range of bars, restaurants and cultural institutions that are all situated within a compact, safe and lively urban locale. Despite the scarcity of references to the historic environment within the Urban White Paper (ODPM, 2000) historic buildings have continued to play a vital, yet understated role in securing an urban renaissance.

2Within the context of New Labour’s urban policy, historic buildings located on brownfield land are now promoted as sustainable and are manipulated, mainly by the private sector, to ensure that they are mixed-use and can provide high density residential and commercial units that satisfy both the needs of the economy and city users. New Labour’s neoliberal ethos ensured that the historic environment was perceived as a market driven commodity in which the private sector could stimulate the development of a 24-hour, cosmopolitan urban lifestyle through their attractive restorations of historic buildings as luxury apartments, live/work spaces, offices and leisure facilities. Furthermore, the institutional framework/organisational structures developed under New Labour have evolved to ensure that the management of the historic environment reflects their belief in partnerships. However, this manipulation of the historic industrial environment, whilst meeting many of New Labour’s priorities, still retains the social exclusion legacy of the Thatcher government as historic buildings are still restored and re-used for an elite minority. A selective urban idyll was promoted that in turn created an exclusive, exclusionary urban locale (Hoskins and Talion in Johnstone and Whitehead, 2004) which stands opposed to New Labour’s supposed Third Way in which social welfare and the market coexist.

3This chapter takes four elements of New Labour’s urban policies towards the built environment: brownfield development, sustainable development, the development of the Creative and cultural industries and the idealisation of a twenty-four hour urban lifestyle, and analyses how the historic environment, in light of these policies, has contributed to the urban renaissance despite the lack of detail within the Urban Task Force report (1999) and the Urban White Paper (2000). An analysis of the key policy documents and position papers authored by the Office for the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the non-departmental body English Heritage will outline the position New Labour adopted concerning the role of historic buildings in the urban renaissance. The review of the policy literature is grounded in case study examples from Manchester.

  • 1 For a comprehensive explanation of the socio-cultural reasons people embrace their past see D. Lowe (...)

4Rather than being couched in any cultural, intellectual or psychological1 terms, this chapter argues that the historic environment is, in the New Labour context, valued because it is perceived by policy makers as an economic resource that can increase the amount of private sector investment in the urban centre. Sentimental attachment to a familiar environment and a desire to respect the past accounts for campaigns mounted to save threatened buildings and also explained why Nazi Germany fought so hard to try to demolish St Paul’s Cathedral and succeeded in destroying Warsaw’s iconic castle. However, this view of the past has been superseded by a historic building’s capability to house new uses that contribute to the economic and social diversification of the city centres. The contemporary value assigned to the historic environment under New Labour is therefore primarily economic and as such there is continuity between the current and previous British governments.

Valuing the Past

  • 2 Before this, the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act gave central government both the “power and the (...)
  • 3 1980 Local Government and Planning Act, Section 136.

5Valorising the British historic environment originated in the nineteenth century as a reaction to the “crude forces of urbanisation and industrialisation and thus focused on predominantly rural, pre-industrial artefacts and desired a nostalgie evocation of the rustic idyll” (Ashworth, 1991: 16) and resulted in the Ancient Monuments Act (1882). However, in an urban planning context, contemporary values were not placed on the historic environment until the Civic Amenities Act (1967). This Act was the First instance of a planning and protection policy in Britain that acknowledged the role of the historic environment in the urban future.2 Yet the focus in this Act was still on preservation rather than on conservation and finding new and profitable uses for old, redundant buildings was not seen on a large-scale until the 1980s. Seeds of New Labour’s belief in re-using the existing fabric were witnessed with the Urban Development Corporations (UDC) created by the Conservative government in the Local Government Planning and Land Act of 1980. The remit of these quangos was to “secure the regeneration of its area by bringing land and buildings into effective use”.3 Due to the number of historic yet empty buildings within the inner cities, this policy was also concerned with returning life to historic buildings. Furthermore, the UDCs were designed to “oversee the implementation of market-driven urban regeneration agendas and to facilitate the incorporation of private sector interests into local decision-making processes” (Raco, 2005: 143). Public sector money was therefore used to lever in private sector investment by giving investors the confidence to restore and re-use historic, redundant and decayed buildings.

6During this period (1980-1997) numerous historic buildings were brought back into use across British cities, most notably in Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow, but also in small towns such as Halifax with its Dean Clough development (1983). The increased use of conservation was also witnessed outside of Britain, as illustrated at Lowell, Massachusetts (1978) and in France with the rehabilitation of the Le Blan complex in Lille by Reichen & Roberts (1980). The contemporary value of restored historic buildings during this period therefore rested with their capability to regenerate urban centres and stimulate the economic development of the city.

New Labour’s Value of the Historic Environment

7New Labour’s perception of the capability of the historic environment to facilitate an urban renaissance was characterised by ambiguity: on the one hand apathetic, and on the other interventionist, in the form of an undercurrent of proposed policy changes mainly motivated by the DCMS and English Heritage. The two main documents on New Labour’s urban vision, the Urban Task Force report Towards an Urban Renaissance chaired by Lord Richard Rogers (1999) and the Urban White Paper: Our Towns and Cities: the Future (2000) barely mentioned the historic urban environment. Indeed, there was only one reference in the Urban Task Force report (UTF), as historic buildings were considered to be “important assets” which should be used to strengthen the position of city-regions by being covered in “regional economic strategies” (UTF, 1999: 251-252). In this way, the perspective of the historic environment as an economic resource was consistent with the previous government. Similarly, the Urban White Paper (UWP) only devoted one page to the historic environment which was located in the section Looking after the Existing Environment. Hobson (2003) stated that it is “notable that conservation is not viewed with a particular reverence-it is simply a means within a process of improving the overall quality of places” (Hobson, 2003: 17). The lack of reference to the historic urban environment within a policy framework that focused on “making the best use out of our urban assets/fabric” (UTF and UWP) was surprising. This then questioned whether New Labour viewed the historic environment as valuable and therefore as an asset.

8An examination of the policy documents, along with the replacement of the Department of National Heritage with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport illustrating that heritage had been absorbed within the concept of culture, supported this assumption. Littler and Naidoo (2004) stated that the meaning of heritage has “mutated in interesting ways” and that “Thatcherite connotations of the word heritage” were dropped in favour of a “swinging New Labour” that claimed to “represent thrusting hypermodernity” (Littler and Naidoo, 2004: 5). The very use of the word “new” appeared to signal New Labour’s belief that the past is “old and obstructive” and an “impediment to the riches that the future will bring” (ibid., p. 222). The interface between post-modernity and heritage was, therefore, contested and contentious. Within the New Labour administration, very little cultural value was ascribed to the past, and neither was any value ascribed to it in the UWP.

9However, after the UWP, a number of publications authored by the ODPM, the DCMS and English Heritage started to emphasise the economic importance of the historic environment in securing an urban renaissance. Documents such as The Historic Environment, A Force for our Future (2001), Culture at the Heart of Regeneration (2004), The Role of Historic Buildings in Urban Regeneration (2004) and the two reviews on heritage protection (2004 and 2007) emphasised the contribution the historic environment could make to securing an urban renaissance. The major value of the historic environment was its capability to fit to several urban priorities. Indeed, the historic environment was viewed as a panacea to social and economic problems as it was considered to be “something from which we can learn, something from which our economy benefits and something which can bring communities together in a shared sense of belonging” (DCMS, 2001: foreword). In addition to this, it met the brownfield, mixed-use and sustainable development components of New Labour urban policy.

10This inherent malleability of the historic environment has been seen since the 1970s. Away from the common re-use as luxury apartments, historic buildings have been restored and re-used for educational (Adams Building, Nottingham Lace Market, college, 1996), IT (Turner building, Grainger Town, Televillage, 2000), communication (Middle Warehouse, Manchester, radio station, 1990s), leisure (Baltic Mill, art gallery, 2002) and community (St John’s, United Reformed Church, 1990s) purposes. Buildings have been restored and re-used to facilitate the need for local regeneration; to encourage tourists to visit the region, as with the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry which was housed in a former railway station; to meet a national need such as the Land Registry offices housed in the former Pex Sock factory in Leicester and also to give the city a distinctiveness that can be marketed internationally as shown by Central Manchester Development Corporation's re-use of Castlefield’s industrial structures. With careful management set in a defined institutional framework, access to funding and enabling legislation, the historic environment has been moulded to fit with a variety of urban policies.

  • 4 This document outlined comprehensive changes to a listing System that had not been comprehensively (...)

11This view was illustrated by the various documents produced by ODPM, DCMS and English Heritage as the historic environment was simultaneously considered to be able to “deliver more attractive towns and cities; a prosperous and sustainable countryside; world-class tourist attractions; new jobs; and learning, vibrant and self-confident communities” (DCMS, 2001: foreword) and thus figure in a multitude of urban policies. However, the institutional framework was unable to accommodate and facilitate these changes. There were “too many permissions and consents required before historic buildings can be modified” (ODPM, 2004: 3) that in turn caused investor uncertainty and delays in development. Accordingly, the Review of Heritage Protection, The Way Forward (2007)4 outlined a number of policies to streamline the contemporary treatment of historic buildings so that they were able to fully contribute to the urban renaissance.

***

12The institutional framework is of vital importance to the delivery of a successful urban renaissance. Under New Labour, the number of delivery agencies increased as an ethos of partnership between the public, private and third sector evolved. Urban Regeneration Companies and Regional Development Agencies were established under New Labour to target those urban areas in desperate need of regeneration and to increase the competitive position of city-regions. In the context of the historic environment, English Heritage assumed a strategic position within New Labour by promoting the regenerative potential of the historic environment and thus aligning their agenda to conserve historic buildings with New Labour’s desire to secure an urban renaissance. These agencies (URCs, RDAs and English Heritage) work alongside City Councils, Regional Assemblies, management companies, voluntary sector organisations and, especially in the context of restoration and re-use, the private sector to provide a kaleidoscope of delivery agencies involved in the formation and implementation of urban policies.

Valuing the Past in Ancoats, Manchester

  • 5 8.2 per cent as at March 2001.

13New East Manchester Urban Regeneration Company (1999) and the North West Development Agency (1999) have been instrumental in facilitating a conservation-led regeneration of the Ancoats area which is located in east Manchester. This area is considered to be the “most challenging initiative in this country” (NEM, 2001: foreword). This is because within the boundaries of East Manchester, there are a multitude of social problems: unemployment levels are more than double and mortality rates are over fifty per cent higher than the national average5, and negative equity due to plummeting property prices and depopulation ensures East Manchester is amongst the most deprived areas in Britain (NEM, 2001: 10-11). Ancoats is a key component of a wider strategy to regenerate this deprived area. In the immediate area there are numerous Government schemes such as New Deal for Communities, Sure Start, and Education Action Zones and the area is also home to Sport-City which resulted from the Commonwealth Games (2002). A flagship Millennium Community, New Islington, is being developed adjacent to Ancoats and is designed to provide a holistic social, environmental, physical and economic regeneration of the area. Ancoats is, therefore, just one component of the plan to regenerate East Manchester. Through the provision of an urban space in which city users can live, work and play, it is planned to weave Ancoats into a diurnal economy of a 24-hour city that ensures sustainable living within a compact urban area. To achieve this, Ancoats’ rich historic fabric will provide the building blocks from which the twenty-first century city is being built.

14The physical character of the area was ripe for brownfïeld development. There was a “wealth of built and open space which have been largely under utilised” (NEM, 2001: 7), and a high proportion of these were redundant industrial buildings in Ancoats. Two industrial landmarks are found in Ancoats: the world’s first steam-powered mill (1790) and the world’s first industrial suburb. This endows Ancoats with an international reputation and a rich industrial heritage as factories, canals and houses were also constructed in the area. This rich historical urban fabric gave the area its nineteenth-century wealth, but as was common with industrial urban areas the contraction of the manufacturing sector led to the area’s decay and decline. Following their creation in 1999, New East Manchester (NEM) Urban Regeneration Company were convinced that this legacy could be “rehabilitated to create an environment for living and working that has proved highly successful elsewhere” (ibid.). Indeed “history, prosperity, and technology” is the slogan of New Emerging Manchester.

***

15New East Manchester’s belief in the historic environment was born out of successful restoration and re-use schemes in Manchester such as Castlefield (Madgin: 2008), as well as fledgling plans drawn up by Ancoats Building Preservation Trust (1995) and Ancoats Urban Village Company (1996) to find contemporary uses for the existing buildings. These two organisations coordinated a series of plans which resulted in an Implementation Strategy (September 1997), Strategic Framework (September 1998) and prepared a successful bid for the Townscape Heritage Initiative (July 1998). These plans were aided by a Conservation Area Partnership (1996-99) between Manchester City Council and English Heritage, which used repair and urgent works notices and gave financial assistance to prevent the continued decay of Ancoats’ historic buildings. These measures were vital to raising the profile of the area and in attracting funding to restore and re-use the historic legacy. However, further financial assistance was required to deliver an urban renaissance and acute problems associated with land ownership hindered the regeneration of the area.

Area

Local

Regional

National

Ancoats Urban Village Company (1996)

Manchester City Council

North West Development Agency (1999)

Office for the Deputy

Prime Minister (now Department for Communities and Local Government)

Ancoats Building Preservation Trust (1995) (now Heritage Works)

New East Manchester Urban Regeneration Company (1999)

Department for Culture, Media and Sport

English Heritage

Figure 1: Public Sector Agencies involved in Ancoats’ renaissance and the year they were created.

  • 6 AUVC was subsumed into New East Manchester Urban Regeneration Company in 2005 and they now answer t (...)
  • 7 The same document stated that there would be a total of £48 million public sector funding. The Heri (...)

16The major barrier to securing regeneration in Ancoats was the fragmented pattern of land ownership. Olympic and Commonwealth bids made by Manchester during the 1990s attracted a number of speculative buyers and these increased the already numerous landowners in the area. It was a feature that complicated regeneration. It was estimated that there were 201 different landowners whose individual interests needed to be placated (NWDA, 2007: 7). Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) were created in 1997 and charged with facilitating economic and social development, regeneration, business efficiency, competitiveness and investment, raising people’s skills, improving employment opportunities and sustainable development (North West Development Agency, 2001: 5). Under this remit the North West Development Agency (NWDA), created in 1999, provided funds for AUVC, the management company in Ancoats6 and also allocated funds to support development activity. The NWDA was instrumental in facilitating urban regeneration in Ancoats through the use of its Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) powers. The Regional Development Agencies’ CPO powers were prosecuted on an area of eight hectares, much of which included historic buildings such as the Murray’s Mills complex. The CPO was supported by further funds to carry out public realm Works, and also gave the Heritage Lottery Fund the confidence to invest £7.164m in the restoration of the strategic Murray’s Mills complex. Along with NWDA and Heritage Lottery funding, the main source of money in the area cornes from the private sector shown with the expectation that £320 million private sector investment will be levered into Ancoats (NWDA, 2007: 1).7 This again supports the assertion that the historic environment is still being used primarily as a tool to lever private sector investment into urban centres.

Urban Policies in Ancoats

17New Labour’s aphorism “making the best out of existing urban fabric” was realised through their brownfield policy.

Brownfield and Density

18This was motivated by a combination of land and demographic pressures which presented a new set of urban challenges. New development on greenfield sites was considered unacceptable, yet the changes to the demographie profile as more people were living alone and for longer placed great strain on both suburban and city-centre housing. The outcome of this demographic shift was the projection that up to 3.8 million extra housing units were needed by 2021 (UWP, 2000: §4.13). Within this policy, the Urban White Paper pledged that sixty percent of new housing would be built on brownfield land or provided by the conversion of existing buildings (UWP, 2000: §4.17). Set in this context the historic environment, whilst it was never explicitly recognised in the UTF or UWP, was an influential component in reducing the land and housing pressures in Britain. In Ancoats it was envisaged that “8 hectares of derelict or underused brownfield land would be transformed into viable new uses” (NWDA, 2007: 1).

  • 8 This is the website of the developers.

19Across Britain, the historic environment has often been restored and re-used to ease demographic pressures and to reduce pressure on the development of greenfield sites. Luxury one-and two-bedroom apartments form the overwhelming majority of the residential uses of former factories and warehouses from Albert Dock in Liverpool, to Sanvey Mill in Leicester and to Brewhouse in Plymouth. The picture is similar in Ancoats where a mixture of restoration and new build has ensured that the area “ticks all of the boxes in terms of government policy i.e. enabling the delivery of mixed-use development and... housing on a brownfield site and within a sustainable setting” (Knight and Frank, 2008: 2). NWDA envisaged that 1,800 new residential properties would be built in the area (NWDA, 2007: 1). The flagship Royal Mills development will provide 312 “stylish” (www.royalmills.co.uk)8 apartments most of which are one and two bedroomed but three-bedroom apartments are also provided. The Sarah Village development containing the restoration of a listed building along with new buildings is also planned to offer one-, two-and three-bedroom apartments along with luxury penthouses.

Figure 2: The historic Royal Mills complex is being restored and re-used for apartments. Source: R.M. Madgin.

  • 9 There is no date on the publication yet the logos of NEM and NWDA are there and the guidance was ad (...)
  • 10 If any one wishes to see in how little space a human being can move, how little air-and such air!- (...)

20The brownfield policy was also accompanied by a predilection for high density mixed-use developments. The UWP wanted to rectify recent density patterns where “housing development in England has been built at an average of 25 dwellings per hectare. That compares unfavourably with the 35-40 dwellings per hectare of many of our older suburbs made up of semi-detached and terraced houses with gardens and with current development densities in many other countries” (UWP, 2000: §4.15). In Ancoats this policy was justified by using the area’s history in which the “key to understanding this area is the dense small-scale pattern of development which once existed at its core” (SPG, no date: Village Core).9 By “respecting the urban grain and Street pattern” (ibid.) which once caused Engels to express his disgust at the scarcity of space in which Manchester’s citizens were allowed to live,10 Ancoats fulfilled New Labour’s urban policy on brownfield and dense development and also the continuous need of City Councils to increase their tax base.

Sustainable Development

21Sustainable Development is another of New Labour’s favourite maxims. This is defined as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Brundtland Commission, 1987: 43). The historic environment does meet this condition. Indeed, “re-use and adaptation of heritage assets is at the heart of sustainable development. Not only does re-use lessen the amount of energy expended on new development, but heritage can be used to boost local economies, attract investment, highlight local distinctiveness and add value to property in an area” (Drivers Jonas, 2006: §3.3). These were all cognisant with the aims to maximise the profits of the private sector. A comparison between retention and demolition in environmental terms revealed that there was “a huge amount of waste generated by the construction and demolition of buildings. Something like 24 per cent of all waste is generated by demolition and construction. It is simply better in sustainability terms to use and recycle old buildings than to demolish them and to build new ones” (ODPM, 2004a: §16). The contribution that the historic environment makes to sustainability was conveyed by “Heritage Works”, a 2006 document produced by Drivers Jonas and English Heritage. English Heritage believed that the historic environment could match the ideals of sustainable development though it “requires that conservation and economic development should not stand in opposition to each other, but should work together towards common aims” (English Heritage, 1999: 1). Restoring and re-using a historic building rather than constructing a new building is also linked to the Government’s focus on sustainable development. As a further boost to the sustainable development argument, Bridge 5 Mill in Ancoats was restored and re-used as Manchester’s First Centre for Sustainable Living. This centre “provides a physical focus for debate and action around sustainable living” (www.merci.org.uk/bridge-5.php). Recognition of the building s contribution to sustainability was received through its nomination as Manchester’s most energy efficient building (2001) by the Manchester Civic Trust. In Ancoats the historic environment both promotes sustainable development through the restoration and re-use of its industrial heritage and also an understanding of the concept of sustainability.

Creative and Cultural Industries

  • 11 The media dimension also results from the area’s historic legacy as the Northern headquarters of th (...)

22Diversifying the urban economy and stimulating the economic development of the city-region is another key New Labour policy. The development of the creative and cultural industries has, since the 1980s and 1990s been promoted as a way of “filling the gap left by vanished factories and warehouses, and creating a new image that would make them more attractive to mobile capital and mobile professional workers” (Hall, 1998: 8). This was a theme that was extended by New Labour’s focus on stimulating cultural and Creative industries in which “bringing culture to the people is a favourite theme of New Labour and creative industries are marketed as the major source of economic expansion” (Miles and Hall, 2005: 13). Historic industrial buildings were often located in areas, like Ancoats, that were deprived inner-city districts and the “re-population of run-down areas by clusters of Creative industries can have major regenerative effects, leading to the increased use of local amenities and the opening of ancillary businesses” (DCMS, 2004: 7). In contrast to Hall’s “vanishing factories”, the historic factories in Ancoats have been restored and re-used to house the creative and cultural industries. Contained within both the Supplementary Planning Guidance and the Regeneration Framework for East Manchester was an explicit desire to attract media, IT, creative and cultural industries to Ancoats. Consequently, a mixture of restoration and new buildings resulted in live/work spaces, media companies11, publishers and art galleries into Ancoats. Within Ancoats, even at a stage when its renaissance is far from realisation, here was evidence of the application of New Labour’s core policies to the conservation and adaptive re-use of the historic environment.

Figure 3: Live/Work Spaces and New Media Companies located behind the nineteenth-century workers housing. Source: R.M. Madgin.

Urban Lifestyle

23Sustainability, economic development and an enduring urban renaissance require a range of uses that attract a portfolio of city users. Returning a critical mass of activity into a previously decayed urban area is integral to the sustainability of its renaissance. Hoskins and Talion (2004) have stressed New Labour’s promotion of the “urban idyll” in which city users can live, work and play in a pleasant, comfortable, well-designed and compact environment that meets their diurnal needs. An idyllic urban lifestyle in which every need was accommodated was an integral component of the drive to repopulate the inner-cities.

Figure 4: Advertising board in Ancoats illustrating the promotion of the urban lifestyle. Source: R.M. Madgin.

  • 12 The Urban Village concept originated in the early 1990s, yet the core ideals were reinforced by New (...)

24Mixed-use development is a key component of this idyll, and the historic environment as seen with Grainger Town in Newcastle and Castlefield in Manchester has the capability to cater for a range of uses. Ancoats designated itself an Urban Village in 1996, before New Labour came into power, as illustrated by the name of its Management Company (Ancoats Urban Village Company-AUVC). This Urban Village concept closely resembles the urban idyll that Hoskins and Tallon discuss. The main features of an Urban Village12 “are that it should be mixed-use; have a maximum area of 100 acres (40 hectares) so that every facility is within walking distance; have a population of 3,000-5,000 people; be pedestrian-friendly with adequate public transport; offer mixed tenure housing; possess a varied townscape and a sense of place; foster community commitment; and be sustainable” (Franklin and Tait, 2001: 257). Within Ancoats, the desire to return activity to the area through providing for a spectrum of users was signalled by the intentions of the delivery agencies that the area will

[...] become a place where people will want to live, work, and visit. There will be a wide choice of housing... There will be business premises of varying size and type... People will find local shops, restaurants and pubs... Leisure uses such as clubs, community facilities, galleries and museums will also have a place in the life of this neighbourhood (SPG, no date: The Vision).

  • 13 Interview with Resident A, 10.09.05.

25Hoskins and Tallon (2004) believed that the creation of the urban idyll was exclusive and exclusionary and thus lay at odds with New Labour’s Third Way. This was borne out by the services offered in Ancoats where Sarah Village’s management services are described as “like a personal butler ready to serve all your needs” as your laundry is done for you, your apartment is cleaned, and a concierge can book a restaurant for you (http://www.investmentpropertycentre.co.uk/​property/​sarah/​sarah.htm). It was therefore unsurprising that the existing resident population felt that the CPO order stood for “Communities Put Out13, as rising house prices and the flow of new wealth into a deprived area exposed the polarities of the unskilled, unemployed council house tenants and the skilled workers living in the luxury apartments. In this way, the use of the historic environment has not embraced the concept of the Third Way. However, New Labours social inclusion policies in neighbouring New Islington provided the welfare aspect of the Third Way and thus maintained the equilibrium of the ideology.

Making the Best Use of our Existing Assets?

26The historic environment has played an understated role in New Labour’s drive to secure an urban renaissance. Its contemporary value has rested with its inherent malleability and flexibility, both in terms of what new function the restored buildings can provide but also the degree of flexibility within the prevailing political ideology that has enabled the historic environment to contribute to the urban renaissance. In this context, despite operating under a framework where there was no defined role for the historic environment within the UWP, restored and re-used historic buildings have still contributed to the urban renaissance. This has mainly been because the historic environment was seen as a marketable commodity that aligned with New Labour’s neoliberal ideology and as a way to stimulate private sector investment in inner-city areas. Consequently, the private sector has been encouraged, yet largely left unregulated, which ensured that a new urban clientele was catered for as luxury apartments and skilled jobs were found in the restored historic buildings-new uses which maximised potential profits. The value of the historic environment was primarily economic and as such, in this context, little has changed from Thatcher’s focus on economic and physical regeneration.

27It is more by accident than explicit urban planning that the historic environment has been incorporated into the drive to secure an urban renaissance. The historic environment is by default part of the existing urban fabric, sustainable and has been contemporarily determined as a cultural asset. However, despite these axioms, it still did not assume a defined urban role except for theoretical musings from English Heritage about its capability to strengthen community, ground a sense of place and contribute to regeneration. During the first ten years of New Labour policy, there was little explicit value placed on the historic environment. Rather, it was an afterthought, whose economic costs of repair and re-use were delegated to both English Heritage through the Heritage Lottery Fund and the private sector. Accordingly, the historic environment in the context of urban renaissance is a puppet commanded by the private sector seeking to sell a vision of history that can meet the urban idyll. This directly results from the absence of any defined policy framework and the increased preference for private sector investment in the neoliberal State.

28The recent review on heritage protection (2007) may witness the transformation of this situation, as it signalled an awareness that improved structures need to be in place to further encourage the private sector to invest and thus allow the historic environment to keep contributing to the urban renaissance. It is too early to probe the consequences of this review but its intentions reinforce the belief that the historic environment is viewed by New Labour as the domain of the private sector and the public sector’s role is reduced to that of an enabler, providing public money only as carrot to seduce the private sector. In this context the possibility remains that in the absence of a defined policy framework from central government the historic environment, which includes both the industrial legacy and more recent twentieth-century buildings, British cities will again witness a similar situation to the 1980s in which historic buildings stand redundant, decayed and without hope. History is seen as a commodity, an avenue to increase tax revenues and house prices and as such commodities have relatively short shelf lives. The cultural trend for embracing our heritage is likely to switch to embrace something different: another period, architectural style, or an imagined future. Once this happens and profit is no longer guaranteed by restoration and re-use, and the historic environment is no longer in vogue with the private sector, there is a real danger that the historic legacy will again stand condemned, and far from advancing an urban renaissance New Labour will not have secured a sustainable urban environment as discarded buildings will once again blight the urban landscape.

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Notes

1 For a comprehensive explanation of the socio-cultural reasons people embrace their past see D. Lowenthai, in particular (1985) The Past is a Foreign Country, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

2 Before this, the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act gave central government both the “power and the duty to prepare statutory lists of buildings of special architectural or historic interest”. (Delafons, 1997: 62). Cited from J. Delafons, (1997) Politics and Preservation, A Policy of the Built Heritage 1882-1996, London, p. 62.

3 1980 Local Government and Planning Act, Section 136.

4 This document outlined comprehensive changes to a listing System that had not been comprehensively revised since the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act (1990). The proposed changes reflected the shift in attitudes away from individual buildings to embrace a “much broader concept of heritage... based on the historic value of whole areas rather than individual monuments or special places” (Hudson and James, 2002: 256). The changing framework for conservation of the historic environment, Structural Survey Vol. 25, No. 3/4, 2007, pp. 253-264.

5 8.2 per cent as at March 2001.

6 AUVC was subsumed into New East Manchester Urban Regeneration Company in 2005 and they now answer to the NEM board rather than the AUVC board which has been disbanded.

7 The same document stated that there would be a total of £48 million public sector funding. The Heritage Lottery Fund and the money invested by NWDA in the CPO and public realm works contribute a significant percentage of this. Indeed the RDA provided funds of approximately £23m on six projects including Royal Mills (£9M) and Murray’s Mills (£5M) and public realm works (£5M) (NWDA, 2007).

8 This is the website of the developers.

9 There is no date on the publication yet the logos of NEM and NWDA are there and the guidance was adopted in 1999.

10 If any one wishes to see in how little space a human being can move, how little air-and such air!-he can breathe, how little of civilisation he may share and yet live, it is only necessary to travel hither.” F. Engels (1993) The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, Oxford, p. 65.

11 The media dimension also results from the area’s historic legacy as the Northern headquarters of the Daily Express were located on Great Ancoats Street.

12 The Urban Village concept originated in the early 1990s, yet the core ideals were reinforced by New Labour’s urban policies. Sustainability, dense, urban living and mixed-use developments were all central to the Urban Renaissance yet the Urban Village concept was not mentioned in the UTF or in the PPG3 guidelines produced in 2000, and was only mentioned once as a case study example in the UWP. The concept is however apparent in New Labour’s urban policies but is now re-branded as the Millennium Village rather than Urban Villages (Franklin and TAIT, 2001: 251). Despite this lack of attention in the policy documents, the Urban Villages concept as developed in Ancoats fies many of New Labour’s urban ideals to create an “urban idyll”.

13 Interview with Resident A, 10.09.05.

Table des illustrations

Légende Figure 2: The historic Royal Mills complex is being restored and re-used for apartments. Source: R.M. Madgin.
URL http://books.openedition.org/psn/docannexe/image/4213/img-1.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 196k
Légende Figure 3: Live/Work Spaces and New Media Companies located behind the nineteenth-century workers housing. Source: R.M. Madgin.
URL http://books.openedition.org/psn/docannexe/image/4213/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 180k
Légende Figure 4: Advertising board in Ancoats illustrating the promotion of the urban lifestyle. Source: R.M. Madgin.
URL http://books.openedition.org/psn/docannexe/image/4213/img-3.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 158k

Auteur

Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester
Centre for Institutional Studies, University of East London

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