BIC Symposium on Place-Making

The British-Irish Council is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, having been set up as part of the Good Friday agreement that brought an end to the most recent troubles between republicans and loyalists over the status of Northern Ireland.  The BIC has the purpose of seeking consensus, consulting, and sharing information and expertise across the devolved nations and crown dependencies of England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Jersey, the Isle of Man and Guernsey, for the better of each and all together.

This year’s BIC symposium sought to explore how best to revitalize towns and cities, build better places, share best practice in regional planning frameworks and to improve and share expertise.

The 70+ delegates in attendance in Cardiff on Friday enjoyed an inspiring keynote speech from Michael Schwarze-Rodrian that presented the medium-term (60yr) program for the transitional regeneration of the Ruhr region following the international coal crises of the late 1950’s as a showcase methodology, including setbacks and corrections.

Schwarze-Rodrian’s keynote was followed by presentations on Place-making: Policy into Practice; Climate, Nature and Place; Perspectives on Communities, Care and Connection, and Perspectives on Culture, Creativity and Commons.  A total of 17 speakers presented to the whole assembly, after which the delegates split between break out sessions focusing on Collaborative Practice and on Cross Administration Collaboration.

A huge amount of information was shared in a very short period, and there were dozens of takeaways at macro down to micro levels.  Key messages surrounded themes of Collaboration, Consultation and Community.

Learning included creative methods of consultation, the importance of engagement with the community any given place is likely to serve, and that no matter what outcome is expected, the human experience of a place may well evolve in unexpected ways.

Later input and discussion leaned towards metrics and benchmarking, measuring and demonstrating value at many levels before, during and after development, and the constraints of funding and appropriately skilled human resource available to Local Authority Planning functions.

Having completed my MArch specializing in Urban Design in 2000, it was ultimately disappointing to see that over twenty years on the challenges in the field remain essentially the same, with the political and economic structures we live under hamstringing much of the most progressive regenerative development in and connecting our towns and cities. 

Recurring themes during presentations were on ‘Hope’ and ‘Trust’. 

The one question remaining unanswered for me was how, once a progressive policy is tabled, does one counter the populist reaction, self-interest and short term politicking that disrupts, delays and often prevents its implementation?