Second opinion - Southwark, London

Mark Blain, a senior planner at Edaw, Regeneration & Renewal, 16 May 2008

Bird's-eye view of Aylesbury estate

Publication date: April 2008.

Commissioned by: The London Borough of Southwark and Aylesbury New Deal for Communities (NDC).

Produced by: Urban Initiatives.

Scope/purpose: To set out plans for the comprehensive redevelopment of the Aylesbury estate, post demolition.

Mark Blain comments: Not content with watching over some of the capital's most historic assets, Southwark's planners find themselves engaged in some of the UK's most challenging urban renewal projects. In the glittering company of Bankside, Canada Water, and Elephant and Castle, it is tempting to dismiss the lower-profile Aylesbury estate as small fry. But while Aylesbury might be less well known, it is no less of a challenge.

Long-suffering residents of the notorious estate have seen successive regeneration initiatives try to arrest a slide into socio-economic deprivation. Although a 2002 residents' ballot rejected transfer to a housing association for redevelopment, in 2005 the council decided to go ahead with a major demolition and rebuild. The purpose of this plan is to guide the holistic redevelopment of the area.

The key test for this plan will be to ensure that policies for spatial change do not become divorced from social and economic regeneration. Rebuilding the estate shouldn't just provide a new home for the same problems. By covering adjacent areas stretching out to Old Kent Road and taking in Burgess Park to the south, the plan will provide a chance to integrate the rebuilt estate with established areas, creating the foundation for a mixed-use, connected neighbourhood.

With the stated ambition being to create 5,000 homes, the plan needs to administer a good dose of confidence that challenges can be fully addressed and change delivered, and the preferred options report represents the first opportunity for the council to generate this confidence.

It begins to do so by telling us that the strategy is framed around four key pillars: better homes, public life, connections and community. These create a clear basis for the communication of ideas and proposals, and provide a transparent explanation of options and justification for the selection of those preferred. There is a good balance between technical language and plain English, and the accompanying diagrams and graphic work is superbly executed. It certainly sets out a compelling vision and begins to show how spatial planning and wider urban regeneration objectives can be effectively entwined.

However, the confidence engendered by this strong vision is somewhat eroded when it comes to delivery. A strategy that depends so heavily on private sector interest to address acknowledged deficits in financial modelling will always carry risks, and in the current economic climate even the most persuasive development proposals can fail. The council will be hoping that delivery can be stabilised by additional government funding, the Cross River Tram, improvements in Burgess Park and the successful delivery of Elephant and Castle's regeneration plans.