High-rise overdose threat to cohesion

Regeneration & Renewal, 18 May 2007

The report says that "naive and over-generalised planning guidance" has helped to create a situation "frankly inimical to create of mixed communities". It adds that the development of too many high-rise blocks could create the condition for "social imbalance, econ- omic failure and ethnic tension".

The report follows the publication of statistics showing 90 per cent of recent development in the Lower Lea Valley, at the western end of the Gateway, consists of only one and two bedroom flats. But high density development has been promoted by former Urban Task Force head, architect Lord Rogers as vital to creating sustainable cities.