Regeneration in Chalvey

 

The wheels of regeneration have finally started to turn on this plot in East Chalvey, previously occupied by a derelict petrol station (see this post). The plot is predictably and reasonably destined for residential use, but as usual the new rules of redevelopment have turned what should be a simple matter into another forehead-rubbing cause for concern.

 

The plot is of a middling size, and would probably be best suited to a half-dozen or so decently-sized family homes with gardens, but the plan goes much further, with the planning proposal demanding two 3-bed homes plus no fewer than 24 1-bed flats in a 4/5 storey building (the brief says four storeys and a mansard level, which is a sly way of saying, er, five storeys). Parking for 16 cars plus bike storage for 24 bikes is also promised.

 

This penchant for packing lots of people together in tight proximity to neighbouring housing is a feature of the modern style of (over)development. Just a couple of hundred yards around the corner is the stretch of Windsor Road that Slough Borough Council wish to redevelop with three consecutive blocks of flats up to six storeys high, and a few doors up is the massive, looming Aspects Court, one of the first mountain-blocks to be built in Slough and the trendsetter for development in the area- that’s a lot of people and traffic to be adding in a short space of time. As usual, the concerns of the neighbours falls on indifferent ears; certainly some of those living nearby will lose sunlight and privacy in their gardens.

 

The planning brief is predictably sly. It says that a previous bid to build 38 flats on the site was refused partly because it didn’t include enough family homes, and “given the location of the site, outside of Slough Town Centre, new residential development should predominantly consist of family housing”. The accepted plan offers a grand total of, er, two family homes and still has lots of flats (see Planning Permission Tricks #1: Door in the Face Technique”).

 

The main justification it gives for squeezing in a load of flats on this plot is that there are other blocks of flats around, so another one won’t make any difference: “…there are numerous examples of more intensive developments including those for flats in the locality which indicate the transitional and evolving character of the area”, it says, citing the hulking Aspects Court as an example. Somewhat dubiously it also lists the 3-storey Alexandra Plaza shopping arcade some 300 metres down the road as an example, and also a modest residential block on The Crescent street nearby that it describes as having four storeys, but for the life of me I can only count three.

 

“Given the on-going adverse impact on the street scene arising from the existing condition of the site, it is considered that the design and impact on the street scene of the proposal would constitute an enhancement and on this basis would be acceptable”, it says at one point, meaning that because the site is currently derelict their development will be clearly preferable. But this is specious reasoning, as pretty much any development would appear better than a rotting petrol station; it’s a good argument for regeneration, but it in no way justifies the current plan of cramming in two houses and 24 flats. 

 

The importance of blocking and amending insensitive developments therefore becomes clear: give ‘em an inch and they’ll clearly take a yard, with each new developer pointing at the previous development as justification for their own plans. Because it has been allowed once, they argue, it should be allowed over and over again, but this is how areas get ruined, with each development thinking only for itself and not for the area as a whole. And if dubious arguments can be passed off successfully in planning proposals, one wonders why we even have them in the first place.

A Walk Around Tower House, Chalvey

 

 

View looking North up the Crescent, Chalvey.

 

The Crescent is a long, V-shaped street that is among Chalvey’s oldest, dating back to the late nineteenth century. Most of the houses along it are typical Victorian terraces, with some 20’s additions near the top. Overlooking it is Tower House, one of two tower blocks that were built here in 1966, one of only a few such high-rises to be built in Slough (until recently, that is). So in the same picture we have two different centuries’ approach to high-density housing: the tight-knit, compact Victorian terraces, with minimal but personalisable front ‘garden’ spaces (and a garden at the back), modest variations in visual design (but no difference in size)– and then the high-rise, characterised by its identical apartments with no distinction between different properties, minimalist verging on austere style, and a communal space at its foot to serve as ‘garden’ for all (not visible). Out of the two styles it is the low-rise, discernibly individual housing that has always won out as the favourite of the British public, but it is the multi-storey, high-density block that is once again being used as a myopic solution to the town’s housing shortage.

 

 

Close up of Tower House, Chalvey. Count the windows!

 

The mid-century obsession with high-rise building didn’t make much of a mark in Slough, but these two towers, built in 1966 (the heyday for such structures) remain as a reminder. Perhaps the ultimate expression of communal housing, the only marks of individuality come from the tiny views through each window– a patterned curtain here, a flag there. The sight of clothes awkwardly hung to dry by the window is the hallmark of these buildings. As you would expect, there is zero variation in window size or layout, no ornament (even the slight cornice halfway up seems more structural than aesthetic) and a minimalist, repeated colour scheme. The design is to act as a leveller of its occupants, allowing no differences in status and no visual sign of social mobility, upwards or downwards. This might have been a nice, humanistic idea had the chosen, default social level not been so unappealingly low and meagre: the end result simply became a twelve-storey tall advert for the occupants’ poverty.

 

It would be inaccurate to say that tower blocks fell out of favour with the British public, as they were never fully in favour to begin with. Occupants with aspirations of their own space and individualism could only look out the window at everyone else’s modest, but distinct properties, while parents complained that it was no place to raise a family; perhaps the only impressed tenants were people in need of affordable one or two bedroom accommodation who at best saw the flats as temporary and expedient measures.

 

And yet architects loved them– le Corbusier‘s Utopian talk of “streets in the sky” and socially-equalled communities enclosed in single buildings, plus an ecological desire to minimise built-up urban areas led to design after design for multi-storey monsters. Local authorities quickly latched onto the idea of housing large numbers of people in small, high-density concentrations that would be quick and theoretically cheap to put up, particularly at a time when slum-clearance was still a national housing goal. It was ironic then, that so many of these projects simply devolved into vertical slums, marred by disrepair, poor maintenance and monotony of design, and characterised by lack of social mixing and anti-social behaviour.

 

 

Communal area at the foot of Tower and Ashbourne Houses, Chalvey.

 

In lieu of a private garden, the occupants of communal housing such as these tower blocks get communal green space to go with it– fully communal, as the space is as open to the rest of the public as it is to the people who live in the towers. Here there are a few trees and some modest playground activities for the children, a slide, a swing, a frame, a childhood’s worth of play, activity and nature condensed to an area not much larger than the towers’ car park, a precious nugget amidst the drudgery.

 

This would make it all the more keenly felt, you would think. But alas, don’t get too used to this scene: Slough Borough Council have spotted it and, you guessed it, want to build over it. The plan is to demolish the two 60s tower blocks and build new housing over their stead and over this all-important green space. It is a sad indictment of the current thinking in town development that someone can look at the only public greenery in the neighbourhood for these kids and treat it as expendable or unimportant, thinking “we should squeeze more housing on there” instead. Why is the council always so quick to build on the few remaining green spaces when there are still so many undeveloped brownfield sites sitting around dormant?

 

As usual, the concerns of residents have fallen onto deaf, indifferent ears. The end result will be a dangerous density of people in an environment that will be even less dignified than what exists now. There is no point in trying to solve Slough’s housing shortfall by making it less habitable, as all the town will end up with is more misery shouldered by more people. There isn’t grass to graze a cow, Betjeman wrote, in his poem about Slough; in the future, you’ll be lucky if there’s enough to nourish a bunny.

Further details here: http://www.sloughobserver.co.uk/news/13619613.Community_pleads_with_council_help_to_save_green_land_in_Chalvey/

 

A Walk Around the Manor Farm Housing Estate, Chalvey

 

 

View of Brammas Close from the main road through Chalvey

 

The Manor Farm housing estate as it looks from the road. As with all the buildings in the next few pictures, there is minimal variation in style, and in the row above none at all– it’s dark brick and white weatherboarding all the way, baby. All the housing in the estate is in terraces, in the background you can see further microcosms of misery extending identically at right angles to each other.

 

There is also minimal differentiation between individual houses, with the cars parked outside being the only visual cues as to who lives where. This ties in perfectly with the ethos of social housing estates– you’re not housing people or families, you’re housing a whole class at once, a class that we’ve been taught doesn’t deserve anything but the most basic of survival kits, almost like refugees in a camp. And yet the austere and minimalist designs were the product of the Modernist movement, which had at its ideological centre the hope that housing could be a great unifier of society, uniting classes together as one.

 

Housing providers of the mid 20th century loved this new idea of communality–provided it was for the lower classes, that is. They were a convenient, expedient way of housing large numbers of disenfranchised people without having to spend too much time or money– perpetually cash-strapped councils were happy, private contractors even more so.  So we had an era of hopeless estates, whose cheap, generic, monotonous designs could be explained away as clean, efficient (but ersatz) Modernism, and whose lack of individuality and forced communality could be spun as an attempt at hippyish unification. But you can bet your boots none of the people who designed these places ever went to live there themselves.

 

Pedestrian access to housing, Manor Farm housing estate, Chalvey

 

The token sections of ‘green’ add nothing to this very basic landscape, they are merely absences of houses on the blueprint. In the nearly fifty years since this estate was built, have the powers that be not seen fit to add a single decent-sized tree? The simple addition of a large, mature tree would have improved this view considerably and broken the monotony of parts of this depressing estate. 

 

 

 

Children’s play area, Manor Farm housing estate, Chalvey

 

Quite why this children’s play area has been sequestered by railings is not evident– it’s in a pedestrian area, so no crazy cars, and is right in the middle of the estate, so no weirdos lurking in the bushes… it ends up giving the psychological impression that, as in all estates, the kids are to be kept in, rather than the dangerous things kept out. 

 

It is a feature of social housing estate design that certain basic provisions are to be robotically included to provide a kind of generic, minimum-quality existence, the kind that ticks the boxes on government’s key performance indicators list and satisfies the health inspector. Adequate light per house, the smallest acceptable front ‘garden’ per home, minimal aesthetic stimulation with no unnecessary variation in housing styles, regulation play-areas to combat ill-health in children… and yet the paternalism of the thinking that made such estates is at odds with the rather patrician attitude that says that social housing shouldn’t be too nice, because it’s for poor people. So we’re allowed a few square metres of breathing space so the kids don’t go insane from boredom, but only if it’s railed off and mediocre– there is such a thing as too much fun, too much freedom, in a housing estate.

 

The small earth hump provides a slight variance from the dull, flat, topography in an area of unchanging elevation, while the logs and boulders are the only reminder of natural, uncontrolled forms in this strictly regulated and ordered landscape. No such efforts at breaking the monotony of the estate exist outside the playground, adults presumably not being worthy– it took the strongest empathy, that for the wellbeing of children, to get it in at all. So enjoy it while you can, kids, because the moment you get too big for the playground such essential forms will be lost to you forever; the only features you’ll see outside it will be controlling features like the concrete pillar on the left, the wall in the foreground, and the inevitable 'no ball games’ sign. Those railings around the playground are just a primer. 

 

 

Childrens play area #2, Manor Farm housing estate, Chalvey

 

A better attempt at a play area than the one we saw in the last post: the absence of railings and the visual accessibility of the ‘entrance’ are immediately more welcoming and optimistic, and the whole space becomes more 'open’ as a result. There’s more interesting topography and yes! more boulders here, plus the kind of wooden climbing frames adventurous little tykes can really get their teeth into. Still, the conclusions of the last post still stand: look at the contrast between the rugged, interesting foreground and the strictly controlled housing strips and forbidding brick wall behind. At what age is the need for fun, visual stimulation and references to nature supposed to end? The imposed conformity of the estate sits uncomfortably with the playground’s admission that humans need stimulation, adventure and chaos in their environments.

 

 

It had to be in there somewhere! It was inevitable… no social housing estate is complete without its mantra: NO BALL GAMES. Yes, you. Are you listening? I said NO BALL GAMES. Graffitti tags underage sex casual drug use gang violence internet porn happy slapping and habitual truancy yes but NO BALL GAMES! 

Of course, it’s also a relic from a distant past when kids played outside instead of on Xbox. Give it another decade and kids will walk past thinking, ‘What’s a ball game??’

 

 

Street sign showing “plan” of Manor Farm housing estate, Chalvey

 

The first time I walked around this housing estate I got lost, and there’s little wonder why– the estate is a maze of identical housing terraces aligned in only two directions with no individual characteristics to distinguish one part from another. It’s also mostly pedestrianized, so there aren’t any obvious roads or streets to navigate by, and there certainly aren’t any identifiable landmarks. Like so many housing estates of the 20th century it has been planned to provide a certain density of housing rather than as a coherent neighbourhood, and as such isn’t particularly user-friendly in either the aesthetic or navigational senses. It lacks focus and a centred identity, and appears clinical and artificial.

 

The difficulties of finding your way around this maze of mirrors are tacitly admitted by the council’s provision of this map by the road-side– never before have I seen a residential area that’s needed a map to make sense of it! And what a map it is. Look closely and you will see that it hardly makes any sense at all, it isn’t even clear which bits are houses. Only the High Street is named, and half of it looks like it hasn’t been finished, with the features simply disappearing into sketches and construction lines. Even the ‘You are here' blob doesn’t seem too sure of itself. It's a typical council map– it leaves you none the wiser, its purpose being to merely exist, not to actually be useful. Well, off you go now, find your way home and, er, good luck.   

 

 

Staggered housing, pretty much facing East head on to fulfil the ol' light specifications.

 

 

View of Brammas Close from Chalvey rec ground

 

A final look at the Manor Farm housing estate, an expression of conformity in social housing from the late 60s. This picture is from the Chalvey recreation ground on the other side of the main road, which consists of a field and this stately basketball court. Alas, the lonely hoopstand looks more like a hangman’s gallows– as if the area needed any more depressing suggestions!

 

‘Chanan House’, corner of High St Chalvey.

 

A distinct Eastern influence on the design of this building near the end of Chalvey’s High Street gives a nod to Slough’s second largest ethnic demographic. With Slough’s Asian population now having been an integral part of Slough for some decades it will be interesting to see if any more Eastern motifs will find their way into the architecture, hopefully in something more inspiring than the fried chicken and kebab shops pictured above (and preferably leaving out the Delhi-style cabling we can see snaking off the front of the building). 'Regeneration’ is in the cards for Chalvey– will the blueprints allow any cultural reflection of the people who live there? Or will it be more bland, generic buildings copy 'n’ pasted from the last development?

Quite a hash has been made of Chalvey’s traffic system, which has become a long-standing gripe of the locals and of anyone trying to pass through and keep their patience at the same time. The confused arrangement of strips, islands and markings shown in the foreground above is but a taste of the chaotic system that sees near-daily traffic jams extend for hundreds of yards up the adjoining Ledger’s Rd. As a result of this poor arrangement, the passage of pedestrians, cycles and cars around this corner has taken on a kind of Darwinian aspect; mothers with prams stare down cars until they can cross, while bikes mount the pavement sending pedestrians whirling, unless they are taken out beforehand by suddenly-opened parked car doors. Rock, paper, scissors.

 

A Walk Around Derelict Chalvey 

 

 

Abandoned shopping complex, Chalvey, Slough.

 

Virtually all the businesses have left this now derelict shopping complex, although a few diehards remain. Like a Wild West set at high noon, old leaves and bits of paper blow around in lonely wind vortices, and you can’t help but predictably hum the first few bars of the Specials’ song Ghost Town. The space is utterly deserted, as no man or creature has any business going there, with only the tumble-trash to remind you that civilisation hasn’t ended. As a result, the area has become totally obsolete as public space.

The faded blue and pink posts, the multi-coloured shopfronts– there was at least once an attempt to introduce some vibrancy to this part of Slough, some optimistic small-business dream, but it has not proved lasting; why, Slough is the home for big business, multinational household brands operating from the trading estate, smartly dressed companies that hire office space by the tens of thousands of cubed feet, not modest local efforts squatting in brown-brick units in Chalvey. At some point this complex will be ‘regenerated’ by the powers that be, but whether the public space and small-business retail provision will survive in the blueprints remains to be seen. 

 

 

 

Modern energy-efficient housing complex, corner of Spackman’s Way and High St Chalvey.

 

Industrial functionalism is referenced in the sawtooth roof, a feature of old factories that employed the design to stop direct sunlight from skylights overheating products on the factory floor. At first glance this would appear to be just another modern architectural skeuomorph– an archaic design feature that no longer has any practical use but is retained for aesthetic reasons– but in this case, the feature is also used as a way of introducing more daylight and saving energy. A hearty dose of nostalgia goes into the mix too, as such roofs were common in buildings from the first half of the 20th century and form part of our industrial imagination of the past. The complex is arranged in short terraces which continue the reference by repeating the roof as you go along, except in this case each ‘tooth’ of the roof corresponds to a single, separate housing unit.

The complex is arranged in a U-shape around a communal garden space and is fenced around the perimeter (rather over-enthusiastically in the section pictured above, with both hedge and railings). Perhaps this desire for exclusivity stems from the buildings’ proud description as 'Zero carbon homes with a variety of renewable energy solutions’; ironically, the complex is situated yards away from Chalvey dump, sorry 'Chalvey Household Waste Recycling Centre’, which, er, offers 'renewable energy solutions’ of its own. Still, I’m sure it smelt good on the blueprint. 

 

Part Worn Tyres, Chalvey

 

Second-hand tyres for sale on Church Street. In the background is The Flags, a 50s bogus-Tudor bar where young men once gathered to talk of sports and makes of cars– now it’s a ‘local erotic dance pub’, aka a tittybar, where you can see part-worn strippers gyrate on stage for a reasonable fee. Appearing tonight are Chanel, Tanya and Toni, if you’re interested.

 

 

Derelict Jackson & Nephew petrol station, Chalvey Rd East, 2014.

 

Nature reclaims unused urban space, poking through the seams in the asphalt, growing up the walls, pooping on the forecourt. This site was last operated by Shell, but has been unused for nearly a decade. Jackson and Nephew had been on the site since the early 30s, initially as a cycle repair business and later as sellers of petrol; in 1979 the old shop was pulled down and this petrol station put in its place. The sign still shows the old 5-digit telephone number.   

In the background stands Tower House, one of the relatively few high-rise blocks in Slough. Both the block and the petrol station site are earmarked for ‘regeneration’, with the latter having been surrounded by new building hoarding just this week. This view will soon change, both far and near.

 

New multi-storey residential housing complex on Windsor Rd, on the corner of Chalvey Rd East– great if you love living by a main road! This was one of the first of a new generation of ‘mountain blocks’ that has been built in Slough in a hurried answer to its housing shortage: massive, looming, multi-storey buildings characterised by minimal variation in unit style, rather hostile looking steel balconies that do not offer much space, unimaginative and unvariating window size and distribution, minimal breathing space for the pedestrian passer-by and a general lack of warmth in design. The accusation of it being a 'tower block’ has been averted by the use of asymmetry, which in the above case saves the building from being too foreboding; however, its sheer bulk, particularly in relation to other buildings nearby, makes it unwelcomingly imposing– certainly it dominates the view looking up Windsor Rd from lower down the hill. Some effort has at least been made to incorporate the shape of the rounded corner, and the retention of trees of varying types provides a bit of a fig-leaf, although with the building’s sheer size they look more like shrubs outside a house. The end result is more mountain range than building, with the effect of dwarfing and barricading the neighbour, whose local skyline it now defines.   

Previously the site was occupied by a fairly stately if rather drab Victorian building called Denmark House, which in later years was used for offices by the District Council. The corner was also likely the location for the Arbour Hill Pond, which was used as a watering-spot for horses on their way through to what was then the sleepy village of Chalvey. As you can see the curved Victorian wall around the perimeter still remains, possibly rebuilt in stretches, but with the original character retained.