Brownfield of Dreams: A Look at Idling Brownfield Sites

 

 

 

Build it and they will come: idling brownfield site, corner of High St and Church St

 

Now being used as one of Slough’s many impromptu car parks, this large expanse of land situated right in the lucrative town centre has been languishing in development limbo for a number of years. The planning permissions, currently collecting cyber dust on Slough council’s website, promise a massive multi-faceted, multi-storeyed development of retail, office, hotel and residential space, but not a brick has been laid.

 

This site, and a good few others like it dotted around town, are perfect examples of the problem of idling brownfield sites in urban areas where housing and other provisions are running at a shortage.

The swiftness with which the developers despatched the existing buildings (including some locally listed survivors of Slough’s Victorian old town) is inversely mirrored by the length of time it has taken to move this plan on; the scheme was granted permission back in 2008 but has since applied for extensions. While the economic downturn years may not have been an opportune time to start a big venture, there isn’t any wider economic excuse why work can’t start now; after all, major work is happening all over the town except in these blots of cleared, static brownfield.

 

Elsewhere in Slough, public parks are being built over to provide houses and cruddy office blocks repurposed without exterior redesign as residential flats, while sites like this sleep in the sun. But these sites are more than just eyesores and wastes of space, they dishearten the resident; familiar, cherished scenes and buildings are demolished in a blink of an eye with no timely successor, implying almost a kind of contempt for the local, whose town is hastily razed but seemingly not important enough to be replanted. Annoyance at wasted land is more keenly felt when insensitive plans are being enacted elsewhere, ostensibly because of a lack of housing space, while massive, empty, idling areas taunt the local like gaps in a six year-old’s teeth. They smother town character and identity and spurn the spirit of urbanism; it’s like living next door to a neighbour who flouts a hose-pipe ban, making you feel a bit of a sucker for accepting the withering of your own plants while they ignore the concerns of the wider world and keep theirs lush and wet. Time for local government to get tough?

 

 

Sun Shines on an Empty Parking Lot: Car Parks and Urban Sprawl

 

 

Sun shines on an empty parking lot...

 

The consummate space-eater, as Lewis Mumford might have described it, the car park is as much a feature of Slough’s mundane industrial landscape as the smokestacks of the old factories and the glass and steel facades of the office mega-blocks. The above shot was admittedly taken out of hours when there are fewer cars parked here, but the principle still stands: car parks waste a hell of a lot of space, covering large areas that may have seemed quite normal and expected as adjuncts to industrial spaces in the past, but are now becoming ever more conspicuous as wasted area as space in the town runs perilously short.

 

Car parks such as these enjoy peak usage for up to half of the day, usually Monday to Friday, and exist as redundant space for the rest of the week. They do not perform any other function. In the bird’s eye-view of the same space (below) we see that the space devoted to simply storing cars while you’re at work dwarfs the size of the actual buildings the parking lots serve, and they’re big buildings.

 

 

Such senseless sprawl makes for a flabby and discontent landscape, distended over larger distances than needs be, and visually mundane for local and visitor alike. The sheer lack of imagination involved in car park design adds to their misery; not a tree, bush, shrub or blade of grass interrupts the tyranny of tarmac (a good metaphor for the town of Slough, as it happens), and its completely-levelled topography makes for a disheartening and endless vista, a vast sea of asphalt without any hint of dry land to comfort the urban sailor.

 

Increasingly, modern industrial and business developments (and these days even some high-density residential blocks) are taking the wise and over-due step of raising their buildings on piloti and having the cars park underneath; this is simple sense and makes for an elegant solution to minimising the space devoured by the automobile. Older developments such as these pictured (1950's offices) rarely have such provisions, as they were built when space was relatively plentiful, and during an era of unchallenged economic growth and dogma; we look back at them now as unimaginable sprawl.

 

Incidentally, there’s no shame in the humble multi-storey; mundane and uninspiring they may be, but if done correctly (see this post, for example) multi-level car parks can be unobtrusive solutions to high-density parking needs. By using a subterranean level, a ground level and utilising the roof as more open-air space you can effectively triple an area’s parking capacity with only a single-storey building. Drivers (who tend to be habitual moaners anyway) may whinge at the extra time taken to park in multi-storeys, but this is a small price to pay compared to the benefits of relieving valuable space in an already crammed town; there’s certainly no excuse for business/industrial parking not to follow these templates.

 

 

 

 

A Comparison of Urban Boundaries

 

 

Here we see the interface between two different worlds– the sequestered, modern complex of Pickfords Gardens on the left, the back garden walls of Baylis Road, a tired, seen-better-days 1920s street-full-of-semis, on the right. Pickfords Gardens comprises a fenced-off cul-de-sac of large modern apartment buildings with private parking and an adjoining patch of bland green space for the residents; Baylis Road, on the other side, is a fairly busy through-road with identical semi-detached houses on both sides. The street itself offers little in the way of public or private space, but the houses have modest back gardens and the slightly dingy Baylis Park is nearby.

 

Fences are faintly fascinating things, at least they are to friendly-bombs; in an urban setting, they speak volumes about the properties they protect and the neighbourhood they cross. They are a visual representation of the socio-economic status (both real and pretended) of the resident, plus the fears, paranoia, conceit, pretensions, stylish fancies, social mobility, local pride and even DIY skill of the owner. The rule is generally simple: barriers at the front are for show, barriers at the back are for security.

 

The barrier on the left is a uniform metal palisade, too high and spiky to be scaled, with a hedge on the other side; those inside will see a line of greenery, those outside the impassive railings. What is interesting about it is that it is not actually a complete wall– there is an entrance just behind the picture that is open to all, meaning that even from this pedestrian path, everywhere on the left of the picture can be easily accessed. The barrier is therefore more for show, a psychological wall that discourages trespassing without physically prohibiting it, and that doubles up as a display of the well-maintained modernity and relative wealth of Pickfords Gardens.

 

The hedge running next to it is telling: all developments seeking to appear upwardly mobile will use greenery in their boundaries– privet hedges and amateur topiary in the housing of yesteryear, slender garden trees and exotic bushes in today’s; greenery is in fact an indication of wealth generally, with the most deprived areas being immediately recognisable as such by the absence of plants and trees, while the socially-ambitious areas are keen to show off their carefully-curated vegetation– even the very name of this development is Pickfords Gardens. 

 

On the right, it’s every man for himself. Jerry-built breeze-block walls, corrugated iron, patches of old wooden fencing and rotting vegetation make up the boundary; there’s even an old door nailed across a gap at one point. Successions of residents have used any modest means available to shore up their back walls against intruders– they’re not so much walls as barricades. Local ne’er-do-wells use the path at night and daub the haphazard walls with graffiti, something that the Pickfords railings are naturally impervious to.

 

The natural consequence of having short stretches cared for by different owners, coupled with the insufficient income of the residents and apathy of the landlords, means that the Baylis Road side is an unordered, ramshackle mess, but also a quite human-looking one too. The resourcefulness of those on modest means faces off against the pre-prepared tidiness of the modern estate, where you simply move into a environment where everything has already been taken into account– the security, the view, the gardening, where you will park– by unseen designers and absent administrators. Looking at the two barriers together it is as if the sterilised, hygienic functionalism of the Pickfords Gardens boundary is a reaction not just to the possibility of crime, but to the unpredictable, erratic nuisance human society that lurches haphazardly on the right, overgrown and graffiti-ed, rusting and genuine, unbothered by pretension and comfortable with its imperfection, warts and all.

 

 

 

Planning Permission Tricks #2: Whack-a-Mole Technique

 

 

Following from the last post we now look at another, similar way that developers alter their unpopular plans to give the illusion that concessions have been made. In this case we have the mind-bogglingly insensitive and worryingly foolish plan to build five staggeringly tall tower blocks in close proximity to each other over the Queensmere shopping centre (see this post for a depressing reminder of how this part of town has changed over the years). The initial plans were so ridiculous they seemed like a joke, and even Slough Borough Council, which is usually ready to green-light any hideous plan, complained about it, with councillors describing it variously as looking like “three UFOs” and a “mooning bottom”.

 

Like the aforementioned door-in-the-face technique, the planners had originally asked for a lot more– over 900 flats in total– but this had been reduced to over 670 in the early negotiations; again, the question should have been over whether the entire project was wise at all rather than the eventual number of flats. Then, at the stage of negotiation pictured above, they used the Whack-a-Mole technique: if complaints are raised about the height of your proposed towers, simply lower the tallest one while simultaneously raising the others, meaning that like the arcade game no sooner have you pushed one mole down in one place then another rises elsewhere. The first picture shows ‘before’, the second picture shows ‘after’: the plan has altered, but no great concession has been made, the project still takes up just as much space as it did before, and precious profit is conserved.

 

What you also see in the second picture is the new, utterly superfluous and face-palmingly ugly entrance to the Queensmere shopping centre; it seems the designers have augmented it either out of spite at having had to change their precious plans, or in an attempt to make the first tower seem less intimidating from the High Street by literally blocking all view of it. Like so much of Slough’s recent development it is grey, squared, featureless and cynical, playing perfectly into the expected image of Slough as a hopelessly mundane, soulless, functional business-home not worthy of warmth, wit, character or friendliness; these new developments fall on the Slough pedestrian like a boot on top of an ant, and are equally merciless. Its total lack of texture mirrors the grey paving slab desert before it (the refurbed Mackenzie “Square”) in a duet that adds to the cold, boring, unwelcoming feel of the New Slough. Councillors described this bit as looking like ‘silver duct tape stuck over the top of the towers’, but approved the plan anyway.

 

Planning Permission Tricks #1: Door-in-the-Face Technique

 

 

 

We’ve all familiar with door-in-the-face technique, in fact most of us will have employed it on our parents during childhood. You make a ridiculous demand, so extravagant that it would never be granted– maybe you ask for a wedge of cake an hour before dinner– and wait for it to be denied (“No, you’ll spoil your dinner.”). You then make a reduced, moderate demand (“Can I have a cookie instead?”) that now seems reasonable in comparison and is granted (“Okay, you can have a cookie.”) But of course, getting the cookie was your plan all along. Had you just asked for it outright the original refusal (“You’ll spoil your dinner”) would have been applied and you would have faced the unthinkable prospect of going a whole hour before dinner without extra sustenance. With this little bit of psychology you can sneak an outrageous proposal past the powers that be.

 

Developers seem to be using the same strategy. Over and over again we see examples of ridiculous plans being submitted, which scare the local authorities and are baulked at by the public, only for the developers to resubmit the plans in a slightly muted form that inevitably gets approved, even when the complaints of the original design still apply.

 

So we have the now-approved plans for three massive ‘urban villas’ (sound quaint? Well they ain’t) to be built down Windsor Road, replacing the row of low-rise early 20^th century housing that currently stands there. Initial plans caused outcry and opposition from local residents who objected to the sheer hulking size (some seven storeys) of the buildings, which are in close proximity to each other and threaten to further overcrowd the Central Ward, an already densely populated part of town. The resubmitted plans reduced the height of the project from seven to a maximum of six storeys (locals had wanted a four or five storey maximum); this was promptly approved by Slough Borough Council, who have been working with the builders Shanly Homes Ltd to buy up property along the road (then board it up and leave it derelict, of course) over the last few years.

 

Local residents still aren’t happy, with one being reported as saying this is the kind of infrastructure you see in “third-world countries where there are no planning regulations”. The architects meanwhile claim to have “listened”, while the Council nonchalantly walks away whistling. So an unwanted, unpopular proposal is rejected for a minimally softened version that appears to have given concessions but in reality hasn’t; the essential question, of whether this type of development is warranted here in the first place, goes unanswered. As in my example above, the question should not have been about the size of the snack but whether the kid should get one at all.

 

 

PS: This development headache was designed, once again, by bblur architecture, who with the ridiculous bus station and out-of-place Curve project seem to be hell-bent in using Slough as a kind of test-ground for insensitive structures that would be better off being banished to insensitive climates.

 

 

Mackenzie Street: Three Stages of Development– Past, Present & Future

 

 

Here we see three pictures taken from the same spot on Slough High Street, looking down Mackenzie Street. The first is from 1907, before the town’s major expansion with the Trading Estate; the second is how the view looks today, and the third is a CGI rendering of a development plan that Slough Borough Council have recently given the green light to. What is, what was, and what will be.

 

 

In the first picture we see all the charm of Edwardian Slough: wide, quite well-maintained streets, a variety of shop fronts and an ornate lamp-post that serves as a focal point between the two streets, evidenced by the chap leaning on the post next to it. Mackenzie Street extends away from the viewer with more shops and residential housing further on (the housing consisted of deep, triple-dickered Victorian buildings), and a healthy line of trees on both sides of the street. The street is wide despite this being before the age of the automobile– horse and trap was the preferred method of travel back then, as you can tell by what the horses have, er, left behind in the foreground. Overall, it’s a very open and uncluttered public street which retains a community feel thanks to the nearby residential houses, differing housing stock and the familiar charm of the greenery.

 

In the second picture, we fast-forward to today. As you can see, the street has completely disappeared. This is because it was entirely demolished in the mid-1960s and built over by a large shopping centre (called Queensmere, in yet another sycophantic attempt to claim kinship with the nearby royal residence of Windsor). The street is no more, and all that’s left is this small, grey-paved space in front of the centre entrance, optimistically called ‘Mackenzie Square’. The residential houses are gone, consolidating the town centre’s purpose as being purely for retail; gone too is that sense of community and identity (and also some prime real estate– if housing still existed in this central location today, it would be worth a fortune). Now there is only commerce, and a once public street has become a private operation, open only for business and closed entirely to the elements.

 

The only texture is that of hard, cold grey surfaces. Chilly metal poles provide the lighting and the ever-present cctv surveillance, and there are no trees, or indeed any greenery at all. Benches have been added, but they are of the unfriendly backless kind, metal poles and wooden slats suspended between monolithic blocks– boldly designed but cold and uncomfortable to sit on. Backless benches usually indicate to me a tacit admission that sitters aren’t welcome, like the seats in certain fast food restaurants that are designed to be uncomfortable so that you don’t linger too long on them. Overall, this feels like a resented public space, one that has been designed without warmth or softness specifically to dissuade people from stopping there. Imagine a broad leafy tree, with comfortable wooden benches in its shade and a gravelled patch around its base, serving as a focal point for the shopper to pause, rest or socialise; then open your eyes and wonder where all the optimism went. Still, at least the sky looks good.

 

Oops, spoke too soon! In the third picture we see the CGI wet-dream of what is to come, stretching to the heavens. Plans have now been approved to build five massive towers (with at least one having more than twenty storeys) in close proximity to each other and essentially on top of the Queensmere shopping centre. Residential space has returned, but in the worst possible way.

 

Slough property prices have skyrocketed in recent years as the town struggles with a housing shortage (a la the whole country), and so developers are keen to cash in by building as many properties as possible in the lucrative town centre (see these examples, for measure). Their recent mantra has been to pack in as many of these new apartments as they can into high-density, high-rise buildings; in the case of these five monstrosities, they are being dropped into what is already the most densely populated part of the town. With the busy dual-carriageway of Wellington Street being directly behind them, the shopping centre beneath and the High Street in front, humble little Mackenzie ‘Square’, a few square yards of Victorian repose, becomes practically the only public space around for these new buildings. With over six hundred new flats proposed and potentially a couple of thousand new occupants, they may need to fit in a few more benches.

 

PS: You will also notice in the plans a superfluously enlarged entrance to the shopping centre, designed presumably to obscure as much of the dismaying sight behind it as possible.

 

 

A Look at Hencroft Street

 

Hencroft Street South

 

An example of a decent street in Slough. Housing stock of varying age and size gives the street character and diversity– there are Victorian semi-detached cottage homes, tall turn-of-the-century quadruple-deckers (including basement apartments), large family-size semis from the 1930s and low-rise buildings from the 60s and 80s divided into flats. Housing of differing ages gives the street a sense of evolving heritage, anchored in the past but with familiar touches of modernity, while the differing house size and stock allows for a diversity of residents– families in the houses, couples or individuals in the apartments; one block further down the street is used mostly for elderly housing. Also, it’s not all residential– the building at the end of the street is a small business (and there are more round the corner).

 

This diversity of housing stock gives you an optimum population density– not too high, as in the estates where large, multi-occupancy high rises stand shoulder to shoulder without breathing space, and not too low, as in the space-eating suburbs– and ensures that no single demographic dominates. The signs tell us that housing here can be either  bought or rented, further widening the fiscal criteria for living here. Also, the street isn’t static: you can see some white hoarding on the left-hand side, evidence of continuing building and refurbishment.

 

Street parking is confined to one side of the road only, freeing up space and making the street more pedestrian-friendly. Many of the houses are set back from the street a little, allowing light and space into the domain but also providing a layer of privacy between the residents and the pedestrians passing on the pavement. A decent dose of greenery, including mature trees and unrestrained bushes adds to the character and appeal of the street, which is of a medium length (a little over 200 metres). It is a cul-de-sac for cars but allows pedestrians to access the adjoining street at the top of the street (not in the picture)– thus eliminating noisy through-traffic without harming the pedestrian’s progress.

 

Finally, the gabled late Victorian building at the end, haloed by trees, presents the viewer with an aesthetically pleasing conclusion to the street– compare this with the depressing, never-ending strips of identical housing stretching to the vanishing point found in other parts of Slough, only leading on to more of the same, and without any shred of greenery. It may seem unremarkable, but this street is the kind of thing we envision when we think of words like ‘neighbourhood’ or ‘residential area’ or ‘the street where I grew up’ etc. Why then, have so many streets devolved from this desirable state, and why don’t more developments emulate it?

 

 

Upton Alleyways

 

 

 

Alleyway, Upton

 

Alleyways such as this one in Upton are some of the oldest routes in town, with some of the surrounding housing dating back to at least the 1830s, and while trawling through local history books you’ll find that some even have names. These days they function primarily as handy, if less than salubrious, short-cuts which can shave a good five or six minutes off your journey time across certain routes. They are also public spaces, sheltered not only from traffic and noise but also from sight– little wonder then, that they now enjoy a reputation for muggers, molesters, druggies and street-pissers (the tell-tale signs of which, that particular green moss, are evident all the way up in this shot).

 

So is there any use these days for fetid, graffiti-tagged, piss-soaked, dangerous thoroughfares? Most modern estates eschew them altogether, either by twisting every street-strand round so that they eventually share a pavement, or by simply having all pedestrian paths follow the car-oriented road route, or by simply writing off the pedestrian’s needs completely– just walk round the whole block, lazy-o! Healthier, wider and better-maintained routes will increase the footfall which should in turn decrease the naughty behaviour, but the larger facts– the lack of alternative public space, the feeling of exposure everywhere in the urban realm, the urban anticipation of crime– will remain, and until then alleyways will continue to be avoided by young women walking at night, old people on pension day, people with sensitive noses and anybody of a nervous disposition generally.