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Sophie Poklewski Koziell
I STAND ON TOP OF the Oxo tower, a landmark of London's South Bank - a riverside warehouse converted in the thirties to a cold store and reprocessing plant for the Oxo company. Immediately around the building the outlook is somewhat different from the prevailing concrete jungle: the area is opened up and lighter, there are two small green parks and a riverside walk, none of the buildings is more than ten storeys high and there are people walking around, having lunch, jogging, sitting out in the park. It is a mixed-use, balanced community right in the centre of London.
But who lives and works in this beautifully regenerated area, with converted flats and airy retail spaces? Judging from the recently opened Harvey Nichols restaurant -- the latest high table of fashionable eating-- on the top floor of the Oxo building, it would seem to be home to the well-heeled, young professional. The surprise is that underneath the restaurant are five floors of co-operative housing for people in housing need.
In 1970 the wharf and tower were just one more empty warehouse waiting for demolition; but there was a fork in its fate, for there were two opposing plans existing for the area. One, put forward by a private developer, would have meant that, standing in the same place, I would have been on the top floor of the tallest hotel in Europe, looking out on a massive structure of glass and steel. The reason this plan did not go ahead was that the local residents campaigned vigorously against it. The Oxo tower was the flagship of the Coin Street Campaign.
The Coin Street area lies between Waterloo Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge on the South Bank of the Thames. Throughout history, the residents of this area have been swept along in the processes of industrialization, largely carried out by planners and industrial designers without consultation with the local people. The success of the Coin Street Campaign has meant that for the first time residents have had a pivotal role in how the area is developed. Indeed, they have even gone one step further, in that they develop and manage the site themselves.
AFTER WORLD WAR TWO, the area was regenerated for the Festival of Britain (1951) which was sited on the South Bank. A lot of the bomb-damage was cleared up and with it went the residential housing. Over the next two decades, the population gradually started to decline and the use of the area switched from residential to office use. Shell was the first company to have its headquarters in the area, and others followed, including ibm and London Weekend Television. These changes meant that the nature of Coin Street was drastically altered from one of predominantly residential needs to the needs of transient office workers, who had little bonding or responsibility towards the area.
By 1970 there were only 5,000 residents left -- hemmed in by a ring of office blocks. The small population, combined with the lack of new housing plans, led to the decline of basic social amenities, like local shops and schools. In response to the many pressing issues, an assortment of local community and self-help groups began to take shape. The turning point was when a decision to build over a local playground was seen as the final straw and really spurred the various groups into action. After initial discussions they realized that the single issues, such as lack of local shops and loss of population, had to be dealt with at source. Their main focus became to provide good housing, in order to secure the already dwindling number of residents and to entice more people and resources into the area. This would create a critical mass of local population that would make other ventures such as good local schools and playgrounds viable.
Subsequently, the community developed their "alternative vision" of the area; their cry was: "Homes not offices." They submitted their plan for the thirteen acres of Coin Street to the Council: it included plans for housing, open space and light industrial workshops. At the same time property speculators announced their intentions to build over 130,000 square feet of office blocks and a skyscraper hotel. The battle, dubbed the "second battle of Waterloo", began.
The tenacity, determination and vision of the local community survived nearly twenty years of campaigning and two long public enquiries.
EVENTUALLY THE victory was theirs. The private developers, faced with the co-ordinated and formidable campaigning, pulled out and sold their share of the land to the Greater London Council (GLC). The GLC, meanwhile, close to their demise, changed sides in the campaign and decided to support the community's scheme. They placed covenants on the site so that it could be developed only as the community plan had specified and then they sold the thirteen acres of riverfront site to a non-profit company set up by the local community, the Coin Street Community Builders (cscb), for one million pounds, well below the market price.
The CSCB have developed the site in stages. Gabriel's Wharf has become a very popular site of craft workshops as well as cafés, shops and a thriving market. The first housing co-ops have been built and are already occupied; there were over forty applicants for each flat. Members of the co-ops must be in housing need and have a long-term link with the area, or be on a low income but need to live in central London for work. Residents include bus and train drivers, nurses and local restaurant workers. Eventually the whole area will house 1,300 people in low-cost housing co-operatives, financed and managed by the community.
Coin Street is a common-sense development, carried out with a high quality of expertise and made to last. It is also an encouraging urban fairy-tale of how, against the odds, a local community saved their area from becoming yet another of the capital's faceless office developments. By taking control of the planning procedure they created affordable housing, two parks, a riverside walk and workspaces for the use of all Londoners.
Sophie Poklewski Koziell (together with Elaine Brass) is the co-author of Britain -- New Politics and Culture: diy for Those Tired of Waiting, published by The Big Issue at £9.99.
