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Case study 2:

Inner city public spaces; the role of housing associations
Notting Hill Housing Group

Notting Hill manages 18,000 properties across a number of boroughs in north and west London. Many of our properties, particularly in our heartland boroughs of Kensington & Chelsea (RBK&C) and Hammersmith & Fulham, are street properties in mixed tenure communities throwing up very different kinds of management problems and issues to those of managing more traditional estates. The few open spaces that are available to our residents in these inner city environments are publicly owned and managed by local authorities. For our residents, all living in flats and 95% without gardens, these spaces provide a critical lifeline to improve the quality of their lives.

Colville ward in North Kensington is the most densely populated ward in the UK and around 60% of its residents live in social housing units in tall Victorian houses mostly built on the garden square model. The original central private squares have long since been transformed into 'pocket parks' and are managed by RBK&C. Notting Hill, the predominant landlord, manages around 1000 flats in the ward in converted 6-8 storey street properties. Communal areas are limited to the shared entrance hall and staircase. A high proportion of the tenancies are single-parent households, elderly residents or residents with special needs. Overcrowding is commonplace and child density at around 40% is double the national average of 20%.

The quality of these pocket parks and the added value they potentially bring to the lives of our residents therefore merits our attention as landlords. At best they offer our tenants an extension to the family home - additional space to play, sit, socialise and exercise. At worst they can become threatening places spiralling quickly into decline through lack of management attention and investment colonised by street-drinkers, irresponsible dog-owners and anti-social behaviour. Either way they impact positively or negatively on the quality of life and health of our residents, the desirability of the neighbourhood and ultimately our management costs and property prices, all of which justify our intervention into an area non-traditional to housing associations - improving public open spaces in inner city areas. Over the last few years Notting Hill has lead the redevelopment of three pocket parks in North Kensington - all owned by the Royal Borough. Two of these - Powis Square and Colville Square were within a wider multi-tenure area regeneration project, both had suffered from neglect, and been taken over by street drinkers, were uninviting and offered few family amenities or garden attractions. Maintenance had fallen to a bare minimum, a number of trees were dead or dying, there were few flowers and the bushes were full of litter.

The third, Tavistock Gardens, was at the end of the notorious North Kensington front-line, All Saints Road, an unused sunken garden known locally as 'Dog Shit Park' taken over by street drinkers. Visibility from the street was restricted by a metre high brick wall, dense bushes and overgrown trees, entrances were narrow, steep brick staircases which lead into a warren of brick paths and worn grass areas, irresponsible dogowners would release their pets into the park while they stood at the entrances. This small forgotten park had become a 'no-go' area with many local people not even knowing of its existence. It was no coincidence that street crime in the ward was rising, the sale of drugs and associated prostitution prevalent and many of our residents were requesting transfers out of the area. The link between the spiral of decline of the environment, falling property prices and the rise of insecurity and crime is now well acknowledged.

In all three cases, the key to change was the residents who had had enough and were hungry for improvements. Our challenge was to harness their frustration, channelling and refocusing their energy into a can-do approach that would assist them through the complex process or maze of regenerating urban spaces. We became adviser, mediator, negotiator and go-between. We assisted the establishment of an action group, offering funding, guidance and administrative support.

We ensured the profile of the projects was kept high with councillors, police, local businesses and encouraged active consultation with the wider community through newsletters, fun days and planning-for-real events. We found funding for feasibility studies, involved the residents in competitions to select landscape architects, negotiated a cocktail of funding for capital works from the local authority, government programmes, bicycle initiatives, land-fill charities and local fund-raising. And finally we project managed the capital works before handing back the management responsibility to the council. The regeneration of these pocket parks resulted in noticeable area improvements that went way beyond the thoughtful designs, planting and new play facilities.

The marked increase of people in the parks went hand in hand with a marked decrease of neighbour complaints, crime and anti-social behaviour. Our tenants began to request transfers into the area rather than out - the neighbourhood had begun to stabilise. The process of involving residents from start to finish had increased awareness around social responsibility - some went on to become school governors, RSL board members and local councillors. Others were satisfied with the increase of neighbourliness - summed up succinctly by one resident: "I don't need to attend meetings any more, I now know my neighbours".

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Sarah Harrison
(formerly Deputy Director of Neighbourhoods with Notting Hill Housing Group).
Some of this work has been published as:
'Green and (un) Pleasant – how communities can transform open space'
See also: www.nottinghillonline.com


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