'Beirut' comes to Cambridge
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We hear so much about the credit crunch that it can become a bit tiresome, until you go and see the effects for yourself says Clara Story
Arbury Park in Cambridge was planned as a 900-home mixed-use development with about a 30 per cent social housing makeup. There is a huge demand for housing in the area but no one’s buying so only a few hundred homes have actually gone up – and now the building work seems to have come to a ‘grinding halt’.
About 300 people are living on the estate already, a mixture of homeowners, private renters and a high proportion of social tenants of BPHA and Places for People. The social housing is almost complete, and will include around 300 homes.
But now the patchwork of wasteland dominating the estate, which was supposed to be filled with new houses for sale, is set to stay. Social tenants were promised a vibrant, utopian mixed community, but instead are living in blocks with little around them except windswept fenland and muddy building sites.
Things aren’t helped by the poor strategic planning – the local council’s scrutiny panel criticised the estate’s planners for starting building work in ‘isolated pockets’ reached by crossing fields, when there should have been a phased plan to encourage community development.
It shows. Some areas look complete and quite posh, others really don’t. Not only are some areas isolated, the communal areas still look shoddy with many pavements not fully surfaced, and there are no paths or crossings to the main road outside the estate where the buses stop. It feels like a bit of a badly-designed ghost town.
To complete the look, some bright spark decided there should be a community art project to create street signs using section 106 money.
The result is that each road is marked by a stencilled plywood board poking out of the long grass looking like something a child made. Oh, actually, probably was.
The half-built effect is so bad, mum Rebecca Mason tells her friends the place is ‘twinned with Beirut’.
Some of the issues on the estate might be teething problems from living on a work in progress, but if the developers stop work then Arbury Park could stay in this state for the foreseeable.
A primary school is already open on site and a ‘local centre’ with a shop is currently seeking planning permission. A hotel is about to be built, and these facilities could improve the community.
But nothing will fix this estate except a darn site more building work, and the credit crunch is here. It means a new estate in one of the most prosperous areas of England could be left resembling a Middle Eastern bombsite.
Clara Story is a senior reporter at Inside Housing
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Readers' comments (2)
Nick Warren | 07/09/2008 8:25 am
Interesting article, and I'd certainly support your comments about the issues caused by the building delays. Whilst the 'pocket' based building plan is now revealed to have contributed to the community development issues, as I understand the background, it was a brave and novel decision at the time and the first time that the RSL housing had been allowed to be built in such consistent blocks...
The bigger issues for current residents is the restrictive government regulations around street adoption. As I understand it, the County Council will not adopt the streets in Arbury Park until all the building work is complete and obviously that isn't going to happen for several years...perhaps as many as ten?
Street adoption may not appear to be a significant sticking point, but it seems to be the point at which the official street signs are installed, and more importantly, the developers will not finish the street and pavement surfaces until adoption is imminent. This is because they are responsible for delivering a flawless finish, particularly on the pavements...if any part of the pavement or road final surface is 'patched', then the whole section will need to be re-surfaced...at the developer's costs. This would seem to imply that the residents shouldn't expect any 'finished' pavements or streets for several years...not road signs.
I think the comment about the 'bright spark' and the street signs is unresearched and particularly unhelpful. One of the biggest issues for the first few months was the lack of street signs on Arbury Park - it was VERY, VERY difficult to find any street or house as there were no maps available either. The public arts project came up with the idea of a community project to address this issue - the resulting street signs were indeed painted by many children (and one or two adults), and a good number of people got to know each other by being involved. With no hope of official street signs for several years, this was both a very sensible project and a successful community development activity. It is hoped that many of the street signs will be retained for a display in the community centre as part of the (short) history of Arbury Park.
There are a significant number of issues on Arbury Park - many that you've not even mentioned - but there is a core excitement about Arbury Park that many residents still retain...being part of somthing that has been well designed and will (hopefully) be well provisioned, being involved from the ground of something new....
Arbury Park still has the potential to be hugely successful - there can be no easy path to creating a brand new community, it absolutely takes a whole lot of people working together and hard!! The councils that are involved are gradually getting their act together, the developers are being 'encouraged' to address the issues, the residents are still moving in and more are getting involved, the public arts work is successful and the community development work is beginning to get going.
I hope that's a useful update.
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Tod Gemuese | 08/09/2008 9:39 pm
I have been living in Arbury Park, paying market-rate rents for about eight months now, and I have to say that I am absolutely thrilled that the building work seems to have ceased! It means that the grassy meadows (what you seem to dismiss as "wasteland") full of rabbits, birds, and even the occasional hedgehog and pheasant will linger for just a little bit longer, making the quality of life that much better. About my only complaint is that the trees planned for the pavements have not yet been planted, and the area still lacks amenities like shops or a pub. But I could not be more chuffed that the open space is staying open for that much longer. Three Cheers for indefinite breaks in the building work!
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