Regeneration as social innovation,

not a war game

Received: 11th May, 2009

David Barrie
designs and delivers public projects. He works in the regeneration, property, design and media sectors. Clients include igloo
Regeneration, BioRegional Quintain, Wakefield Council, Middlesbrough Council, One North East, the Design Council and
British Council. At present, David is supporting projects in Moscow, Wales and London. He is developing online media
initiatives linked to urban renewal and creating a new social enterprise that will be the subject of a series of TV programmes
on Channel 4 in 2010.

Abstract There is an emerging new debate going on as to what is the value and
purpose of community involvement in urban renewal. At the moment, different parts of
the urban planning system use ‘consultation’ in different ways. But more often than not,
‘consultation’ and ‘engagement’ are democratic-sounding words for a process of
co-option: appointing members of the community to a given strategy or plan. This
paper outlines two projects which have brought innovation the role and nature of
‘community involvement’, but which push to re-frame policy and practice: take
methodology away from two-dimensional public relations, the procedural fetishism of
local government and the ‘Post-it-itis’ of public workshops — towards the broader idea
of mobilising sustainable networks of local people. Smaller towns and cities have
idiosyncratic characters that can be mobilised to support the social and economic
benefit of a place, but an appropriate strategy needs to be formulated for public
involvement. Community engagement needs to give way to ideas of participation and
customer service. It needs to support long-term values and sustainability that will be
intrinsic to the viability of the regeneration sector after recession. This is a matter of
effective business practice, not just ethics.

Keywords: Public participation, community involvement, networked publics,

sustainability, public space, urban agriculture, social innovation

INTRODUCTION the name of ‘empowerment’, such as a

There is an emerging new debate going community event or art project.
on as to what is the value and purpose In the political sphere, the government
of community involvement in urban appears to have shifted from an earlier
renewal. agenda of seeing involvement as a route
David Barrie The involvement of the taxpayer in to communal self-determination to one
David Barrie & Associates,
First Floor, 148 Curtain this field of public policy is usually that of giving people confidence, skills and
Road, London EC2A 3AR, of consultee. Public opinion is sampled the power to shape and influence what
UK
on a development scheme, a strategy is public bodies do for or with them. This
Tel: ⫹44 (0)777 5945302
e-mail:
published for online or offline discussion, is a shift from emancipation to
david@davidbarrie.net or a third-party device is rolled out in accountability.1

䉷 Henry Stewart Publications 1752–9638 (2009) Vol. 3, 1, 77–91 Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal 77
Barrie
The Conservative Party in the UK
now frames involvement in the context
of returning power to local communities.
Part of a larger plan to decentralise
government, this builds referenda into
local political systems. Think ‘free
communes’, rather than focus groups or
‘workshops’.2
At the moment, different parts of the
urban planning system use ‘consultation’
in different ways. Within local
government, it is a formalised, formulaic
part of the framework of planning and
regulation. Private property development
companies use ‘consultation’ to support
planning applications: and it tends to
mean public relations, masquerading as
‘stakeholder partnership’. More often
than not, ‘consultation’ and ‘engagement’
are democratic-sounding words for what
is a process of co-option: of appointing
members of the community to a given
strategy or plan.
The debate that sits under the bonnet
of current political thinking is how and
at what stage is it appropriate to involve
the public in local decision making?
This paper outlines two projects which
have innovated the role and nature of
community ‘involvement’, but which
push to re-frame policy and practice: take
methodology away from two-dimensional
public relations, the procedural fetishism
of local government and the ‘Post-it-itis’
of public workshops, towards the broader
idea of mobilising sustainable networks of
local people.
The projects suggest the value of
involving the public in the process of
urban regeneration from the very start
and creating new systems and structures
around them as the client. They argue
that just as the word ‘sustainability’
should be replaced by ‘green
technology’, the phrase ‘community
involvement’ should be replaced by two
distinct things: ‘citizen participation’ and
‘customer service’.3
78 Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal Vol. 3, 1, 77–91
URBAN REGENERATION AS A
WAR GAME
Urban regeneration tends to be triggered
by natural disaster, macro-economic
strategy, public or private investment
strategies or set-piece inventions that aim
to trigger economic growth and
behavioural change, such as the Olympic
Games or Capital of Culture programme.
Conventionally, these triggers are
announced and then usher in a process
of strategic, physical and financial master
planning. Development frameworks,
spatial, business, action, entry and exit
plans are drawn up. A cadre of experts
and institutional representatives come
together and dig in for the long haul. A
document trail is created that establishes
priorities, provenances, value for money
and return on investment.
In next to no time, regeneration
becomes a complex process that presents
a constant flow of challenges, questions,
issues of positioning, politics and timing.
Within the management team, much like
a game in an amusement arcade on a
seaside pier, one frog pops up and is hit
on the head, only for another to demand
attention. The net effect of this is to
create a mindset of urban renewal as a
war game; a closed professional system of
extensive paperwork, mapping and
Cobra-style discussions and negotiations
away from the limelight.
Combined with issues of commercial
confidentiality and local politics, this
approach can attract and engender
caution, ‘analysis paralysis’, opaque
external communications, poor internal
communications, loss of momentum and
an asymmetry of information between
producer and audience that creates
mistrust.
In this scenario, regeneration becomes
a closed circuit — and the community
fast becomes an issue of public relations
and the management of opinion.
This is a problem. For if the purpose
䉷 Henry Stewart Publications 1752–9638 (2009)

of regeneration is to increase prosperity,
this relies upon a contract of trust
between resident, worker, occupier,
tenant and the service provider, be they
in the public or private sectors.
If the purpose of regeneration is to
uplift values, there needs to be a contract
between diverse transactional parties, be
it the retailer and consumer, investor and
resident community or employers and
workforce.
If the purpose of regeneration is to
enable the creation of more prosperous
communities, towns and cities need to
become, to quote writer Herbert
Girardet, ‘energy- and resource-efficient,
people-friendly, and culturally rich, with
active democracies assuring the best uses
of human energies’.4
And if the purpose of regeneration is
to make money, the scale of cost of
development, the demand of shareholders
for a return on their investment and
innovations such as tax increment
financing suggest that landowners and
developers need to place greater emphasis
upon the social, as well as physical
infrastructure of a site.
OPEN-CIRCUIT REGENERATION
In recent times, certain ideas and ways of
working and living have emerged that
suggest the efficacy of taking a more
open approach to delivering regeneration.
The rise of partnership working,
public–private partnerships and local
asset-backed vehicles have established an
ethos of collaborative working.
Privatisation and outsourcing of public
services, the rise of ‘joined-up’
government, consumer choice and
technological innovation have shifted
hierarchical organisation of government
to more networked forms of public
management.
The rise of ‘place’ as an organising
principle of local government and city
䉷 Henry Stewart Publications 1752–9638 (2009) Vol. 3, 1, 77–91
Regeneration as social innovation
planning acknowledges that the built
environment is more than just the
organisation of the interests of
landowners and users, but a web of
experiences and physical, social, cultural
and financial relationships.
Government emphasis upon community
engagement, the Third Sector, democratic
governance and inclusive economics has
set on record the role of users in the
provision of public services.
Social and cultural entrepreneurs have
become an increasingly important part of
urban development, alongside
landowners, speculators, planners and
architects; bringing to regeneration a new
cast of characters who have an acute,
populist mindset and combine skills in
enterprise, thought leadership, stakeholder
management and project delivery.
The rise of online social media has
revealed a consumer appetite for
informal, purposeful and semi-visible
public networks.
The increasing use of co-design as a
method for originating and developing
ideas — from creating a new park to the
development of open source software —
has revealed an understanding of the
opportunity and value of sharing
intellectual, as well as emotional property.
Popular participation in voting for
performers on television by telephone
and text messaging has revealed that
people like to engage with and not just
consume products and services. And
popular take-up of Crazy Frog and
online applications mark the power of
viral advertising and marketing by word
of mouth.
All these strands push towards taking a
more open approach to designing and
delivering urban renewal: and suggest
that ‘asking people what they want’ or
‘think’ is no longer enough. The people
known formerly as the audience need to
be engaged in a different way.
The relationship with the taxpayer
Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal 79
Barrie
becomes ever more important, as land
asset values collapse, and the search is on
to find more sustainable sources of local
income against which to amortise risk.
CASE STUDY 1: THE CASTLEFORD
PROJECT
The Castleford Project was a programme
of renewal of a town in West Yorkshire,
England, which started in 2003 and
completed its first phase of work in
2008. In five years, it helped to
transform several of the town’s public
spaces and has been credited with
leveraging over £250m of new public
and private investment in the town.5
Castleford was once an important
coal-mining town. In the 1990s, the
town fell upon hard times as coal
production in the UK was restructured.
The economy of the town collapsed, and
its fabric fell into disrepair.
With a population of 40,000, located
within commuting distance of Leeds,
Castleford is an exemplar of the crop of
smaller towns and cities across the world
that have suffered at the hands of
de-industrialisation. What was once a
bustling centre of industry and commerce
with wealthy patrons committed to civic
improvement has given way to a place
that is neither a service centre for its
nearest adjacent city nor a sure-fire
attractor of millions of pounds worth of
investment. It is neither a village nor a
large city, so the distinctive and vital role
it might play in the work of a new
century is not certain.
But Castleford has many things going
for it. The town has managed to
maintain a distinctive civic pride because
of a powerful, historic culture of
community and heritage.6
The town has many active citizens’
groups, community organisations and
young and old people committed to
living and working in the town. These
80 Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal Vol. 3, 1, 77–91
groups are prepared to work for the
town, as well as themselves. They can
see beyond their doorstep.
In other words, Castleford has a
human architecture of identity and
attitude. It has ‘character’. The question
is: can Castleford embrace shrinkage, not
as decline but as a framework for
creative reinvention?
In 2003, a team of experts in
regeneration, design, project management
and community involvement were drawn
together with a common purpose to
pioneer a new, local, citizen-oriented
model of renewal for Castleford.
The team were supported by Channel
4 Television. Channel 4 maintains an
active programme of corporate
philanthropy, and it wanted to
commission a series of television
programmes that would document the
process of the regeneration of a town
and share it with the viewing public.7
After evaluating several towns and
cities across the UK, the group of
professionals decided it wanted to work
in Castleford, in partnership with
community groups, Wakefield
Metropolitan Borough Council, regional
development agencies and national
regeneration organisations.
The aim of the initiative was simple:
to harness Castleford’s assets, especially
the commitment of its people, find out
what physical aspects of the town people
wanted to see improved, and do it.
In parallel, a programme of social,
economic and cultural activity would add
value to the capital programme, and the
two would act as a larger catalyst to
change.
The methodology hinged upon
building social capital, positioning the
community as client, not just end user,
and using their involvement as the
trigger and foundation of a strategic
vehicle for regeneration. The vehicle had
no assets, other than a power to assemble
䉷 Henry Stewart Publications 1752–9638 (2009)

people or bridge ‘social capital’. It would
seek to enable change by designing and
delivering a series of popular projects and
build a momentum behind them that
would make them sustainable: a process
very different from three-year
funding-locked Government initiatives.
In early 2003, the project started with
a series of public meetings in bars, clubs
and community centres, supported by
Channel 4, Wakefield Council and the
Commission for Architecture and the
Built Environment. At the meetings, a
simple question was asked: ‘How do you
want to see your town improve?’
A public poll was published in the
local newspaper and discussed at public
meetings, eliciting a series of priority
projects. Community leaders stepped
forward to lead individual projects, as
‘champions’ or stewards. Three new
community organisations were formed in
support of projects. A plan was
conceived to deliver 11 projects in all,
from small improvements to derelict
open spaces to a new town square; from
new children’s play facilities in housing
areas to a new pedestrian bridge across
the River Aire. A package was created
that combined several projects in
different locations. All the sites were
owned by the local authority and by
bringing them all together, those projects
with a stronger business case could
support the weaker ones.
With its ranks swelled by ‘community
champions’, the project team ran an
open ideas competition for architects and
landscape designers, and local people
voted for their favourite designs and
designers.
In 2004 and 2005, development teams
were formed in support of each site,
made up of local people, their appointed
designers and local government officials.
Concept plans became budgeted designs,
and the team of external experts stayed
on hand to provide light-touch, strategic
䉷 Henry Stewart Publications 1752–9638 (2009) Vol. 3, 1, 77–91
Regeneration as social innovation
advice on regeneration, design,
management and project funding.
In late 2005, just two years in, the
first project went on site: a new
playground in the Airedale/Ferry Fryston
district of the town. Nine have since
followed. The last project, an
architect-designed pedestrian bridge was
completed in Summer 2008 (see Figure
1). Other projects include four new
public spaces and a renovated subway
(see Figure 2). Almost all the projects
were designed by small and
medium-sized architectural practices.
Many involved the contribution of visual
artists.
The project programme was supported
by a comprehensive business plan. With
this plan, a seed grant of £100,000 by
Channel 4 Television became a £14.5m
capital and revenue programme, sourced
from 23 funding sources. By summer
2008, several projects entered second
phase development under their own
steam, and groundwork has now
advanced on residential development of
brownfield sites adjacent to the town’s
waterfront and linked to the project’s
bridge scheme.8
One key reason for the success of the
project is that it created a clear
development platform for the town,
based upon a connected but layered
network of community, civic, public and
private sector organisations:9
• A community network made up of the
Castleford Town Centre Partnership,
the Castleford Heritage Group,
Riverside Community Group, Sagar
Street Tenants Association, Wilson
Street Community Triangle, Cutsyke
Community Group and Friends of the
Green.
• A stakeholder network made up of
Wakefield Council, Wakefield LSP,
Groundwork Wakefield, Yorkshire
Forward, English Partnerships,
Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal 81
Barrie
Figure 1: Castleford Bridge
Design: McDowell+Benedetti. Image courtesy of Channel 4 Television. Photographer: Glenn Dearing.
Figure 2: Tittle Cott Underpass
Design: DSDHA. Lighting: Martin Richman. Image courtesy of Channel 4 Television. Photographer: Glenn
Dearing.
Coalfields Regeneration Trust, Channel
4 Television, Environment Agency,
British Waterways, the Commission for
Architecture and the Built
Environment, Sure Start Airedale,
Eastern Wakefield Primary Care Trust,
Wakefield Police, Edinburgh House
Estates Ltd and Arts Council England,
Yorkshire.
• A creative network made up of the
Castleford Heritage Group, Arts
Council Yorkshire, Yorkshire Sculpture
Park, Yorkshire Culture, Yorkshire
Film, Media Trust Productions,
participating architects — McDowell+
Benedetti, Sarah Wigglesworth,
DSDHA, Allen Tod, Carey Jones,
Estell Warren, Parklife and Martha
Schwartz Inc. — creative advisors,
82 Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal Vol. 3, 1, 77–91
including Gehl Architects (Denmark)
— and artists, including Harry Malkin
(UK), Chris Campbell (UK), Martin
Richman (UK), Pierre Vivant (France),
Winter & Horbelt (Germany) and
Carlos Garaicoa (Cuba).
• A financing network, featuring all of the
above plus the Heritage Lottery Fund,
Big Lottery Fund, the Scarman Trust,
Waste Recycling Environmental
Limited, Ibstock Cory Environmental
Trust, SITA Trust, Edinburgh House
Estates Ltd, Amenbury Properties Ltd,
Xscape (Capital & Regional plc) and
Nestlé UK.
• And a consultant network, including
Chris Brown (igloo Regeneration),
Alison Nimmo CBE, Peter Rogers
CBE, Abros Ltd (Ben Denton), AZ
䉷 Henry Stewart Publications 1752–9638 (2009)

Urban Studio Ltd (Roger
Zogolovitch), Mace Ltd, Gleeds Ltd,
Lee Mallett, Nick Wates and the
author.
For three years, the ‘connective tissue’ of
these networks was a permanent
coordinating staff of two, supported by a
seconded officer from the local authority.
In 2005, these management functions
were novated to the local authority as
the capital programme was implemented.
By enabling community representatives
and local councillors to hold key
positions in the management and
governance of the project from an early
stage, the process of regeneration
engendered trust. But an added
ingredient helped cement this trust and
add momentum and effectiveness to the
coordinated effort. Inspired by the idea
of Town Fairs, the ‘whole community’
ethos of participatory planning in the US
in the 1970s, the successful ‘Main Street’
movement in America and the strengths
and weaknesses of initiatives such as the
Liverpool Garden Festival, the Project
implemented an ancillary programme of
local social, economic and cultural
activity.10
On one level, this was set upon
leveraging the energy and enthusiasm of
the core programme and its participants
and applying it elsewhere to the town.
This was founded upon a basic
understanding and appreciation of the
power of common cause. In the words
of geographer Yi-Fu Tuan: ‘When
people work together for a common
cause, one man does not deprive the
other of space; rather he increases it for
his colleague by giving him support.’11
But it was also founded upon the
value of ‘recommender technology’ — a
prominent feature of the Internet — but
whose principles were best expressed by
mathematician Blaise Pascal in the 17th
century, when he wrote: ‘We are
䉷 Henry Stewart Publications 1752–9638 (2009) Vol. 3, 1, 77–91
Regeneration as social innovation
generally the better persuaded by the
reasons we discover ourselves than by
those given to us by others.’12
What was required was a programme
of revenue activity that re-sensitised the
local population to the opportunity of
participation, extended the power of the
core capital programme, but also
countered ‘consultation fatigue’. For in
the words of an anonymous marketer:
‘Consumers are like roaches. You spray
them and spray them and after a while it
doesn’t work.’13
The team decided to run a process
that might also self-consciously exploit
and engineer spectacle — be a ‘tiny epic’
— a facet of renewal exemplified by the
Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, and
described by writer Hal Foster as: ‘To
make a big splash in the global pond of
spectacle culture today, you have to have
a big rock to drop.’14
The project refurbished a shop in the
town centre and turned it in to a
meeting and arts space. It ran events for
local businesses and volunteer
organisations. Wakefield Council ran
environmental projects in schools. Arts
Council England, Yorkshire enabled the
commission of new work by local and
international artists. The Coalfields
Regeneration Trust and Sure Start ran
linked projects in local communities.
Channel 4 held ‘Regeneration’ dance
nights in clubs.
The entire programme was designed
to create a regeneration project in the
business of people, not land assembly —
and, in all, over 15,000 people took part.
There is no evidence whatsoever that
the ancillary programme of activity
helped the improvement of the local
economic environment directly.
However, the combination of investment
in revenue as well as capital activity
extended public participation and
demonstrated to the outside world a
broader commitment to change —
Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal 83
Barrie
making a pound spent in Castleford a
more confident investment.
What was the role of master-planning
in the regeneration programme? When
the project started, there was no master
plan for the regeneration of the town.
There was a jigsaw of strategies in place
devoted to small-scale areas of the town
and a broad commitment by Regional
Development Agency Yorkshire Forward
to develop a strategic framework plan for
the town, in line with other places in
the region.
In effect, the Castleford Project was a
popular, design-rich process of
networking that gathered these strategies
together and delivered a series of ‘early
wins’ — projects that since became
‘tent-pegs’ in a larger and now
completed strategic plan for Castleford
and its district.15
In other words, a culture and
community-led programme of
networking created and delivered a
programme of work that became
embedded in the wider and longer-term
plans for the town.
What were the problems in the process
of implementation? Time. Originating a
project programme by popular mandate
captures attention and establishes
expectations of a human timeline; while
composite public/private finance and
technical planning don’t.
CASE STUDY 2: DOTT 07 URBAN
FARMING, MIDDLESBROUGH
Middlesbrough in the Tees Valley is one
of the most deprived towns in the UK It
has a population of 140,000 and a
quarter of those of working age are on
state benefits. The district of
Middlehaven has the lowest life
expectancy in the country. The town
suffers from poor health and high levels
of obesity. Its native dish is the Parmo: a
slab of pork or chicken beaten flat, rolled
84 Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal Vol. 3, 1, 77–91
in breadcrumbs and deep-fried.16
In recent years, Middlesbrough has
experienced an ‘urban renaissance’, led
by a local authority and regional
development agency who have prioritised
improvement of the town’s urban design,
support for creative industries such as
digital technology at Teesside University
and the application of skills acquired in
steel and chemical production to the
new green economy.
The town benefits from a mayoral
structure of local government and the
commitment of the local authority to an
agenda known as ‘Raising Hope’,
centred on key themes of creating clean,
safe environments, improving run-down
landscapes, reducing obesity, deaths from
heart disease and CO2 emissions.17
Like many towns and cities in the
UK, however, Middlesbrough’s health,
efficiency and the sustainability and
resilience of its future growth is
compromised in part by the globalised,
not localised, supply chain of some key
resources.
The percentage of people in the town
eating ‘five-a-day’ servings of fruit and
vegetables is lower than the national
average; and yet to the south of the
town lie the fertile, agricultural lands of
Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. The town
has a high proportion of people who feel
‘in poor health’; yet it has extensive and
well-maintained parks and open spaces.
While the town seeks to increase the
density and sustainability of its town
centre, key sources of self-sufficiency
such as its allotment sites are located on
the periphery of the town, like shanty
towns on the approach to an airport.
With the onset of climate change,
‘peak oil’, ‘food security’ and increasing
food price inflation, food and the extent
to which it is locally sourced is an
increasingly important aspect of
responsible urban development.
According to the environmental
䉷 Henry Stewart Publications 1752–9638 (2009)

organisation BioRegional Development
Group, around 23 per cent of a
household’s carbon footprint arises from
its food choices.18 Recent export bans
and food controls in Argentina, Pakistan
and Russia mark the increasing
importance of self-sufficiency. There is an
increasing popular awareness of the need
for food to be traceable. There is a
movement to make people aware of and
enable them to discriminate between
factory and farm-produced food. In other
words, there is an increasing
understanding that healthiness and
sustainable living is not just in the
ingredients, but in the system that
supplies our food.
The challenge is to find ways and
means to enable people to participate in
‘food systems’, connect their lived
experience to the broader system and
help people to change their habits.
Conventionally, the response of the
regeneration community to the issue of
health and food has been to break the
issues down into silo initiatives linked to
‘healthy eating’, business support for
farmers and environmental projects
linked to ‘growing your own’. These are
often delivered by different agencies,
such as the local Primary Care Trusts,
Regional Development Agencies and
NGOs. Food, however, is more than
diet. It is about living; and lived
experience cuts across the stove-piped
organisation of public services and their
delivery.
As in the Castleford Project, the Dott
07 Urban Farming project in
Middlesbrough sought a route forward
by exploiting the power of networking
and citizen participation.
The initiative was part of a larger
programme of activity in the region
known as Dott 07. Dott 07 (or Designs
of the time 2007) was a year of
community projects, events and
exhibitions in North East England, led
䉷 Henry Stewart Publications 1752–9638 (2009) Vol. 3, 1, 77–91
Regeneration as social innovation
by the Design Council and One North
East, which sought to explore what life
in a sustainable region might be like —
and find ways and means for design to
shape and influence the process.19
The aim of the Urban Farming project
in Middlesbrough was to prototype a
healthier, more resilient and local food
supply chain.
In autumn 2006, supported by the
Dott 07 programme, a team of
consultants led by the author, and
including designers Nina Belk and Debra
Solomon, talked to people living and
working in the town.
By March 2007, over 60 community
groups, voluntary organisations and
schools in Middlesbrough elected to
grow fruit and produce in over 250
different sized containers across the town
(see Figure 3) in school yards, the
windowsills of hospitals, the foyers of
offices and open plains of the town’s
university campus. The Environment
Department of Middlesbrough Council
agreed to grow food in public parks.
Across the growing season, the Dott
07 project enabled the town’s new
‘urban farmers’ to learn cookery skills
using their harvest in a series of ‘kitchen
playgrounds’ — chef-led classes in
neighbourhood centres. In September
2007, in the town’s main square, the
growers came together and ate the final
harvest in a large-scale ‘town meal’ (see
Figure 4). This was part of a larger
‘country fair’ event — The Really Super
Market — organised by Middlesbrough
Council and Middlesbrough Institute of
Modern Art and curated by artist Bob
and Roberta Smith.20 The final ‘harvest’
was brought in from containers across
town. School cooks and youth groups
prepared soup and salad from the
produce. Local farmers sold produce at
stalls.
Alongside the initiative, architectural
designers Katrin Bohn and Andre Viljoen
Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal 85
Barrie
Figure 3: Linthorpe School ’urban farmers’
Image courtesy of Dott 07 (Designs of the time), Design Council and One North East.
created an ‘edible map’ of Middlesbrough
— a spatial plan known as a ‘Continuous
productive urban landscape’ — that
connected land in the town that might
be made available for cultivation with
existing allotment sites, places in which
people had grown food as part of the
project and places where people said that
they would like food to be grown in the
town in the future.21
The territory of the Dott 07 Project
will be familiar to those working in
social and environmental regeneration.
The approach that the project took,
however, was unusual. In effect, the
project programme was designed to
enable participants to experience a single
narrative journey: growing, cooking and
eating. The project team established the
journey, set logistical and funding
parameters, but then threw participation
of the project open to dispersed,
self-organising communities.
Strands of the project were delivered
by different public or non-governmental
organisations: Groundwork South Tees
86 Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal Vol. 3, 1, 77–91
coordinated the growing project in
partnership with community groups,
schools and other ‘farmers’.
Middlesbrough Council and
Middlesbrough Primary Trust coordinated
the ‘kitchen playground’/cookery strand
of work. And the town meal was created
and coordinated by the local authority in
partnership with the Middlesbrough
Institute of Modern Art.
The methodology of the urban
farming project in Middlesbrough was
similar to that in Castleford in that it
placed an emphasis upon participation
and a dispersed programme of activity. It
established a partnership of public
agencies to fund, support and coordinate
the overall programme of work. And it
placed exceptional emphasis upon the
networked endeavour of both the
community and agencies alike.
One thousand people participated in
the growing project in Middlesbrough,
and 8,000 people attended the town
meal event. In 2008, 2,000 people grew
food once again, without the
䉷 Henry Stewart Publications 1752–9638 (2009)

Figure 4: The Middlesbrough Meal
Image courtesy of Dott 07 (Designs of the time), Design Council and One North East.
coordinating effort of an external
consultancy team. ‘Urban farming’
became a core strand in a larger,
successful bid by the town for £8m of
new external public funding. The local
authority has now put in place a plan to
create ‘pocket allotments’ across the
town and support the development of a
social enterprise restaurant to purchase
produce grown locally in future and
realise revenue to invest in future
growing seasons.22
IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE
The implication of the projects in
Castleford and Middlesbrough is that
there are routes to regeneration that are
more closely aligned to local identity,
local taxpayers and human behaviour —
and that innovative involvement of
communities on a town-wide scale can
act as a catalyst to a longer-term
sustainable shift in policy and values.
A second implication is that smaller
towns and cities have idiosyncratic
䉷 Henry Stewart Publications 1752–9638 (2009) Vol. 3, 1, 77–91
Regeneration as social innovation
characters that can be mobilised to
support the social and economic benefit
of a place, but that that strategy may
need to find terms of engagement
different from those applied to global
cities. There is a metropolitan, boutique
bias to urban renewal that is
inappropriate to many post-industrial
places.
A third implication is to think
network, not project: and be informed
by the explosion of public involvement
in platforms that promote bridging capital
and dynamic engagement, such as online
social media.
It is worth noting that some of the
most profitable investments in venture
capital have been in ‘mid-level’
technologies, in circuit design and chip
layout, rather than high-level know-how
on the laws of solid-state physics or the
manufacture of semi-conductors.23
It is also worth noting that an exciting
development in urban renewal at present
is in the the organisation of resources to
site, such as bundling and ‘rentalisation’
Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal 87
Barrie
energy supply via third-party providers
such as Energy Services Companies.
Projects similar to Castleford and
Middlesbrough can be achieved
elsewhere by local authorities or private
sector developers by connecting top-level
strategy and grassroots activity by
designing and delivering human
resource-rich, mid-level programmes
linked to the redevelopment of
large-scale sites.
It is important that there is a
commitment to open public planning
and that the project programme is
allowed to grow organically. What is also
important is for local government
leadership to press for work across
service delivery arms. The new Housing
and Communities Agency and Urban
Regeneration Companies could apply a
similar methodology to priority schemes
and areas by enabling initiative that
connects strategy with the grassroots via
area-wide action planning, and cross-silo
public participatory initiative. Inspired by
participatory budgeting, local authorities
could also set in train town-wide public
processes that set priority for their
spending.
Large-scale private investors in towns
and cities could abandon conventional
‘community consultation’ programmes
and seek and capture the power and
return of investment in social
infrastructure by ensuring that their
Section 106 payments and other
contributions and levies are used to
develop networks of local people and
organisations.
What is important is that words like
‘consultation’, ‘engagement’, even
‘involvement’, are abandoned in favour
of something else; that marketing plays
second fiddle to establishing and creating
new alliances of people and organisations;
that any initiative is seen as an adjunct to
the existing statutory, democratic
functions of government and is seen as
88 Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal Vol. 3, 1, 77–91
good customer service, to residents and
taxpayers alike.
It is also vital that the area in which
the initiative takes place has strategic
ambition and confidence, reflected in a
clear understanding on the part of local
authorities and regional development of
the strategic case for larger-scale
regeneration.
There are also three key strands of
thinking that any initiating agent needs to
understand. First, the agency needs to
have a broad, enlightened understanding
of what constitutes the asset base of an
area and be committed to innovative ways
of unlocking and exploiting its value. In
2005, policy thinker Geoff Mulgan wrote
an important paper for the Commission
for Architecture and the Built
Environment that drew an analogy
between building spaces, trust and the
modern financial markets. Mulgan wrote
that derivatives markets ‘Recognise and
then organise hidden values and assets in
ways that allow new value to be
captured’.24 Just as developers such as
igloo Regeneration and Blueprint have
pioneered new forms of public–private
partnership, and local authorities such as
Croydon have invented broader-based
investment vehicles for the regeneration
of their centres, Mulgan hints at — and
the projects in Castleford and
Middlesbrough represent — an innovative
platform for renewal and a new
combination of human and land assets.
Second, the agent needs to be inspired
by the value of communication and its
design. In the 1970s, John Gardner
founded the non-profit, non-partisan
citizen’s lobbying organisation Common
Cause. He was also the former US
Secretary of Health, Education, and
Welfare under President Lyndon Johnson.
In a book published in 1970, Gardner
wrote: ‘Communication in a healthy
society must be more than a flow of
messages; it must be a means of conflict
䉷 Henry Stewart Publications 1752–9638 (2009)

resolution, a means of cutting through
the rigidities that divide and paralyse a
community.’25
Finally, the agent needs to appreciate
the value of networks to effective public
management and see their role as
mediators, not just managers of the public
realm. In 2004, the former mayor of
Indianapolis Stephen Goldsmith and
William Eggars, global director at Deloitte
Research, Public Sector wrote a
pioneering book on managing
government in the digital age. Goldsmith
and Eggars emphasised the role of
networks in a world of privatised
government, services and sprawling
logistics chains and the role and value of
private integrators in rationalising and acting
as a catalyst to change. They wrote:
‘A network that delivers effective public services
doesn’t just happen. Someone must first figure
out how to fuse a collection of private and
public organisations into a seamless service
delivery system. The job of the network
designer is to identify possible partners, bring all
of the relevant stakeholders to the table, analyze
the current in-house operations, determine and
communicate to all members the expectations
of how the network will function, assemble and
enmesh the pieces of the network, devise
strategies to maintain the network, and, finally,
activate it. The designer faces the challenge of
creating a model malleable enough to
accommodate each partner, dynamic enough to
adjust to changing circumstances, but fixed
enough in mission to serve the common goal.’26
CONCLUSION
In his recent report on the impact of the
recession on urban regeneration,
Professor Michael Parkinson highlighted
the importance and value of taking a
long-term view of development. He
drew attention to the opportunity
slowdown affords the public sector to
review and develop its approach to
community, as well as physical,
䉷 Henry Stewart Publications 1752–9638 (2009) Vol. 3, 1, 77–91
Regeneration as social innovation
infrastructure. Parkinson underlined the
value of local efficiency and innovation.27
On one level, this has to mean the
design and development of more
sustainable projects. Most public and
private sector organisations involved in
regeneration, however, continue to
believe that sustainability means
additional cost and the sacrifice of value.
Hundreds of millions of pounds worth
of new investment in Castleford and the
increasing supply of locally grown food
to Middlesbrough — one of the
country’s unhealthiest towns — prove
otherwise.
These returns suggest that bigger and
better regeneration results can be
achieved by setting up comprehensive,
popular, participatory regeneration
‘vehicles’.
And the fact that second-stage work is
taking place in successive years in both
places suggests that, once such a process
has been set in motion, it can be
self-sustaining, provided that it is allowed
to follow its own momentum and not
bound tightly into Treasury spending
cycles.
Is it time to stop seeing regeneration as
a war game, but an opportunity to carry
out profitable, self-sustaining innovation?
Is it also time to stop seeing supporting
rate and taxpayers as ‘community
involvement’, but as ‘customer service’?
Working constructively and imaginatively
with customers is not a matter of ethics. It
is good business practice — and pays
dividends.
David Blood is managing partner of
Generation Investment Management, a
boutique asset management firm that he
founded in 2004 with former American
Vice-President Al Gore. Blood believes
that a sustainable approach to business is
in the best interests of shareholders.
‘Sustainability issues around the environment,
climate change, corporate culture, community
Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal 89
Barrie
engagement and how companies attract and
retain employees are drivers of business
performance.
The very best businesses can use
sustainability to drive revenues, profitability
and competitive positioning.’28
In their support and involvement in
projects in Castleford and
Middlesbrough, Wakefield Metropolitan
District Council, Middlesbrough Council,
One North East, Yorkshire Forward,
English Partnerships, British Waterways,
the Design Council, Arts Council and
many other organisations have pledged
allegiance to this flag.
Is it time for all of us to follow suit?
For local government to understand
sustainability as effective public
management, not just a route to
countering climate change; for private
sector property developers to see public
investment as an instrument of long-term
value, not just public relations; and for
all of us to see urban regeneration as a
process of social innovation, not war?
Notes and References
1. See Dobson, J., ‘The great community
empowerment heist’, available at
http://livingwithrats.blogspot.com/2009/05/great
-community-empowerment-heist.html (accessed
7th May, 2009).
2. Conservative Party (2009), ‘Control shift:
Returning power to local communities’, Policy
Green Paper No. 9, Conservative Party, London.
3. For more on ‘green technology’, rather than
‘sustainability’, see work by design writer John
Thackara, via http://www.thackara.com/
(accessed 7th May, 2009).
4. Girardet, H. (2007), ‘Schumacher briefings 2:
Creating sustainable cities’, Green Books, Totnes,
p. 73.
5. ‘Castleford Regeneration: Kevin McCloud and
the Big Town Plan’, available at
http://www.channel4.com/4homes/
on-tv/kevin-s-big-town-plan/ (accessed 7th May,
2009).
6. More on community engagement in issues of
heritage in Castleford can be found in Smith, L.
(2006), ‘The slate wiped clean? Heritage,
memory and landscape in Castleford, West
Yorkshire, England’, in ‘Uses of heritage’,
Routledge, Oxford. Also ‘Castleford Heritage
90 Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal Vol. 3, 1, 77–91
Trust’, available at http://www.castleford
heritagetrust.org.uk/ (accessed 7th May, 2009).
7. For Channel 4 Television and public service
broadcasting see ‘Next on 4’, available at
http://www.channel4.com/about4/next_
on4.html, last accessed on 7th May, 2009. The
Castleford Project was broadcast on Channel 4
Television in August 2008 in a series of four
one-hour programmes, presented by Kevin
McCloud.
8. Additional new investment in Castleford includes
plans for commercial development of the town
centre by Edinburgh House Estates Ltd and
large-scale residential development by Amenbury
Estates and Paloma Ltd. More at ‘£50m facelift
for former pit town’, available at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_
yorkshire/4025073.stm (accessed 7th May, 2009).
9. An independent evaluation of the Project has
been prepared by the Young Foundation — not
available at time of publication.
10. For more on participating planning exemplars,
see Wates, N. (1996), ‘Action planning’, The
Prince of Wales’s Institute of Architecture,
London. For the Main Street movement, see
http://www.mainstreet.org
11. Tuan, Y. F. (1977), ‘Space and place: The
perspective of experience’, University of
Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN.
12. Quoted in Riedl, J. and Kostan, J. (2002), ‘Word
of mouse: The marketing power of collaborative
filtering’, Warner Books, New York.
13. Anonymous quote sourced from the Internet.
No reference available.
14. Foster, H. (2001), ‘Why all the hoopla?’, London
Review of Books, available at
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v23/n16/fost01_.html
15. Yorkshire Forward (2005), ‘Five towns strategic
development framework’, Yorkshire Forward,
Leeds.
16. ‘Parmo’, available at http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Parmo (accessed 7th May, 2009).
17. ‘Raising hope’, available at
http://www.middlesbrough.gov.uk/ccm/
navigation/council--government-and-
democracy/mayor--councillors-and-political-
structures/mayor/?page=5# (accessed 7th May,
2009).
18. BioRegional’s breakdown of the UK carbon
footprint is available at http://www.
bioregional.com/programme_projects/opl_prog/
principles.htm (accessed 17th May, 2009).
19. A full account of the project and of Dott07 is
available at ‘Designs of the time 2007: urban
farming’, available at
http://www.dott07.com/go/food/urban-farming
(accessed 7th May, 2009).
20. ‘The really super market’, available at
http://www.visitmima.com/media/News.php?
id=17 (accessed on 7th May, 2009).
21. For more on continuous productive urban
landscapes, see Viljoen, A. (2005), ‘Continuous
䉷 Henry Stewart Publications 1752–9638 (2009)

productive urban landscapes: Designing urban
agriculture for sustainable cities’, Architectural
Press, London.
22. ‘Middlesbrough Meal 2008’, available at
http://www.visitnortheastengland.com/site/whats
-on/mm08-middlesbrough-meal-08-p158241/
site/bookonline (accessed 7th May, 2009).
23. For more on this, see Bhide, A. (2008), ‘The
venturesome economy’, Princeton University
Press, Princeton, NJ.
24. Mulgan, G., Matarasso, F. and Madanipour, A.
(2005), ‘Physical capital: how great places boost
public value’, Commission for Architecture and
the Built Environment, London.
25. Gardner, J. W. (1970), ‘The recovery of
䉷 Henry Stewart Publications 1752–9638 (2009) Vol. 3, 1, 77–91 Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal
Regeneration as social innovation
confidence’, W. W. Norton, New York.
26. Goldsmith, S. and Eggers, W. D. (2004),
‘Governing by network: The new shape of the
public sector’, The Brookings Institution,
Washington.
27. Parkinson, M., Ball, M. and Key, T. (2009), ‘The
credit crunch and regeneration: Impact and
implications’, Department of Communities and
Local Government, London.
28. Willman, J. (2008), ‘Never a need to sacrifice
returns: Interview with David Blood’, Financial
Times, 3rd June, available at
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/616021fe-3109-
11dd-bc93-000077b07658.html (accessed 17th
May, 2009).
91