Monday, 19th May 2008, The Sanctuary, Castle Vale

The tensions between aspirations and what people want – how can ways be found to negotiate solutions locally?

In the second of our series looking at important issues for practitioners creating new housing settlements explored where tensions exist between national policy aspirations and the desires of residents themselves.

The initial two speakers we heard from were both involved in the New East Manchester regeneration project. Suzanne Price, Director of Neighbourhoods at New East Manchester URC, explained how redevelopment in Beswick has been progressing and how the URC is approaching the need to attract new residents and offering people already living there a reason to stay. Our second speaker from Manchester, Richard Hatton representing the developer Urban Splash, described to us how the architects, developers and planners involved in New Islington had worked with the existing resident population, resulting in some unconventional architecture and an emerging thriving community.

Later in the day we were joined by Chris Southworth a neighbourhood manager in Limehouse, Tower Hamlets. He talked about how the development of the docklands area had led to a dramatic demographic shift in the population of Limehouse, with many new residents moving into owner-occupied apartments alongside the river. He explained that both the newer residents and the existing population had active residents’ groups and social networks but that these networks and local service providers were yet to find a satisfactory way of connecting into each other effectively.

The seminar was attended by a diverse group of practitioners from English Partnerships, the Housing Corporation, IDeA, CIH, various local authorities, housing developers and third sector organisations.

You can download the framing paper which was sent to the members of the audience before the event here. You can also view the presentations from the day below:

• The Young Foundation's introductory presentation
• Suzanne Price's presentation
• Richard Hatton's presentation
• Chris Southworth's presentation