I was asked by The Times for a mini end of term report/pre election assesment of the governments policies towards the built environment:
If it??????s the states job to establish policy and sometimes put up cash,
I??????d say that Labour are doing OK. There are schools and hospitals
getting built, regeneration projects and efforts to address the south
east??????s housing crisis.
However, there is a worry over the quality of the buildings.
Many of these are PFI projects that seem to actively exclude good
design, squeezed out by risk control. If you??????ve seen the kind of
buildings produced through PFI, you??????d think an architects previous
involvement should rule them out on the grounds of embarrassment.
CABE was set up as a quango to act as some kind of balance, promoting
??????good design?????? to the various commissioning ministries and bodies.
Unfortunatly it??????s been rather toothless. Optimistically, new head John
Sorrell has previously proved adept at convincing the Department for
Education to back some very way out projects.
It would be great to see more projects drawing on the wealth of design
talent in the UK.
However bad things might be, they??????re better than they were. The Tories
architectural legacy was the surreal transformation of Docklands ?????? which
by the way is my favourite place to hang out and enjoy a moment of
authentic North American alienation. Labour are addressing the right
kind of things. It??????s the beaurocratic bit between policy and building
that needs to be addressed.
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