| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Julian Bell and his Planning Henchwo/men pandering to Developers:- | |
| Posted by: | Simon Hayes | |
| Date/Time: | 21/07/20 16:39:00 |
| Response from Bell wnd about Copenhagen and it’s lack of skyscrapers. Note irony free last paragraph about free for all’s! Thank you for your attractive picture of Copenhagen (though I can certainly see some taller buildings on the horizon!). I think we have plenty to learn from Copenhagen in terms of transport, sustainability and urban design, and I am keen that lessons from there and other successful cities in Europe and globally feed in both to the new Local Plan and our plan to reach net zero carbon as a borough by 2030. When we do seek to learn lessons from other cities, however, it is important that we do so understanding the different contexts that we operate in. Copenhagen is a city with a population around one-eighth that of London, which obviously means very different pressures. Further, land use is very different, which means that the housing challenge is different – around 47% of Greater London is ‘green’, either in the form of parks or countryside. By comparison, only around 25% of Copenhagen is ‘green’ (source: https://ec.europa.eu/environment/europeangreencapital/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Section-3-green-urban-areas_Copenhagen.pdf), meaning that – given Londoners rightly hugely value their parks, open spaces and countryside, that the land availability challenge is somewhat different. The key difference it seems to me, however, and this is what sets London apart from most major European cities, is dwelling type. In London, according to the 2011 census, 37.6% of dwellings are flats, apartments or maisonettes. I fully accept that figure has probably increased in the past decade. However, in Copenhagen, the figure for ‘multi-dwelling houses’ (which they define as homes that are separated horizontally, i.e. apartments or flats) is 89.5% of the housing stock (source: https://www.statbank.dk/BOL102). You would find similar %s in most European capital cities, including Paris, Berlin or Amsterdam. This means that density is much more even, as the majority of residents live in apartments in relatively low blocks (3-6 floors), evenly spread across the city. At Paris levels of density, London could fit 20 million people into its current footprint. The London model of the majority of homes being detached, semi-detached, or terraced houses, often with their own garden, is relatively unusual. It’s one that people like, and rightly so – and is certainly not something anyone wants to bulldoze away. Moving to continental European levels of apartment living would be a social revolution that no-one could possibly countenance in London. The sad fact is, however, that this model means that land space is relatively limited, which is why you do inevitably get proposals for higher-rise, denser developments where spaces do remain, especially around transport hubs, to deal with demand and housing shortage. That obviously has to be carefully managed, regulated and controlled and none of the above is an argument for a free-for-all of higher-rise development, but is some of the reason why such schemes do get proposed in London with a frequency that they might not in Copenhagen. Kind regards, Cllr Julian Bell |