We are returning to an undemocratic model of land ownership | Anna Minton | Comment is free | The Guardian

29/09/2014 16:51

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We are returning to an undemocratic

model of land ownership
When councils decide to hand over swaths of land to private
ownership, they are reducing democracy to an optional extra
Anna Minton
The Guardian, Monday 11 June 2012 14.12 BST

London's Canary Wharf: a pioneer of the privately-owned estates model that has become increasingly widespread
across Britain. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

During the boom years, towns and cities across Britain witnessed the biggest wave of
construction since tower blocks and arterial roads transformed communities in the
1950s and 60s.
From Liverpool One to Cabot Circus in Bristol, privately owned and privately controlled
places, policed by security guards and round the clock surveillance, came to define our
cities. In London, Westfield Stratford City and the Olympic Park represent the high
point of this approach, based on property finance and retail and underpinned by large
amounts of debt.
The consequence has been the creation of a new environment characterised by highhttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jun/11/public-spaces-undemocratic-land-ownership?INTCMP=SRCH

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We are returning to an undemocratic model of land ownership | Anna Minton | Comment is free | The Guardian

29/09/2014 16:51

security, "defensible" architecture and strict rules and regulations governing behaviour.
Cycling, skateboarding and inline skating are often banned. So are busking and selling
the Big Issue, filming, taking photographs and critically political protest. Occupy
found this to their cost when they attempted to site their protest outside the London
Stock Exchange, which is in privately owned Paternoster Square. In response, the high
court awarded an injunction against protests in the square and the police sealed off the
entrance, leading the protesters to move to outside St Paul's.
The Olympic Legacy Company executives who planned the Olympic Park often compare
this new part of the city to "a great London estate", in the manner of the 18th-century
estates run by Grosvenor, the property company behind much of London's Belgravia.
What they omit to mention is that this was a pre-democratic model of land ownership.
Today, the Georgian squares and terraces are part of the fabric of the city, but what is no
longer visible is that these places were once barricaded and closed to the public.
Following growing public outrage, which paralleled the rise in local government and was
reflected by two major parliamentary inquiries, control over the streets was passed to
local authorities and the gates, fences and guards were removed. Since then it has been
standard for local authorities to "adopt" the streets and public spaces of the city which
means that they control and run them whether they own them or not. Until recently,
that is. Over the last decade this hard-won democratic achievement has started to go
into reverse.
This is a model that was pioneered in the mid-1980s with the creation of Canary Wharf
and the Broadgate Centre. At that time, these two emerging finance centres in east
London were virtually the only high security, privately owned and privately controlled
places that functioned like this. They were exceptional and controversial places
created to meet the needs of business, in response to the deregulation of the financial
markets and "big bang" of 1986, with its demands for big banks and large trading floors.
Today this is the template for all new development but like the financial system itself
it is also a model which is in deep trouble. Outside London the development of new
privately owned places is at a standstill. In Bradford, Westfield's plans for a 23-acre
private estate remain no more than a hole in the ground. There are similar stories in
Edinburgh, Preston and Leeds.
This is an approach which depends on large amounts of debt which the private sector is
now unable to raise borrow, to use plain English. Following the financial collapse,
plans for the Olympic developments also hit crisis point with private sector developers
unable to borrow the necessary funds. Nonetheless, the Olympic developments have
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We are returning to an undemocratic model of land ownership | Anna Minton | Comment is free | The Guardian

29/09/2014 16:51

gone ahead as the government considered that, like the banks, this project was too big to
fail. Around the same time the banks were bailed out the government also bailed out the
Olympic Park and developments to the tune of nearly 6bn of taxpayer's money.
While the economic rationale for this way of doing things is unravelling, politicians are
also beginning to question the consequences of privatising streets and public places. In
his Manifesto for Public Space, the mayor of London makes clear his opposition to the
private control of streets and states that the adoption of public space is an important
principle which should be negotiated in all new development.
As the mayor has planning powers this is an important policy statement. With planning
permission for the Olympics granted before it was published and with so little
subsequent development occurring, it is hard to assess its impact. But for those
concerned about the privatisation of our streets this is a vital policy tool.
Yet despite the mayor's manifesto, very often it is local authorities themselves who are
keen to offload their democratic responsibilities. Sir Robin Wales, the elected mayor of
Newham claims that his borough cannot afford to run the Olympic Park, a view which is
shared by many other cash-strapped local authorities.
That view reduces democracy to an optional extra. The places we create reflect the social
and economic realities of the time and provide a litmus test for the health of society and
democracy. That fact that we are setting out to create undemocratic places is simply a
reflection of the times we live in.
Anna Minton is the author of Ground Control. A new edition of the book, with a new
chapter on the true legacy of the Olympics, is published by Penguin.
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