Thames Gateway Shopping Regeneration

Well how inspiring. The Thames Gateway Forum- How to capitalise on the benefits of the Olympics coming to London, how to regenerate the east of this fabulous city, how to make the most of the River Thames as a tool for regeneration, how to capitalise on the fantastic investment in transport infrastructure that is coming to the east of London.

No not a bit of it- how to develop better shopping centres and create different retail destinations in the eastern part of the city.

Super-Ken offered us the positives at a conference on regenerating the Thames Gateway.
The mayor has given up on industry in the east and he is right, London will never again be a centre for industrial production on any significant scale in this world economy, a sad but brave realisation of how gloablisation will affect our futures. (or is it sad- ever had a manufacturing job? no- well I doubt you want one!). The mayor recognises the service and financial sectors as the future for London employment and is right to critisise the training councils for preparing people only for construction and Mac -jobs.

But moving forward from here other speakers and discussion groups struggled to find anything tangible to say. There is at present no overall leader responsible for this massive and ambitious regeneration project (at present there are more than 28 different agencies fighting for attention and funding across this sub region). Whilst the Olympics now have their sponsor and development leadership, these guys have no remit for the wider regeneration that will be Londons' principle gain from playing host. Without a properly coordinated strategy and priorities this team will find itself in conflict with the multiple regeneraton bodies all seeking different gains and pursuing different objectives.

Other players at the conference were the major property firms who will lead the regeneration projects and soak up the investments in infrastructure and site preparation. Lend Lease, developers of Bluewater ( a prime cause of decline in town centres in the Thames Gateway) suggested that their approach was regenerative and socially minded.

Promoters of Stratford City, a new "Retail City " (twice the size of Bluewater and not in any existing town centre) seek to create a lasting commercial core to the Thames Gateway. The impact of this on older business communities seems to have been glossed over but Stratford City is unlikely to be home to one independent shop, one independent cafe or restaurant, one independent business but will become, as highlighted by others at the conference "High Street Anywhere". Another amorphous retail destination where conformity with the wider UK retail values will be forced upon a diverse and unique London population. Yes it is investment, yes it is jobs ("can I help you madam?), but no it is not a way to regenerate a whole city sector.

It seems that having run out of economic miracles, too much of the regeneration of these areas will be down to the Olympics ( a seventeen day sporting event that will then move on) and "shopping" a rather finite commercial venture that, given the success of internet retailing etc, is unltimately going to be one with a future of shrinking physical requirements.

If Stratford City gets off the ground this will impact significantly on every one of the 100 urban centres and "villages" that were identified in the area in a fairly negative way. This will create a new focus for this part of the city and may finally bring in the visitors and then residents that enjoy the characterless charm of chav shopping destinations. Is this enough to regenerate the area?

I am not, unlike Billy Bragg suggesting that the East of London should be redesigned only for those that already live there. It is the concentration of poor, dissadvantaged and disenfranchised groups in these areas that magnifies their problems.

We have to encourage the mixing of social and racial groups across the city and bring these areas up by mixture of drawing back the richer or wealthier members of our sociaty into these areas that they have left over generations and of skilling and training the next generation of financial markets employees, re-insurance experts, bond traders, oil brokers, dot com millionaires and financail service industry workers from the indigenous east london populations that live so close to the opportunities in the city but are kept out by poor schooling, training and life chances.

Improving the physical environment and providing for new modern cultural needs (shopping centres?) is important in bringing key people back into the area but education, training and concentrating on improving the life chances of the existing population will be the real gain from regeneration and this will not be achieved by creating shopping developments that the existing population can work in but cannot afford to shop in.

Independent Lunch Rant

Go out for a sandwich and what can you find- forty seven different solutions to the lunch problem here in Fitzrovia and most are the same be it "Eat" "Pret" "Subway"" Benjy" or any of the other formula food stops the offer is bland, the prices ludicrous and the packages deceivingly fiendish. Subway lunch, go for the meal and pay £1.30 extra, that is for a coffee and a packet of crisps. Bargain.

The independents are the only beneficiaries, Lino's cafe is a favourite, or Cafe Rio, or Cafe Etoile, but these are luxury lunch solutions where time drifts by in the comfort zone of coffee and hot stodgy food. Time being the luxury not price, as Eat or Pret are probably more costly than a cafe lunch once you buy a drink and a muffin or whatever! These independents however are alsway mobbed and seating is limited- hence waits and additional time gone!

What I want is cheap fast pavement side service of hot food, soup, noodles, rice but not to a formula, not on a meal deal but with some variety and thought. The food area at Camden market always comes to mind - just one or two of those types of outlet let loose on the London office lunchee would surely thrive and prosper.

We dont all want bread, brie and cranberry, we dont all want to sit at our desks in the afternnon thinking what might have been, we dont all have an hour to kill and we dont all fit into the existing cafes.

Hey and don't be fooled by that awful noodle place on Oxford Steet- it is neither cheap, quick nor tasty and costs more than a shell suit in Romford, with less actual appeal.

While I am on the bad examples what about the stores selling fatty doughball slices of warm( chicken- or is it fowl) pizza that have been on display since 11am in a cabinet designed purely to breed e-coli, selling them for £2.99 a slice when the whole pizza costs half that from the cash and carry! Scum- it makes me scream the more I think about it!

Those hot dog and burger vendors on Charing Cross selling six inches of poison in cotton wool rolls to idiot tourists for £3 a pop. Starting to rant properly now....the chinese restaurants offering the seven course banquets for £4.99 a head acompanied by a tin of seven up , more lard and more MSG than any man could wish for and no quality whatsover- if you think China town is declining the blame lies at thier own door- Wong Keis being the only paragon of virtue in an otherwise disgraceful exploitation enterprise!

The fanciful burger joints springing up offering a "gourmet" burger- charging twice the price for the same old sh*te. Finished. Time to calm down. Didn't even get to Garfunkels and Aberdeen Steak houses, Pasta bowls (bowels) or Pizza huts. Werlcome to London-eat some crap and move on!

So in these days of chains and trends, fashions and fads lets have an entreprenuerial surge to food barrows on the street corners, selling hot stuff instead of grubby souvenirs and fake football scarves. Not the old burger vans and dodgy hotdogs, a poor excuse for food, poisoning the tourists on to Charing Cross Road. What about the noodles, soups, paella's, pastas, curry's, kebabs, wholefoods and street food that is common to every other major city in the world.

Food prepared by people for people without the packaging and pricing of the corporate greed market.

Where r u Rebecca?

Sundays will not be the same. The guilty furtive rustle, saving the pleasures for the evening, I know you now and we've been speaking for a couple of years, you with your monologues and funny (that's funny strange rather than funny humour!) stories of everyday family war and the grind of our existence, me passing comment from behind the Sunday broadsheet, grunting acknowledgements like a creaking armchair.

Our relationship was a bit one sided but you ladies hate it when we just talk about ourselves all the time so this time was different, this time you could do all the talking and I could remain a mystery. An armcahir stalker or voyeur with a limited view of your world, controlled by your ability or desire to let me in or keep me out. I may have got into your head or I may only be scratching its surface or indeed a fictional veneer, but it felt like an affair to me. Now you've left, gone to faddy diets and a backwater where I can hardly find you at all. I can't rant with you about the parking tickets and the rough trade (sorry tradesmen) and you can't seek solace in my grunting acknowledgements, surely creeping out from many more than just my paper.

I even enjoyed the bits about your husband, from a slightly jealous perch some miles away. So to the editors I say bring back Rebecca and the Tyrell tirade that gave me a glow of insight into a life and place that shall now drop back into the everyday fog of life.

Play Station Personal- bad Christmas monkey!

First comes the launch and not so rapid take-up, possibly as it is more expensive than a weekend at Euro Disney, then the markletting team get into gear for Christmas. Why do they run out of stock in November I wonder. Every boy in the Country now expects one for Christmas- lets generate a frenzy. Sony clearly are a little worried about flogging parents a ridiculously expensive DVD /game player (£179) to hard worn parents who also know that every game thereafter will cost another £40. How do we get over this price sensitivity- marketting- create a shortage- generate a frenzy- desperate parents will start competing to find them- at any cost!

Funny that the new x-box should also go into short supply in the same week- perhaps the marketting guys all had the same idea to get them off the shelves for Christmas.

I will not go into the merits or otherwise of the PSP, I have seen one, its a nice blokey gadget and I am sure the games are great, they may turn your kids into aggressive zombies, but hey, at least they are occupied and you no longer have to speak to them!

So parents what to do- tell your kids on Christmas morning that Sony in a particularly cynical marketting ploy, has supported the ridiculous price of their chosen Christmas gift by creating a shortage to the extent that, even if you could afford one (or indeed two for my boys) your parents have to travel the length and breadth of the universe, appear at toy shop doors at dawn and queue through the night to get you one and frankly because of this they haven't bothered.

Or because you love your kids, you think Christmas should be special, you have to abandon your blog to go and queue as you have heard that Dixons have a delivery coming tomorrow fortnight and......

Merry Christmas!

Metropolitan Rail

Well I'm back, out after only 4 months...If I really am going to keep a blog I guess I better be alittle more regular.

Why today- well why not today.

Here I am looking at the world as a comuter- can anyone tell me why the trains always come for the other destinations first- those of you not familiar with the London underground will find it hard to believe that there is no real timetable, that the trains appear to come at random and often without any logical sequence.

Me for instance , I use the Met. Line, there are 4 destinations, Watford, Amersham, Uxbridge and occasionally Chesham. I need the Amersham branch. I stand at Great Portland Street in London waiting... Amersham is due at around 6 (although it never comes). The line indicator blinks to life- 1st train -Uxbridge 1 minute, 2nd train Watford 2 minutes, 3rd train watford 3 minutes. You would expect then for the next train to be Amersham or maybe Chesham but no, this is London Underground- 1st train (once the above have all gone...) Uxbridge, 2nd train Uxbridge, 3rd train Uxbridge, the indicators only go to three but the next (4th) was also an Uxbridge. Do the passengers to Uxbridge need 4 trains in a row some 1 or 2 minutes apart, no they dont.

This sequnece will often be followed by two Watfords- what of Amersham well forget it. Now I am not the only one who has noticed this and photos have been sent of the indicator tellys at Bakerstreet to suggest to the Met Line that they may like to reconsider having a timetable and using it. All to no avail. So for you lucky Uxbridsge commuters, spare a thought for theAmershams of this world on your way home tonight!

I know -hardly a blog of world wide appeal but then who is the targe audience... Thinking on this got me into trouble before so for now I will assume you are all from Uxbridge (or Mars).