Your location: Thames Gateway in the spotlight
24 July 2008
Building good neighbourhoods is the subject of a new Shelter report, launched this week at the St Albans Conference Hall in London. Taking the Thames Gateway developments as a case study, the report considers the challenges of creating a sustainable community.
Neighbourhood Watch - Building new communities: learning lessons from the Thames Gateway was researched and written by London East Research Institute at the University of East London.
Tuesday’s launch event saw more than forty delegates – including housebuilders, local authority staff, regeneration experts and Thames Gateway residents – debating the barriers to creating a sustainable community.
Martha Hannon, Shelter’s head of campaigns, opened the event by explaining why Shelter had commissioned the report. This time last year, the Government announced its commitment to deliver 3 million new homes by 2020 and 45,000 social rented homes by 2011.
It is now vital that Shelter and local people start participating in discussions about how this housing will be delivered and the types of local areas and neighbourhoods it will form.
After the event, Shelter chief executive Adam Sampson said:
‘With the promise of 3 million new homes to be built by 2020, this research highlights the importance of ensuring essential services such as public transport, shops and doctors’ surgeries are in place before people move in.
‘Shelter hopes developers and planners will use this new research as a blueprint to address the key challenges in delivering communities that people will want to live in.’
