Sad to hear of John Prescott's passing this morning.
Planners, architects and urbanists will remember John Prescott as the champion of Richard Rogers’ Urban Renaissance. We should celebrate his commissioning of the Urban Task Force in 1998 with a double brief: to examine the question of how four million projected new homes over 25 years might be accommodated in the UK without further encroachment into the countryside; and to identify the causes of urban decline, establishing a vision for Britain’s cities based on the principles of design excellence, social wellbeing and environmental responsibility – the origins of late lamented CABE.
AT HTA Design LLP we participated in Prescott’s #MillenniumVillage programme, winning the initial Greenwich competition with Ralph Erskine and later schemes at Allerton Bywater and Hanham Hall. These were government sponsored interventions into the housing market aimed at demonstrating the opportunity to build much more sustainably, with benefits for wildlife and human wellbeing. Our post occupancy evaluation at Hanham Hall demonstrates the effectiveness of the programme.
He was an infectious enthusiast. Then DG at the Office for Deputy Prime Minister, Richard McCarthy invited me to dinner with Prescott in Whitehall to discuss his desire to introduce the ‘Wow Factor’ into housing design. I ventured to suggest that householders did not necessarily need to be wowed every time they came home, that we would do well to concentrate on more fundamental aspects of well-being. I received a memo afterwards from McCarthy insisting when the DPM asks for wow, he should be given wow!
As we ponder the demise of #OfficeForPlace, we would do well to reflect on a time when New Labour sought to inspire the development industry to rise to three interrelated challenges set by Rogers as chair of the Task Force; technical revolution, ecological threat, and social transformation. As we remember the late John Prescott we should reflect that now, more than ever, we need government to show leadership in all three.
