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RTPI Awards for Planning Excellence Awards Ceremony held on the 15th June Milton Court, London.

28/6/2017

Members of Team Look! joined our partners ImaginePlaces Ltd and the St Albans Civic Centre Opportunity Sites (CCOS) Development Partnership at the recent awards evening held in London. We had jointly been finalists in the category ‘Excellence in Plan Making Practice’ in the RTPI (Royal Town Planning Institute) Awards for Planning Excellence 2017. It was a very enjoyable event seeing so many people and excellent projects being celebrated and also a wonderful opportunity to bring so many of the people together who had helped to make the design charrette such a success.
The winner in our category was Pilot Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters Marine Spatial Plan (Scotland) submitted by Marine Scotland, Highly Commended Birmingham Development Plan (England) submitted by Birmingham City Council, Planning and Regeneration, a plan that will see 1,000’s of new homes. Full list of winners and details here http://rtpi.org.uk/media/2397976/rtpi_awards_for_planning_excellence_2017_digital_brochure_darya.compressed.pdf?dm_i=3ES5,GS3G,56E7YV,1SRTW,1
However this is not the end of the story! Team Look! have heard our joint entry has been put forward to RTPI East of England Awards. The closing date was the 5th June and the judging will take place during the summer http://www.rtpi.org.uk/media/2253170/2017_ee_award_criteria__summary_final.pdfwww.rtpi.org.uk/the-rtpi-near-you/rtpi-east-of-england/regional-awards/ Criteria to be found here http://www.rtpi.org.uk/media/2253170/2017_ee_award_criteria__summary_final.pdf

Vanessa Gregory Chair of Look! St Albans said “Although we didn’t win I am far from despondent though, as I feel being shortlisted by such a distinguished body demonstrates design charrettes are being taken notice of, seriously, by a wide range of professionals. I also believe our enjoyment of our shared endeavour shone through in our submission, planning does not need to be dull! It is also thrilling that we have been entered into the RTPI regional awards (East of England) we will have to wait and see if our entry is worthy of shortlisting in these awards.”

Angela Koch of ImaginePlaces Ltd said "This is great recognition of the work to date by all involved. Being hosted by the local community, our independence as professional team, and indeed, landowners that are open to the unknown outcomes of the design charrette, enables the results and trust this sort of design charrette is capable of generating. It's a new way of designing better places while speeding up the planning application process and starting construction work on site."
Images below of the evening are by courtesy of The RTPI, ImaginePlaces Ltd and Councillor Alec Campbell

Chair’s report Look! St Albans AGM Monday 5th June 2017

27/6/2017

On Monday 5th June we held our 4th AGM with a packed agenda with presentations by Angela Koch of ImaginePlaces, Tony Williamson from Angle Property and Richard Shwe Head of Commercial and Development on behalf of The CCOS development partnership.
Vanessa in her address to the AGM talked about how much we have to celebrate. Being a finalist in the category ‘Excellence in Plan Making Practice’ in the RTPI (Royal Town Planning Institute) Awards for Planning Excellence 2017 and locally a finalist in the Mayor’s Pride Awards 2017.
Working closely with Civic Voice (Civic Voice is the national charity for the civic movement in England.)
‘Fact check’ our website for the hard facts about our work and indeed what our Chair has actually said. Finally and very importantly Look! has no membership fee, as there must be no barrier in taking part in any of our events, but please consider making a donations, no matter how small, they all add up!
Vanessa’s report

“In preparation for my report this evening I have of course looked back at my report given at the last AGM. I had to smile at my closing words and I quote; “What the next year will bring I don’t know, whether we have a design charrette or not we need to stand ready.” Since last spring I think it is safe to say Team Look! have had a lot of hard work but a lot to celebrate.
Soon after our last AGM James, Angela and I attended the Planning and Placemaking Awards. Look! St Albans together with St Albans City and District Council and ImaginePlaces had been shortlisted both nationally and regionally for the award for Community led Placemaking for the Museum of St Albans Charrette. We were absolutely delighted we achieved the only Highly Commended Award for Community led Placemaking Southern England.

This accolade is for all those who took part in the charrette and I think that labour of love is reflected in the design which mainly passed through planning consent last year. I hear it won’t be too long before work is commenced on that development, perhaps Richard you can update us on that?
As we all know now at the end of June we were asked by ‘The Partnership’, which just to remind you consisted of St Albans City and District Council (Community Services), Police & Crime Commissioner for Hertfordshire, Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust, and Boultbee LND to host a design charrette for the CCOS site. Team Look! had come together rapidly to project plan this in the early days of July because with the impending summer holidays a heck of an amount of work had to be got through in those first three weeks of July as straight after the schools went back in early September the charrette was going to be upon us. I don’t want to spend too much in this report on the event, as Mel will be talking about the vital role he and a small team took on last summer in a moment and we all want to hear our speakers on what has followed from those busy but totally exhilarating days and evening’s last September.

I will say however, it is hard for me to be impartial on this because I don’t think I will forget that atmosphere of shared endeavour until my dying day. For many of us in Team Look! this was a dream come true. For so many years plans had been put forward, arguments taken place, a bankruptcy and so forth had plighted the very heart of our city now we had a real opportunity to work with the landowners and developers to masterplan. As The Partnership stated in their vision statement; “As landowners, we genuinely welcome this long-awaited opportunity to design, explore and test with you masterplan scenarios that will help us shape and coordinate a series of well designed, inspired and credible planning applications. We envisage bringing the individual planning applications back for further work on design detail beyond this masterplan work we are likely to be able to cover during this charrette.”
We don’t pick out individuals who took part at a design charrette hosted by us, but we were particularly pleased that Angle as a landowner of part of the site came along and took an active part.

As many of you know Look! St Albans, ImaginePlaces Ltd and the St Albans Civic Centre Opportunity Sites (CCOS) Development Partnership are jointly a finalist in the category ‘Excellence in Plan Making Practice’ in the RTPI (Royal Town Planning Institute) Awards for Planning Excellence 2017. The awards ceremony takes place on the 15th June and a number of us have tickets for this now sold out event. Team Look! are over the Moon that we have been shortlisted. No matter what the outcome, to be shortlisted (especially when you see who we are up against) is truly magnificent and down to everyone who took part.

I would at this point want to commend the names of truly expert team of facilitators under Angela Koch together with their support team. Kevin Murray of, Kevin Murray Associates, Charles Gardner of, Matrix Partnership, Richard Lavington of Maccreanor Lavington Architects, Jan Maciag of Jan Maciag Architects, John Dales of Urban Movement, Andrew Sheldon of Sheldon Peever Studio provided 3D modelling service and of course Lily Woo, Charrette Workshop Assistant, ImaginePlaces.
We must not leave out of course our own Donato Cinicolo who directed and filmed ‘St Albans Design Charrette’. If you haven’t already viewed this, a link is on our website please do, it is a wonderful record of the event and gives a wonderful insight into what taking part in a charrette is like.

In October James and I attended Civic Voice Annual Convention in Chester, where I had been asked to speak about Look!’s work in association with the Prince’s Foundation. In consultation with fellow officers it was agreed that as we were getting so many opportunities to talk about our work both at Chester and at the All Party Parliamentary Group for Civic Societies at Portcullis House we should join as affiliated members at an annual cost of £50. Civic Voice promotes collaborative planning and I think our membership is of mutual help in promoting this around the country and of course bringing this to the attention of Members of Parliament and members of the Lords. I was asked to join their Regional Forum, a sounding board between members and the board of trustees. I have attended about three of these meetings and always find I am inspired by groups from all over the country and what they are achieving. Also of course I find it heart-warming how interested they are in what we are doing.
I have been asked by the director of Civic Voice to run a workshop on ‘Collaborative Planning and Charettes’ at this year’s Annual Convention taking place Wakefield. This is another practical opportunity to spread the word and to share the substantial amount of knowledge Team Look! are gaining.

On the 21st November last year we hosted a talk given by Dr Susan Parham from the University of Hertfordshire on ‘Food and Urbanism’ as part of Sustainable St Albans week. It was a ‘tour de force’ and I am still hopeful that Susan will be able to share that presentation with me so I can share this on our website.

In the January edition of The Planner (the RTPI own publication) was published where journalist Chris Jenkins excellent four page spread on the CCOS design charrette appeared. It really is highly gratifying that what we collectively undertook last September has been recorded and published in such a distinguished professional journal. Chris was a delightful participant of the charrette and a joy to have around, timing any pertinent questions to just the right moment. Having 'local' knowledge, coupled with being an excellent journalist with a solid background of understanding planning enabled Chris to give an objective, factual and accurate account on what we are trailblazing in St Albans.
In the last year we have all learned new phrases pertaining to the news we either read in print or online and what we hear on television. ‘Fact check’ is the one that really interests me, as we can sometimes recognise ‘spin’ but where do you check to know the hard facts. When it comes to news on Look! St Albans and our work and indeed what I have said and what has been misrepresented please ‘fact check’ our website www.lookstalbans.org
I together with James and Chris attend the Mayor’s Pride Awards ceremony for finalists at St Michael’s Manor at the end of March. It was inspiring to be with others in St Albans who give their time freely, or go the extra mile to serve their community and an honour to be nominated and shortlisted. The winner in our category was Fosse House, Quantum Care. Staff took part in a sponsored walk to raise money for projects for elderly residents at the care home, including a wildlife garden and a sensory room. Our congratulations go to them, as so often we hear not so good news on elderly care, clearly not the case here in St Albans.
Finally I have to return to what Chris said earlier about funding. As you know we have no membership fee, as there must be no barrier in taking part in any of our events. Some might erroneously think we are funded by St Albans District Council. This is not the case as that would I believe compromise our independence. However grants and donations are vital if we are to continue our work. Once again we are very grateful to County Councillor Chris White and this year also to County Councillor Sandy Walkington who between them have very generously granted Look! St Albans £900 from their County Council Locality Budgets. We were thrilled to have secured financial support from St Albans Chamber of Commerce and Kingston Smith to help with our work. These grants and funding send out a clear message to landowners and developers that the community, not just residents, but the business community is giving our work their backing. However I would strongly urge you, in view of what you have heard of how seriously our work is being taken to consider making a donations, no matter how small, they all add up.
I and Team Look! look forward to us all working together in this coming year, who knows what it will bring!”

After the fully public AGM the evening continued with presentations. Angela Koch of ImaginePlaces presented the report on the emerging concepts commissioned by ‘The Partnership’ after the debriefing document. Tony Williamson from Angle Property talked about which aspects of the design concepts, as presented in the debriefing documents for the CCOS design charrette, had been incorporated and which design codes have been applied in their planning application which is currently under consideration by St Albans Planning department.
Finally we had on behalf of ‘The Partnership’ Richard Shwe Head of Commercial and Development talked about their progress for CCOS North since our charrette.

All speakers were invited to send us their presentation to be posted on this website.

St Albans Civic Centre Opportunities Sites report by ImaginePlaces

Look! St Albans shortlisted by St Albans Chamber of Commerce Community Business Awards

This makes Team Look!’s day! Work commences on Museum of St Albans site to make the outcome of our 1st design charrette a reality!

We are delighted to announce that we are a Community Partner for the Meraki Festival 2017.

RTPI Awards for Planning Excellence Awards Ceremony held on the 15th June Milton Court, London.

Chair’s report Look! St Albans AGM Monday 5th June 2017

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