Look! St Albans has been shortlisted by St Albans Chamber of Commerce in their Community Business Awards in the Corporate Social Responsibility category.
Vanessa Gregory Chair said “This came completely out of the blue last week. I am thrilled to bits. Being recognised at home is very special indeed. This clearly demonstrates the local business community takes our work very seriously and is solidly behind us.”
http://www.stalbans-chamber.co.uk/chamber-community-business-awards-2017/ 

Team Look! and all who took part in the design charrette will be following progress with deep interest.

Team Look! are are delighted to announce that we are a Community Partner for the Meraki Festival 2017. Please do use our code LOOK to receive 10% discount on all tickets to the festival.

Meraki believes local community groups play a huge part in creating great towns, cities and villages, and Meraki believes in putting community at the heart of the festival.
You can buy your tickets here https://merakifestival.com/tickets-3/  don’t forget to add our discount code is LOOK
Further information
Website: www.merakifestival.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MerakiFestivalMagic/
Twitter: @MerakiFestival
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MerakiFestivalStAlbans/
In 2017 Meraki is bringing a 3-day interactive music festival to St Albans.  The festival will feature a line-up of top live music acts across three stages, with special features and creative spaces around the festival for everyone to enjoy.
All of the festival activities are included in your ticket price.  Once you’re through the gates, you can enjoy a host of great festival activities, including Hot Tubs, Swimming Pools, Silent Disco, Face Painting, 2-man Zip Line, Laser Tag, Climbing Wall, Rockaoke, Movie House, Virtual Reality Beach and much more…
For artist line up click here https://merakifestival.com/artists/
For a full list of activates click here https://merakifestival.com/activities/ 

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

RTPI Awards for Planning Excellence 2017 submission document can be read here

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 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.