Welcome to Masterplans Wales, Insider’s guide to the projects that are transforming Wales. By way of introduction, Peter Davy looks at how the art of masterplanning is changing.
New development is where the public and private sector come together in the most visible, and potentially worthwhile way. While most key parcels of land are in the hands of state, the expertise needed to transform them are in the private sector. Masterplanners, urban designers and architects in firms throughout and outside Wales will play a central role in determining how Wales changes over the next few decades.
And masterplanners are doing more than before, says Janette Shaw, associate director of planning at engineering consultancy Atkins. Her firm is behind the masterplan for Bay Pointe in Cardiff Bay – Allied Developments’ and City Lofts Group’s development of 1,800 waterfront apartments and 30,500 sq ft of on-site amenities. “In the past, masterplanning has always been seen as a sort of two dimensional graphic exercise,” says Shaw. “If you could draw, you could put a masterplan together.”
That might work to an extent where there are no particular topographical or environmental challenges – but then again we are dealing with hilly, post-industrial Wales. Take Coed Darcy, for example. At 1,000 acres it’s the largest single brownfield development site in Wales – but it’s on the site of BP’s former refinery, and the remediation, advised by Atkins, is expected to take seven years to complete.
Frazer Osment, a partner at LDA Design, helped draw up the masterplan for Aberystwyth which attempts to provide some structure to the growth the town hopes to see over the next 20 years.
“It’s not just about being a good designer; it’s about being able to work with people,” says Osment. “Sometimes when you look at what masterplanners produce it seems that they think the end product of the process is a report, but it never is. It’s developments on the ground.”
Working with people, of course, includes the local community. But how and when to get them involved is contentious.
If it’s done too late in the process, people are likely to feel they have little real say. That’s one of the reasons Igloo Regeneration recently held a “design charrette” or consultation for about 80 designers, artists and the local community to discuss ideas for the £350 million redevelopment of Roath Basin.
“Over the years, some of the residents of (nearby) Butetown have felt that they’ve only had fairly superficial consultation,” says Igloo’s development director Mark Hallet.
“It’s normally just a series of drawings pinned up in the local community hall once they’re finished. They really responded well to be being brought in while we pretty much had a blank sheet of paper.”
Holder Mathias chairman Peter Mathias suggests going easy on the consultation until there is something to consult on. His firm recently won work to regenerate Neath town centre and Bargoed with Simons Group. “You need to be able to answer some basic questions about the plan first,” says Mathias. “Then you can talk about the options in that framework. Otherwise you can just end up with an unviable shopping list.”
The problem for masterplanners is that most look at least five, and often 25 years to the future – but their plans are drawn up against the backdrop of market conditions.
The conflict is clearest when it comes to residential projects. As Hallett puts it: “There’s probably not a residential scheme on the drawing board anywhere in the country that’s feasible at the moment.”
In the long-term, the shortfall in house building should guarantee strong demand. That presents a dilemma for masterplanners looking to satisfy nervous developers while maintaining an appropriate perspective.
But that does not mean giving in. Keith Thomas, formerly a director at DTZ, is setting up the Cardiff office for urban design group Edaw, the company that did the masterplan for the £140 million Felindre business park proposed for the 60 hectare site outside Swansea.
“The worst thing you can do is compromise and build the lowest common denominator,” says Thomas. “You need to protect the long-term integrity of the plan. Increasingly that means we’re telling clients it’s a waiting game – because it will pick up, we’ve seen it before.”
In the meantime, though, there are some things masterplanners can do. “You can’t ignore the market, but you can time it,” says Richard Rees, a director at BDP, whose masterplan formed the basis for a successful bid by developers Hammerson and Urban Splash to transform Swansea city centre.
In some cases, he says, it’s possible to rely on the market picking up by the time building work is completed, but where there’s significant uncertainty masterplanners should be able to work around this. In his company’s plan for Melbourne’s new urban quarter, Waterfront City, for example, the firm has given the developer the flexibility to phase in the residential element.
LDA’s vision for Aberystwyth, meanwhile, comprises a series of “urban blocks” – these can be residential, retail or business spaces, depending on conditions at the time. “They could even be carved up for self-build,” says Osment.
Flexibility is crucial, says Martin Sullivan, managing partner at Powell Dobson Urbanists. “Circumstances change, and that’s what we’re now seeing.”
His company’s recent work includes the masterplan for Castlemore’s redevelopment of the former British Ironworks at Talywain, near Pontypool, which could eventually see between 800 and 1,200 houses built.
“With any major brownfield or regeneration project you’ve got to take a 25-year perspective,” says Sullivan.
But some may fall by the wayside. Mathias says that we are already seeing masterplans being torn up in response to the downturn, and Hallet reckons there are more to come.
“A lot of those drawn up in the last few years are going to be scrapped as developers review the mix of uses and the types of houses they’re putting in,” he predicts.
That is not necessarily bad news for planners who will be given the job of redrawing the plans.