Southwark Council offers Manhattan top regeneration tips
Published 2 February 2011
Today, a live web link was set up at Tate Modern to connect the council's leader, Peter John, and senior regeneration officers with officials from Manhattan Construction Command Center in New York.
London and New York, giants in city regeneration, today talked about how they can work together to share best practice on successful projects, such as Better Bankside in Southwark, and World Trade Centre Site and Battery Park City in New York.
Southwark Council is keen to link up about how to generate community benefits such as local jobs in construction, the inclusion of public spaces such as plazas and to discuss the award-winning model it uses for coordinating regeneration developments. The New York team also has a model, and both cities swapped notes about how to use technology, manage logistics, coordinate activities such as road closures, and manage construction in a considerate and low-impact fashion.
Councillor Peter John, Leader of Southwark Council, said: "The challenge of coordinating the large scale regeneration projects under construction in Bankside is significant and and it is very useful to exchange ideas with our colleagues in New York, to build upon the recent award for our efforts from the Mayor of London, and look to innovate further in the run up to the Olympics."
The Better Bankside project runs from the Thames bankside down to Union Street in Southwark and includes public and corporate buildings, local amenities, plazas and public spaces as well as improvements to transport routes and pathway layouts.
The conference, which was by invitation only, ran for half a day from lunch time to 5pm; to review the achievements of the Bankside Logistics Group in managing £4bn of regeneration projects at Bankside London Bridge since 2008, and to learn from best practise developed by a similar organisation, the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Centre in managing $20bn+ of construction in Manhattan New York since 2004.
The event is led and hosted by Impact International, market leaders in the field of team building and leadership development.
The event is designed to challenge the participants from both the council permissions departments and the developers' agents and contractors, to develop new methods for joint-working, and ideas for future creative regeneration projects. Organisations and projects involved in the group include The Shard of Glass, New London Bridge House, Thameslink Blackfriars, Thameslink Borough Market, and Neo Bankside.
During the live link-up with Southwark's colleagues in New York, participants were able to share experiences with people working on the ground on projects such as the World Trade Centre Site and Battery Park City. Councillor Peter John, Leader of Southwark Council has agreed to attend the first half of the session.
Bankside Logistics Group in won an award from the GLA for partnering with developers in Bankside.
Find out the latest about the Shard of Glass, Transforming Tate Modern, Neo Bankside, and other regeneration projects at www.southwark.gov.uk/londonbridgedevelopment
