Rebuilding The Plot

Rebuildi ng the Plot: Participation in Regeneration?
Daniel Taghioff, MA Anthropology of Media 103497, School of Oriental and African Studies August 2004 I confirm that this dissertation consists of my own work, and that where the work of others has been used, that it is referenced fully in the text.
Daniel Taghioff, MA Anthropology of Media, School of Oriental and African Studies
Acknow ledgement s:
Id like to thank Donal Savage and Elizabeth Fitzgerald for giving me so much help in West Hendon. Id like to thank Mark Hobart for giving me the benefit of his ruminations and Marjorie Mayo for her wise guidance. Id like to thank Sabrina Fitzgerald, Rev. James Fullam, Fereidoon Mostowfei and Colin Parsons for being good sports and participating. Id like to thank Derek Chung for welcoming me in, and helping me to understand. Id like to thank the Detached Youth Team in West Hendon for their good humour and patience. But most of all Id like to thank Olivia and Alva, just because.
Abbrev iat ions :

ITA MWH RA Independent Tenants Advisor Metropolitan West Hendon Residents Association
Figures :
Figure 1: Map of West Hendon Figure 2: Aerial Photograph of the Estate Figure 3: Metropolitan West Hendon's most recent vision of the area Figure 4: Street scene Figure 5: Overview giving building heights, from the old master plan Figure 6: Overview from the new master plan 17 18 19 31 32 33
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Rebuilding the Plot: Participation in Regeneration?
Contents
Cha pter 1: Co ntextu ali sing Urban Contextual Global: Isation towards a state. Imagine there's no heaven. States of Mediation States of Development So what does this mean for this study? Cha pter 2: Bu ild ing M ethod s Cha pter 3: Plott ing the field . Some Basic Background to the Regeneration Getting to know the regeneration Cha pter 3: Fiel din g the Gro up. Composition of the group Issues that emerged during the Focus Group Creating consensus Representation? History Density Description Difference Cha pter 5: Me diat ion s Discourse: More than just text and reception. United States of Democracy? Inconclusion Bi blio graph y App end ix 1 : The note intr oduc ing my r ese arch App end ix 2 : The Ca st o f C haract ers App end ix 3 : The Pro mpt Pag e App end ix 4 : Tran scr ipti on of the fo cu s group. App end ix 5 : A sa mpl e o f pub licit y mate rial. App end ix 6 : L etter fro m the M P App end ix 7 Artic le in th e Bar net Ti me s
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8 8 10 12 13 14 15 17 17 19 25 25 26 26 27 28 30 34 37 37 38 40 41 45 46 47 50 67 68 70
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Introduct ion
One problem within Media Studies is conceptualising the subject in audiencehood (Hobart, 1997.) This has lead to a consideration of how subjects are constituted inter-textually, between discourses1 not only of and about the mass media, but also in relation to other practices. The inadequacy of considering subjects only or mainly as audiences has been thoroughly explored: In terms of the ways that media organisations tend to construct audiences (Ang, 1991,) and in terms of how audiences tend to contextualise and re-contextualise the messages they receive (Fiske, 1991.) Work has been done to explore some of the discursive practices that are often implicated in the ways that audiences contextualise media messages (Morley, 2000) focussing on the social construction of senses of home, belonging and identity. These approaches are attempting to contextualise audience reception studies more broadly and comprehensively. In Morleys case this is particularly in response to what is portrayed by him as an overly liberal and de-politicised approach within the active audience type debates (see Morley - criticising Fiske-, 1992 : 2629.) He sees this as placing too much emphasis on the ability of audiences to recontextualise media output, leading to a perspective that tends to overlook the still considerable influence that media output may have, especially when considered in relation to other hegemonic discursive practices. This can be seen as part of a general criticism of so called post-modern approaches as being de-politicised, in the sense that they are not addressing ongoing institutionalised practices that form persistent relations of power and oppression (Torfing, 1999: 291.) This seems like a curious criticism, in that much of Foucaults work attempted to deal with precisely these types of enduring practices. Also one of the key influences on Stuart Halls encoding/decoding
1
I need to make a clarification about terminology here. I use discourse and practice somewhat interchangeably, in that I follow Laclau and Mouffes sense of their being no essential distinction between them (1985.). I use the words therefore to give emphasis rather than distinction. This does not mean that I consider them both meaningful in the sense of fully containing the intention of their agent. Polysemy seems to abound in discourse-practice (Hobart, 1999a.) However I also do not see all things as equally, or utterly, polysemic. Whilst polysemy is contingent on both sender and receiver that does not erase the possibility of some of the senders intention being discernable in a discourse-practice, even if it is not ultimately determinable.
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paper, and on Cultural Studies in general, has been the work of Ernesto Laclau (Hobart, 2003: 18.) His work on articulation and discursive practices actually emerged in relation to a consideration of the discursive construction of polity and citizen, an inquiry into democratic practices and their subject positionings. This seems to be an attempt to address ongoing practices, constitutive of what we consider to be the social (Laclau, 1990.) Within media studies Laclaus work has contributed to limiting the ways in which people are pre-articulated theoretically, in order to allow inquiry into the ways in which they themselves articulate their lives, and particularly their social positioning. This has taken the form of criticism of the encoding/decoding model, as relying on overly mechanical notions of social positioning, leading to an overly mechanical sense of communication (see Reddy, 1979,) which obscures much of the contingency and particularity of discursive responses to messages (Hobart, 2003.) But how can this sense of the contingency and particularity of discourse be reconciled with a sense of enduring hegemonic practices?
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One way into this question might be to look at how audiences are influenced by those practices implicated in the empty signifier of democracy, (Torfing, 1999: 248.) One example is the practices surrounding the idea of participation or consultation in public decision making, hopefully involving those likely to be affected by the outcomes (Abbot, 1996.) This study attempts to start to consider these strands in relation to one another, by combining an ethnographic and audience reception approach to studying the consultation process of an urban regeneration project, in West Hendon in London. This seems to allow opportunity to address these issues discursively, but also in relation to a more historical, ethnographic and documentary, inquiry. This is aimed at allowing a sense of the endurance of the discourses that seem to be influencing audience reception, in relation to the particularity and contingency of their2 mobilisation, in and of the discussions in a focus group setting. Chapter 1 will critically consider a range of theorisation that seems relevant to the study, in order to establish a theoretical explanation of using an audience reception type of approach to study a consultation process. Chapter 2 will review the methodological decisions I made during this work. Chapter 3 will describe the ethnographic part of my work, giving an account of the lead-up to the focus group, and my attempts to construct a balanced group. Chapter 4 will describe the composition of the focus group, before discussing thematically the issues emerging from it in relation to the ethnographic work and relevant documentary sources. Chapter 5 is a discussion of some of the more general implications of this work.
The issue of agency in discourse is tricky, and makes talking about discourse tiresome. I broadly, for now, settle for Morley's (1992: 59-72) conception of subjects in history interpolated by and interpolating subject positions in discourse . I see this as a non-dualistic model of agency that acknowledges both the endurance and historicity of the subjective, whilst taking in the radical contingency of the discursive. Things can look very different within different discussions, so objects are transformable (Bakhtin, 1986), historically/agentively produced (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985) and without necessary relation to the real,(Baudrillard, 1990.) This does not, however, erase a historical body-self as a continuity. I do not see a necessary relation between positing continuity-memory (as a basis for active contextualisation) and essentialising a reified subject.
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Chapter 1: Contextua lis ing

Urban Contextual Global: Isation towards a state.
An examination of an urban regeneration project implies some reference to urban Sociology. One area that has been treated extensively within urban Sociology is the relation between an individual and the urban context. Simmel's classic article (1903) on The Metropolis and Mental Life, which has gone on to influence contemporary urban Sociology, via its influence on the Chicago School, struggles with the problem of if the metropolis builds up, or breaks down, the individual. Such an inquiry must answer the question of how the personality accommodates itself in the adjustment to external forces. (Simmel, 1903: 20.) So clearly this is a work based on the notion of an individual distinct from their surroundings. All intimate emotional relations between persons are founded on their individuality, whereas in rational relations man is reckoned with like a number, like an element which is in itself indifferent. (Simmel, 1903: 20.) Surely Simmel here is aware of two distinct ways of approaching the individual and yet he turns to biology to try and reconcile the tension between them. He argues that people are rendered physiologically blas by the mass of impressions that the city present to their nervous system. He then argues that this fits with the effects of the money economy, which makes all things exchangeable for one another, and so flat and lacking in particularity. What is strange about this is that he is describing how people are simultaneously shaped by internal and external forces interacting with one another (is not the hustle of city life to a great extent but an expression of the money economy?) However, he still insists on maintaining the notion of the individual as causally distinct from the surroundings. This seems to present barriers to an analysis of how people shape their surroundings through their understanding of it, or, to mirror the dualism, of how people at the same time are shaped by their surroundings, through their understanding of it.
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In order to explore this problem further, I am treating what I have selected from writing on urban Sociology (mainly from Dickens, 1990) as a discourse built around two main elements: 1) The notion of processes tending towards equilibrium, some sort of climax or steady state. This comes out explicitly in the Urban Ecology influences in Chicago School thinking (Dickens, 1990: 32-34.) (For criticism of equilibrium Ecology see Forsyth, 2003: 63-68.) It also can be seen in the Sociological writing that, like Dickens, sees people tending towards a condition formed by the (i.e. either locally or globally fixed and unitary) urban context. This implies some sort of social equilibrium determined by some more or less fixed underlying context. Writing on Globalisation often seems to posit the Global or Modern as a determinable endpoint to the processes that they describe (e.g. Giddens, 1997.) All these, more or less stable, notions of an equilibrium, are what allows these writers to assume there is some sort of natural context to which they can refer to, separate from the contextualising activities of those involved. 2) A set of basic units that operate as the basis of exchange processes tending towards, and working within, this imputed equilibrium state. These units are often devoid of particular features, and pristine in their generalisability, and thus exchangeability, with other objects expressed via these units. Examples would include the constructions of individualism that correspond with Amely Rorty's exposition of notions of the self as an accumulation of properties, (1976.) Another example would include the notion of space, as place devoid of particular content and thus amenable to commodification and exchange (See Sacks, 1986.) Another example is a notion of human instinct. (See Dickens, 1990: p,) a notion that tends to be devoid of particularistic content, and mainly used in the construction of a standard individual (an oxymoron, it seems to me.) There are problems that follow on from these elements: 1) This notion of a climax state tends to posit one specific, non-negotiable and determining reality external to the agents involved. This brings the problem of
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a dualism between that which is natural, and that which is cultural or socially produced. This becomes particularly acute in the ways in which the notions of context and contextualisation, are respectively fixed or avoided. 2) The standardisation of these units tends, unsurprisingly, to mask their particularity. In the case of subjects/people/agents etc. This tends to bring about a doubling of the subject (Foucault, 1970: 330-373.) There is a tension between the notion of a unique individual (In Rorty's terminology) conscience, as a point for the interpretation of principle, and the notion of a standardised, rational and rationalising self (again by Rorty's scheme, 1976.) In other words there seems to be irresolvable tension between the general and particular in the construction of the notion of the individual, (Baumann, 1993: 44-47.) A tension that was found even in the earliest writings within the liberal tradition (Winch, 1960.) This tension seems to arise from overlooking the ways in which subjects (and objects for that matter) are continually constituted and re-constituted discursively (Hobart, 1997.)
Imagine there's no heaven.

An issue that is picked up and runs as a theme throughout Dickenss Urban Sociology is Giddens's idea of space-time distanciation i.e. that our lives, in a modern and inter-connected world, are determined by events largely beyond our face to face, or even mental, horizon. He posits this as leading to the increased activation of a universal human instinct for ontological security i.e. for a control and understanding of the contexts of our lives. What is interesting in this is that he is basing his ideas on two basic units of exchangeability, space and time3. Giddens, as expressed by Dickens, uses this to construct a notion of an overarching human instinct that is explanatory of the human need for social order and hierarchy (Dickens, 1990.) However Giddens's ideas seem to mask as much as they reveal. The resort to space and time distanciation mainly as a cause of a universal need for social
3
There is not much evidence that time exists if one abandons the notion of nontime i.e. the idea that things can ever stand still. In that light one could just as well argue that we exist in one unending but ever-changing moment. So time, from this perspective, seems like another way of dividing up our lives into standard units amenable to exchange.
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order, excludes viewing it as an effect of the discursive aspects of globalisation. It serves to mask the political processes that give rise to Globalisation i.e. national and international processes of negotiation (see Stiglitz, 2002.) It is not surprising that a view incorporating metaphors of splitting things down to basic, quantifiable and exchangeable units, might mask the very particular, qualitative and synthesising discursive forces that would seem to shape events at all scales. Giddens's framework seems well suited to masking the discursive aspects of power. The account then leads to a universal instinct that all individuals share. This seems like a nice way to explain the social order as being natural, in the absence of any explanation of how it is actively and discursively constituted. What is missed out is an explanation of how a general need for order is translated into the myriad of specific practices that make up people's lives. The blunt notion of instinct is used to easily explain away how people come to understand their own needs. Clearly they don't necessarily do this as individuals, and they don't do this in isolation from their environments, or contexts, or in isolation from how these are represented to them, by themselves and others. It is interesting that Giddenss work on Globalisation stands in contrast to his work at a more local level, in his ideas around structuration. Here the actions of actors and their qualitative discussions are seen as significant, and so worthy of scrutiny, rather than taken as an a priori reality (Bogason, 2000: 93 100.) This seems to lead to a pan-optical structure in Giddens's work, where those whose discussions affect the way things are done globally are immune from scrutiny, shielded behind an ontological need for some sort of overall equilibrium or state of reality. But the rest of us are subject to scrutiny. His ideas of structuration reproduce the sense of an overall background reality, by positing structure as something distinct from agency (Hobart, 1999b.) This again seems to defend some sort of ontological status quo, whilst, somewhat pan-optically, diverting attention away from strategically active agents constitutive of that status quo, and towards the analysis of agency in relation to more immediate constraints. This is a particularly pressing point when considering local participation in a regeneration process. The differences encountered are precisely negotiations over
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people's needs for secure and familiar homes, and the ways in which these needs are negotiated as part of a highly politicised process. It is precisely these sorts of negotiations of what, for instance, security and familiarity mean that are at stake. What the future reality, or ontology, will be, once it has been produced via these discursive processes, is also at stake. In other words almost the entirety of the local context is part of the negotiation, so an approach that takes a form of equilibrium, or type of context, as given, obscures important issues: How is the regeneration process contextualised by local people, and how is it being contextualised to them, by others?
States of Mediation
The issue of active contextualisation also causes problems within the study of the Media. The division between an individual and a sense of their environment, as a given background state separate from their actions or interpretations, can be found in models of communication that are current within Media Studies. One example is Stuart Hall's Encoding-Decoding model, which is built around a notion of codes determined by a fairly singular contextualisation of what social positioning is. Morley examines the problem of a notion of positioning being viewed as distinct from the discursive processes they are supposed to influence. He points out that audiences will respond to messages by mobilising codes based on historical and current articulation of their positioning. They are not, in this view, isolated from outside articulations of their positioning, and their sense of their positioning is contingent on discursive processes. This is not to say that there is necessarily no relation between positioning and the interpretation of messages, or the types of interpretive resources available. Nor is it to say that people face total freedom of meaning and interpretation in relation to their life situation. But the ways in which people interpret their own positioning confounds any simplistic determinate model of class and other social / structural categorisations, and thus the types of reading people will make of messages. Morley makes this case in his Nationwide study (which employs a focus group methodology,) with the differences in responses between more oppositional shop stewards, and more accommodative union officials. Despite both groups explicitly being members of the same class for themselves, these two groups diverged in their interpretations, due to the specific circumstances of their lives and occupations (1992). Thus the various and contingent ways in which people actively
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contextualise their own positioning is significant in any study of audiences.
States of Development
One area where people's articulation of their own positioning has taken on significance is in debates on Development, especially around participation and empowerment. Approaches such as participatory rural appraisal are aimed at helping people to articulate their own resource positioning. This takes place within a type of focus group or group interview setting, to generate a context for discussions of community needs. Mosse points out that this assumption of community can be manipulated to construct the outcomes of participation, either by facilitators working towards organisational priorities, or through the manipulation of public discourse by elite groups within the communities concerned. Thus an uncritical contextualisation of participation, as occurring within communal consensus, can lead to such processes becoming less than participatory for many of those involved. This is especially so for those whose interests may be less likely to be articulated in public (e.g. women.) A more dynamic (less state-like) and more antagonistic view of communal life, might lead on towards a more careful consideration of the various interests that may be in play in the situation. This might sensitise enquiry to the various contextualisations that may, therefore, be involved.
John Abbot's Sharing the City attempts to address the issue of participatory processes taking place in a variety of contexts, and the implication of a need for a variety of approaches to participation. He, is in a sense, reaching towards a sense of Participation as an empty signifier i.e. that it is useful, discursively, in terms of its non-specific reference to an ideal (Torfing, 1999: 282.) However he opts to set up a classification of different contexts, portrayed as determining which type of participation would be appropriate. This seems to embody some valuable experience of what has and has not worked in various situations. However, he seems to universalise in a way that blocks any sense of the contextualisation of participation by those involved in participation.
Surely a large part of any participation is precisely a negotiation of what the context of the participation is. Development savvy Governments, for instance, are
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likely to want to portray themselves as being open to participation, especially in response to recent development agendas on Good Governance. (Stiglitz, 2002.) This may well be an issue within the context of UK planning policy, where the question has been raised: Why the great emphasis on public participation in planning policy, when so little attention is paid to the views of the people who do participate? (See Abram, 2001: 185.)
So what does this mean for this study?

It would be tempting here to try and analyse this process based on the preceding criticism of Giddens's discourses on globalisation, so influential in Dickens overview of urban Sociology. Indeed the ex-nomination of the influence of neoliberal discourses, within the decision-making related to governance, seems like a valid position from which to critically analyse the discourses found around urban regeneration (see for instance Taylor, 2002.) Unfortunately, for the purposes of this study, this does not realise the goal of investigating how the people involved contextualise their situation. Also, such global influences have to operate via specific discursive threads within the situation anyway, so it seems to me to be more fruitful to examine the various types of discourses mobilised and mobilising in relation to the regeneration's consultation project, and only then to reflect on what implications this might have for more general discussions.
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Chapter 2: Build ing Met hods

I approached this research with a focus group methodology in mind. This was due partly to the types of theoretical reflections given before. A focus group is a useful methodology, as it allows the researcher some insight into the discussions that go on between members of an audience, (Morley, 1992: 97.) Focus group research has also found favour in studies of the social construction of space, in relation to the ways in which people make consumption choices (Holbrook & Jackson, 1996.) I lived for the year in West Hendon. My first key informant, Donal Savage, has lived in the area for three years, and first suggested the possibility of the study to me. My second key informant, Elizabeth Fitzgerald, helped me to assemble a focus group. She is active in the Resident's Association (RA), which is engaged in negotiation with the company running the regeneration, Metropolitan West Hendon (MWH.) I used a snowballing methodology in putting together my focus group, as recommended to me by Professor Marjorie Mayo at Goldsmith's. She pointed out that looking for participants in a non face-to-face manner was unlikely to produce a good response rate in this type of study. I simply did not have the resources available for random sampling (Bryman, 2001.) I attempted some level of external validation or rather triangulation of the responses from the focus group by following up documentary sources. I focussed on documentary sources that might indicate what sorts of discourses were in play around the regeneration, sources such as the Urban Regeneration Handbook (Roberts and Sykes, 2000,) MWH's own publicity material (Metropolitan West Hendon, 2003,) the local press (appendix 7) and correspondence from the local MP (appendix 6.) I also triangulated the focus group with the various meetings and discussions I encountered during my ethnographic work. I adopted this approach to avoid fixating on one text as the main determinant of the discursive formation and rather to look at inter-textuality, or the various discourses in play in the situation, and what I could glean of their (see footnote 2 in the introduction,) interplay. Whilst I obtained informed consent from those participating in the research for what I have included here, I was unable to devote time to going through sections of the final text with them to check my interpretation against theirs, nor am I sure
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they would have had the time and goodwill to devote to this.
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Chapter 3: Plott ing the fie ld.

Some Basic Background to the Regeneration
Figure 1: Map of West Hendon. Source: www.multimap.com
The map above (figure 1) gives a sense of West Hendon Broadway. The estate, which is going to be knocked down and rebuilt, is between the Broadway, which will be partially demolished and remodelled for traffic flow purposes, and the Welsh Harp, a reservoir that serves as a leisure and wildlife spot in the area. Oak Lane frames it at the southern end. See figure 2 below for an aerial photograph of the area, to give more of a sense of the scale of the project. The image below that (figure 3,page 19) gives the planned layout of the estate, according to the regeneration body. (The arrow in the top-right indicates north.)
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Figure 2: Aerial Photograph of the Estate, Source www.multimap.com
The estate is going to go from around 650 homes to over triple that number, although this final figure has been the subject of quite some discussion. The building work is due to take place after the planning applications are complete, and is broadly scheduled between 2006 and 2014, subject to completion of the negotiations around the planning application and the types of timing problems often associated with such projects. The West Hendon regeneration is one of four regeneration projects going on in the borough of Barnet, with others in Stonegrove, Graham Park and Dollis Valley. I would like to leave my account of the background here, to try to avoid pre-interpreting the situation too much.
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Figure 3: Metropolitan West Hendon's most recent vision of the area (August 2004.) Source: Metropolitan West Hendon's website.
Getting to know the regeneration

I started by attending a meeting for traffic planning on the 29th of October 2003 (incidentally 5 nights after Diwali and the 3rd day of Ramadan, in an area with both a Hindu Mandir and a Mosque on the Broadway.) The meeting was at 215 West Hendon Broadway, which is the main information distribution point for the regeneration team, as they term themselves. The meeting was to present a computer simulation, to show how traffic flow would be improved by the building work. What struck me about those turning up was that they were all white and all seemed over 50 years old (Donal (35) and I (28) felt somewhat out of place.) The computer model, presented by external traffic consultants, at first seemed to inspire awe in those present. It was presented as factual and thus seemed hard to question. A discussion ensued, where it emerged that this was a model for morning traffic. When I asked about evening traffic, the consultants admitted that they had no model for this, but that it would be about the same but in the opposite direction. At this point a discussion ensued, where residents challenged as to if the system would be able to deal with future increases in traffic numbers
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etc. Discussing this afterwards, Donal and I were shocked at the profile of those attending (perhaps people working don't have the time or energy, perhaps nonBritish people feel excluded,) and at the impression that the traffic model had been produced mainly for presentation purposes, as it had not been produced very thoroughly, covering all times of the day.
I went to see Derek Chung on the afternoon of the 20th of July. He is one of the two most active members on the RA, I had seen one of his newsletters up in the window of the community centre on the estate. He welcomed me in, and we sat in his living room as he explained to me his responses to the regeneration process. He explained to me that initially the density of housing had been 2500 homes and that this had been reduced to around 2100 when the first planning application had been rejected. He pointed out that some of the residents had been living in their houses for 32 years, and as such they had made a major financial and emotional investment in their homes. He then started to explain some of the conflicts over the design of the new homes. He pointed out that the initial proposal for window sizes and room sizes would have reduced them considerably, and that he was fighting to keep them the same as they had been. He pointed out that the houses were currently very pleasant inside, and that the residents weren't willing to have worse, after they had moved. He raised the issue of the shape of the rooms: Even if the floor space remained the same, a change of shape in room meant that the new home would be unsuitable, that it wouldn't fit the residents. He used the image of trousers being the wrong shape, of having one long leg instead of two shorter ones. I was surprised by how nice the homes were once you were inside them, in contrast with my initial pre-conception of the estate as being run-down and poor. This sample of one seems to support the need for a discussion of how areas are constructed as problem areas and who exactly goes about doing that.
Derek also pointed out that the regeneration process had been much less consensual than MWH and the council had been presenting it as. He said that when the original plan, for all four regeneration projects within Barnet, had been placed before the council, the vote had been split evenly down the middle, five councillors for and five against. The Chairman gave the casting vote for the regeneration. He was also suspicious of the voting process, pointing out that
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employees of the council or MWH went around following up the polling. He felt that they coached people as to how they should respond and that the project was sold to people: As he put it, If you offer a child a stick of Broccoli or an Ice Cream, what are they going to choose? He felt that residents hadn't been very well informed about the project, and I assume that this is why he uses the metaphor of a child.
He mentioned that the decanting meetings had been put off. These were meetings to discuss the issue of how residents were to be re-housed during the building work, and then moved back into properties on the estate once building work was completed. He then discussed the issue of the way in which the planning process worked. Residents were required to vote on proposals that were very vague, and then had much less power to negotiate once the proposals had been accepted. I read this to mean that there was a perceived general tendency towards deferral and vagueness on behalf of MWH, and that this was perceived as disempowering for the RA. I went on to Interview Elizabeth Fitzgerald, also on July 20th. She seems to be the other person most active in the RA alongside Derek. She explained how the she had held MWH to account over the size of the public spaces in the area, that they were below certain legal minimum standards. She also explained that she had held them to account over the Welsh Harp being a site of special scientific interest, and that this meant that they could not build anything within 60 feet of the water. The overall impression she gave me was that opposition and scrutiny from the RA had been necessary to keep MWH within minimum legal boundaries, and that, by implication, MWH had not been pro-active about it's own compliance.
I had realised by this time that the main issue I was facing in terms of putting together a focus group was not so much ethnic representation, but issues of gender and age, alongside where people lived, and the ways in which they already belonged to existing political affiliations in relation to the regeneration. Since I had encountered mainly middle-aged men in my initial work, I decided to ask Elizabeth, rather than Derek, to participate in the focus group. I also discussed
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this problem with her, and she said she might know younger people, or people that were for the regeneration who might be able to help, drawn from on the estate. Elizabeth, acting now as one of my key informants, introduced me to her daughter, Sabrina Fitzgerald, whilst I was playing at a community cricket match put on by the Detached Youth Team, as part of the summer programme for kids on the estate. Whilst I was wary of my group being completely colonised by people connected to Elizabeth, I also had to acknowledge that Sabrina, as a younger woman in the process of completing her law qualifications with work experience at the Crown Prosecution Service, was likely to have a differing set of perspectives and priorities from the others in the group, and so would help to round it out as a sample.
Elizabeth also invited me to a meeting between the four RAs, of the four regeneration sites in Barnet. I met Elizabeth on the 26th of July to go to this meeting. We met Derek and a man called Colin Parsons, to share a car to the meeting. Elizabeth had explained that Colin was a leaseholder on the Estate, and so would give another perspective on the regeneration, due to his different ownership position. I was again wary of the group being taken over by a clique, but had to acknowledge that his would be an interesting perspective to have. So I introduced myself and my work. During the car journey to the meeting, Colin explained to me some of the historical background to the regeneration, as he saw it. He pointed out the long history of selling off council housing in this country, and explained that he saw the regeneration as an extension of this, a further strategy for getting rid of social housing. A discussion opened up within the car, and it seemed that Elizabeth and Derek were also worried that the social housing tenants would not have secure tenancies in the long run: That the trend would be to turn all the properties over to housing association type arrangements. There was a concern about a lack of information about the tenancies on offer, about the possibility of children inheriting these tenancies (some of this information is available on MWHs website, although not in any great detail,) about the proportion of social housing to private housing to be built, the level of provision of housing to key workers and about the overall costing of the project: Where would all the money from the sale of private housing go? They pointed out that the whole project was based on what they saw as a gift of public land from the
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council to a private housing association, which was likely to basically operate as a property developer. They expressed scepticism about MWH's stated ethos.
We arrived at the meeting slightly late, and I was introduced as a student doing research on the regeneration. The meeting was the first of its kind and was chaired by a consultant. There were nine residents and four Independent Tenants Advisors (ITAs - consultants) present. As the meeting progressed the issue of the density of dwellings and space standards emerged as a major area of concern. The ITAs pointed out that there was a variety of different standards that might be applicable, like the Mayor's plan for London, Barnets Unitary Development Plan, the Housing Corporation standards and the Parker Morris standards (Morris, 1961.) It seemed that most of the residents were, at best, only partially aware of these standards. The lack of one clear standard was cited as an issue by the ITAs.
It then emerged that each of the RAs was required to negotiate with their respective regeneration authorities individually. This meant that each RA had negotiated a different space standard for their estate. Some of them had negotiated, with considerable support from their ITA, to get space at the highest standard (Parker Morris) plus 10 %. By contrast the West Hendon RA was struggling to make sure that their development conformed to minimum legal standards on space and density. This issue seemed compounded by the lack of a common standard, and by the residents being unaware of the relevant standards and how they might access them. I had to go to the LSE library, to a rolling stack in the lower ground floor and climb up a step-ladder to find a dusty government publication to access a copy of the Parker Morris standards they are not easily available on the internet. I passed a copy of the Parker Morris standards on to Elizabeth. Another issue was that it was difficult for tenants to evaluate the regeneration schemes when they did not have access to accounts of how funds would be allocated within the scheme. This stymied any discussion of if the schemes would be providing social or key worker housing, or would be more oriented as a private property development. These were concerns shared between the RAs. I was disturbed that provision of these types of information was not an integral part of the consultation process. I raised the issue of the individualised approach to negotiating with one of the ITAs, (after the meeting was finished) and
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was informed that this was indeed a long term problem, and that Marilyn Taylor had written on these types of issues (2002.)
On the way back in the car, Elizabeth brought up one of the other issues raised in the meeting: That MWH had made a pledge to residents when they were asked to vote for or against their regeneration proposal. That pledge was for bigger, better homes. She maintained that it was a struggle to hold MWH to that pledge, to even keep the homes at the same size as previously, mirroring what Derek had expressed earlier. She did not see how homes were really going to be better when the density of housing was going to increase so much.
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Chapter 3: F ie ld ing the Group .

Composition of the group
Appendix 2 gives a slightly fuller profile of those that participated in the focus group. I had Elizabeth and Colin, both involved in the RA, but with Colin as a leaseholder whilst Elizabeth was a council tenant. Then Sabrina, Elizabeth's daughter, lived on the estate with Elizabeth, but was reported by Elizabeth as being for the regeneration in as much as she saw the need for extra housing for young people, being provided on the private market. There was also Fereidoon Mostowfei, who is Iranian and runs a drycleaners on the Broadway, and so was somewhat representative of business interests in the area. Finally there was Father James Fullam, the Catholic priest from the Church on the Broadway, another resident, living next to the Church, but not on the estate. I attempted to contact other faith groups, but either failed to work out they existed in the area, or failed to contact a representative, or to persuade them to participate.
The focus group took place in the Corner Cafe on the Broadway, at 7.00 p.m. I recorded and transcribed the interaction, which was initially focussed around a page from the MWH website (see appendix 3.) This was a loose focus, and the question I asked was how did they feel about the way in which they had been consulted with by MWH. The interaction took on a dynamic of it's own, guided somewhat by my interventions (D=), which are shown in the transcript, (see appendix 4: Each contribution to the focus group is numbered: e.g. (56), in chronological order, for the sake of easy reference. The contributions are also coded with the first initial of the participants: e.g. J=) I will not go through the transcript chronologically, but will pick out what I see as the major themes.
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Issues that emerged during the Focus Group Creating consensus

(2) J = They told me that the voting was,,, overwhelming,, uh in favour of,, uh the regeneration. Father James begins by saying, in the context of having been visited by local councillors, that it was put to him how strongly people had voted in favour of the scheme. This mirrors my experience of MWH representatives and also of what appears in their publicity materials, namely that there was a 62% turnout for the vote (from estate residents) and that 75% were in favour (MWH, 2003.) Indeed from the Urban Regeneration Handbook the first criterion for a successful strategic partnership is: A strategic vision and framework, providing a clear picture of the desired outcomes, encourages partners to align their goals and objectives while making appropriate contributions. Partnerships should be built on shared interests, joint understanding and action. (Carter, 2000: 56,) It seems there is a strong emphasis here on legitimating the regeneration process as consensual, and in laying down a strategic framework early on. However Derek's comments, about the way the project was sold to residents, problematise this. Furthermore Sabrina's comments: (119)S= And, I think that's all sort of, it's all, kind of lip-service, it's it's saying it's gonna be great, it's gonna be great, but it's, it's selling an idea, that, without actually really going into detail, without really... So there is a sense of the consensus for the project being produced (or rather seduced, Baudrilard, 1990,) through a technique of selling the project, without giving any detail of what it will involve. This seems to be an ongoing issue in the relation between the RAs and MWH. Sabrina recounts ((14) in the transcript) how MWH seemed the least prepared during the exhibition when bidding alongside two other companies. Her impression of them was of making vague promises about the future without going in to any detail. Fereidoon confirms this tendency towards vagueness when he points out that business people on the high street were unclear if their premises were to be
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knocked down (190 & 194.) Elizabeth also explained earlier that she only got involved when she was told that her street, Ramsey Close, was going to be knocked down, after having been assured that it would not be (Sabrina reiterates this see 196.) It seems clear that it is difficult for the resident's to have known what they were voting for, when so many changes to the project kept happening along the way, and what information they do get is perceived as being very vague. Colin sees this vagueness as a strategy of sorts: (153)C= The detailed applica, the details, the intricate details will come when they've been given permission to do what they want, so it's basically you are now stuck with whatever project we've got, This issue seems particularly pressing in relation to the pledge that was given to residents, which was the basis on which the vote was made. Elizabeth was upset, as she had indicated before, that MWH did not seem to be keeping to the terms of the pledge (130.) This supports what Derek reported about the difficult negotiations currently under way about what bigger and better might mean, in terms of room size, shape and window sizes, and also Elizabeth's earlier concerns about outside spaces. This issue extended into the meeting between the four RAs. It seems strange that there should be no common standards by which Resident's Associations could negotiate, no process from the outset for resident's associations to come together, share information and form a common position. Derek maintained that the meeting happened because he and other RAs called for it. There seem to be no systems in place to ensure the residents have ready access to all the information and standards relevant to the consultation process, from the very start.
Representation?
An obvious response to this criticism is that the RAs are there to make sure that the vision continues to include resident's interests, since a full consultation is taking place and resident's are being included at every stage. Indeed the Urban Regeneration Handbook states as the last criterion of a successful partnership: Partnerships should involve local residents and community organisations as equal partners. This often requires a change in culture and way of operating to accommodate community participants. The involvement of these groups is necessary to ensure their full commitment to achieving the
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jointly established goals and to ensure that they are the principle beneficiaries of whatever action is taken. (Carter, 2000: 56)
But Elizabeth's perception of the process is slightly different: (123)E= They've set up these groups for the residents to go to and the planning and design group, supposed to mean we're in on the planning, euuh the management, and this regeneration group, but we had a big argument with them in that they take minutes, but they never write in the minutes our objections or our concerns...
Now clearly one criticism possibly levelled at those active in the RAs is that they are not representative of the bulk of opinion on the estate: Indeed the way in which the vote has become such a focus of antagonism seems to reflect this. However, this does not really answer the question of how the RAs can operate as equal partners. If they are meant to represent the estates, then surely there should also have been a vote for them. Otherwise there is an imbalance of legitimacy between proposals seen as having an official mandate, and RAs seen as not. If no election is held, then it seems that for a meaningful consultation to be carried out, the views of the resident's representatives need to be taken at face value, and actively kept on the record as much as is possible. From this point of view, accusing the RAs of not being representative is pretty close to admitting that the consultation has not been managed properly. Sabrina presented another way of looking at this problem: (107)S= I think what you were saying about the consultation, uuhm, my sort of impression is that, I think if they could get away with it they probably wouldn't have consulted anyone. I think that the only reason that the tenants are involved as they are to a limited extent, (108)D= right, (109)S= Is because, they have to, because they're the people, well not necessarily the tenants, but say for example the freeholders who, the need to have compulsory purchase orders, so they have to have these people involved, and they feel obliged, I think that the Metropolitan feel obliged to involve them, but if they could get away with it then, they probably, wouldn't.
History
Colin, as someone who has lived on the estate for 20 years and who has had a
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long standing engagement with the union movement, seems keen to contextualise the regeneration historically:
(48)C= Originally it wasn't affected, but, its,,, with past experiments which they've done up North and everything else, theyve, this is been tried and tested, they've been doing this for the last, what since, well the late seventies they started up looking at this idea, (49)E= Who the council? (50)C= The council, the government... (51)E= ...Oh the government (52)C= In the eighties, the government was adamant they was gonna get rid of council properties, (53)D= uuhm (54)C= Whichever way or means they did, they was gonna get rid of it, and that was the process they started, they tried numerous different, euhm, projects, most of which have fallen flat on their face, uhhm this is, as I say, this is just the latest one.
Colin's point seems to be that the consultation is an empty process in as much as the overall agenda is already set: To get rid of council properties. His claim is mirrored somewhat by a report by the House of Commons Council Housing group, of June 2004, which points out that there has been annual disinvestment, or income drawn off from council housing, in the region of 1.5 billion for 2002/3. During the meeting between the four Resident's associations, it was pointed out by the ITAs that the Regeneration Schemes had no choice but to build high density housing for sale on the private market, since there was no money budgeted for the creation of social housing. It would seem from this that the issue of the increase in housing density, involving an increase in private ownership, was beyond the scope of any consultation to address. The consensus on this seems to have been negotiated before any of the regeneration contracts were even put out to tender.
The issue of history is interesting from another perspective. The urban regeneration literature is focussed on the sensory metaphor of vision, and particularly the metaphor of looking forward. This is based on a metaphor of time as a journey, and thus looking ahead to the future. (This is in relation to the work of Lakoff and Johnson, 1980.) This metaphor seems to have two striking
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features. What is looked at is an image, a vision rather than an unfolding drama, and thus is compatible with a notion of a static consensus, rather than with a sense of an ongoing consultation where things are genuinely up for renegotiation. The other feature is that this metaphor is ultimately all about the future, and seems to de-emphasise history, or learning lessons from the past. Another feature of the literature is how everything is portrayed as new, exciting, and unique, not exactly encouraging comparison with, and learning from, what has gone before (See appendix 5 for an example of this kind of text.)
The issue of local residents not having the support or information they require for operating within arenas of public consultation is not a new one for Barnet. The effectiveness of the public inquiry into the Barnet Unitary Development Plan, of 1990, was called into question for precisely this. A lack of understanding of the details of planning procedures and standards meant that the inspector felt he needed to take a very active role in scrutinising the plan, since residents were not put in a position to do so (Webster and Lavers, 1991 : 805 806.) This issue has also been phrased in terms of the issue of learning planning speak (Abrame, 2001: 193-196.) This could be seen as an issue of expertise, but from what I have encountered it also seems to be an issue of basic information simply not being available, never mind actively provided.
Density Description
(171) S= ...I think, sorry... I think that's one of the things about, I mean, when you say looking at their website and the pictures, I mean they, they look very attractive, it looks like an area of maybe the city or somewhere that you know like young London, somewhere that I'd probably like to live, but I think part of it is, uuh part of what doesn't come across from the graphics is how dense it's actually going to be, I mean at the moment there's what 560 homes on the estate and they're going to increase it to, is it 2000? (172) E= 680 at the moment, to two thousand (173) J in background (174) S= I mean at the moment it's quite dense as it is, so I mean to have that many new homes in that one area, it doesn't, I don't think that comes across here (175) E= ...The traffic...
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(176) S= ...And I think the first time that I got that was from the model, the plan, (177 ) D= Right (178) S= It's what was it made out of? The proper (179) E= Wood (180) S= You now like the plans (181) D= Scale model sort of thing (182) S= Yeah, one of those, then when you look at that in comparison to the, to the, the houses on the Broadway that are going to remain that you realise the actual scale of the development,
Sabrina seems to be making a point of media criticism. She is, in part, referring specifically to the colour printout of a webpage from the MWH site that I had provided as a prompt (see appendix 3,) one of the images from which is reproduced below:
Figure 4: Street scene. Source: Metropolitan West Hendons website. This is the most dense looking image from that page, as far as I can see. It is clear that the whiting out of the buildings in the background, and the focus on the blue of the sky and the green of the trees minimises the sense of density and
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maximises the sense of space or naturalness.
In a document I obtained when I went to the first meeting about the traffic planning (Metropolitan West Hendon, 2003.) there is an overview of the site, based on the old master plan that failed its planning application. (According to Elizabeth this was due partly to high-rise buildings being placed too close to the Welsh Harp.) It gave an overview of the area including information about building heights:
Figure 5: Overview giving building heights, from the old master plan. Source: Metropolitan West Hendon, 2003. As Mark Hobart pointed out to me, the height here is represented as being warm and cosy by being in red tones: A communal feeling perhaps. But what is also interesting is that this type of height data is not easy to find now on the MWH website. Here is an example of the type of overview given there, for the revised master plan:
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Figure 6: Overview from the new master plan. Source: Metropolitan West Hendons Website.
Another overview is given (see figure 3 ) with some shadows on it, hinting at building heights, but there is no direct indication of building heights mapped out on the site. It seems that there is not even a thin description of density present on the website, and thus no clear publicity on building heights for the new master plan. This information is highly significant to lease-holding residents on the estate: (313)E= Isn't there some reason you can't get a mortgage for a council place over the 5th or 4th floor? (314)C= You can't get it over, if the building's more than five stories high then you cannot get a mortgage for it, (315)E= Even if you're only on the fourth say, (316)C= Doesn't matter cos you're in a building, that's what I pointed out to them, (317)E= And they're all above that? (318)C= There are some which are only four stories high, said to them I want one which is four stories high or I go on the ground, I am not going in a building which is five stories high. (319)E= Have you got any guarantee that you will get a... (320)C= I will make sure that I do not end up in a higher building. (321)E= Well you have to or you won't get a mortgage out.
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Difference
I had been concerned that an overriding consensus had been reached in the group, due to three of the participants (Elizabeth, Colin, Sabrina) being involved in, or related to, the RA. However, when I announced the end of the focus group, and the freeing of the formal context, an interesting discussion began:
(334) E= Well the council should be able to get money to re, even to rebuild what is here. It's just a money making thing. It's all for profit. (335)S= I'm not against it. (336)E= Oh well nobody's against it that being knocked and rebuilt, the over development people are against. (337)S= Uhm, well personally, from my point of view, I'm living in London and I know it's going to be over developed and I know that it's a big city and I just want somewhere, kind of, if it's going to attract more people into the area, if it's going to bring the area up, if it's somewhere where my friends will say oh what d'you live in West Hendon, (E in background) that's like a real nice area... (338)F= I think that's what's gonna happen. (339)S= Well that's, from my point of view being... (340)F= Injecting 2000 people in this area means more work, (S+E object in background) you have to think it this way, (341)S= I just don't... (342)F= This is what I think, injecting more money to the area, that brings the work, more people is going to be in this area, more cosmopolitan as they explained it... (343)S= ...Yeah... (344)F= Yeah? So more shops,
Suddenly Sabrina and Fereidoon 's differing interests begin to be expressed more strongly. The first thing that this seems to illustrate is that my normative influence within the group, as controlling an interview context, had suppressed difference of opinion, which emerged when the interview was over (the participants gave me permission to use this material.) From this it seems likely that a regeneration / consultation model that attempts to set up a strong consensus from the beginning (I had actively encouraged them to express differences in opinion at the beginning and throughout the interview) is very likely to lead to the masking of differences
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of opinion. The stress within MWH's publicity material on the community, as if it were one entity, would only serve to accentuate this, perhaps mirroring the problems encountered in participation in development in an international setting (Mosse, 2001.) My experience of who it was that participated in MWH's open meetings only reinforced this impression.
Fereidoon and Sabrina are not dissenting with what is going to happen: That more affluent people will move into the area, perhaps also pushing prices up (see 227.) They are pointing out that, from where they are standing, this is not necessarily a bad thing, for instance because it will stimulate business or result in new places to go out and spend time (381,399.) However, for Sabrina this evaluation is very contingent on detailed information about what these outcomes might be:
(233)S= ...Yeah, affordable accommodation it'll be somewhere get my foot on the property ladder maybe being a resident here will have the opportunity to, I don't know, maybe have first call or whatever and the idea of the area coming up as well like maybe get like I dont know a lot of people object to to it but from my point of view like some trendy bars or some like like you know kind of more sort of going out like area I, that was what I was quite excited about but I think that's what it was initially but now it just looks like there's no way I'd ever be able to afford one of them on the private market and it's just, it's targeting a completely different sort of idea of what...
So even for those residents that feel that they have a lot to gain from the regeneration, this is only likely to be meaningful for them if there is some financial detail provided about how much the new properties are likely to cost, and what proportion of them will be social housing, key worker housing, supported by housing association phased ownership schemes etc. This mirrors the concerns raised in the meeting of the four RAs about a lack of financial information about the regeneration proposals. Fereidoon gives an indication of the political will behind the regeneration on the part of the council, in the context of his application for a restaurant license:
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(386) F= They're gonna have more coffee shop this and that, otherwise to get an A3 license for a shop like that... (S breaks in) ... I tried it in Camden, its a nightmare. (387) S= ...When you applied for this, did you have to change the land use, did you have to change it to an A3 use? (388) F= Yes. (389) S= You did, so because normally there is lots of objections to that kind of thing, but they encourage that you're saying... (390)F= Yes. It was very easy, (391) E= Yeah. (392) F= If you wanted to do it in Camden you had to go to one of these firms, specifically applying for these things, and you pay them thousands of pounds. (393) S= ...Because Camden's. (394) F=...And I managed to get it myself. (395) F= It was very easy. I knew it, this part is not going to be affected, but there is the willingness. (396) E= Yeah. (397) F= With the council, that this area should be injected with more people, so they need more things.
Donal, in his own commentary on what is going on, pointed out that Barnet has a conservative council and a Labour MP, and that the conservative council would not be upset if more affluent voters moved into the borough. The MP had sent a letter to constituents, detailing his concerns about the consultation process (see Appendix 6.) In addition there had been a certain amount of confrontation between one of the main Councillors pushing for the regeneration (Brian Sallinger, Conservative) and Mr Dismore, reported in the Local Barnet Times (see Appendix 7.) It would seem from all of this that differences of interest are very much driving the regeneration process, and that local people are very much aware of this. This means that a consultation model that is formed around the idea of an early fixed consensus or vision, and a unitary sense of the community is unlikely to draw people in, or make them feel that the issues that they see as important are being addressed.
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Chapter 5: Mediation s
Discourse: More than just text and reception.
In this study the social construction of space is addressed in relation to practices of mediation. What is interesting within this is that the subjectivities of home are precisely what are disarticulated in this public discussion of the social construction of space. The subjectivity of residents is obscured behind public discourses on the quantity of floor space and so on. This raises the question: Is Media Studies, by focussing on the private aspect of the subjectivity of home, not in danger of reproducing an a priori liberal division between the private and the public. But surely one major aspect of what is so interesting about nonface-to-face practices (i.e. of mediation, where people dont see eye-to-eye, as it were,) is that they cross this division in so many ways, (Morley, I must note, is well aware of this, see 1992: 270-289.) It is always possible to ask, when faced with the bewildering complexities of discourse theory, what difference does it make? Apart from the irony of discourse theory being precisely about the production of similarities and differences, this seems like a very searching question. One way of putting a similar criticism is to ask we may talk about it in this way, but does that mean we actually do it in this way? Now discourse theorists can protest that it is precisely that gap between text and practise that discourse inhabits. But they are hampered in this if they focus mainly on the linguistic or textual aspects of discourse. Now this is a strong argument for an ethnographic approach to discursive practices, but what is at stake here? One clue comes from the study of discourse within organisations. Organisational studies being, to a large extent, about getting things done collectively, has seen a negative response to what is portrayed as nominalism in discourse theory (Reed, 2000,) of reality being seen as defined by what you call things. However, the response to this charge is fairly robust, in as much as discourse and organisation itself can be portrayed as synonymous (Chia, 2000.) How can people operate to get things done collectively without forms of collectively institutionalised discourse? This conflict seems to focus debate on those features of discourse that
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are constitutive of the possibility of action in a particular situation. These are precisely the features of discourse that are less prone to the charge of nominalism, in that they are precisely the features of discourse that tend to be performative i.e. that are constitutive of what is possible and thus real.4 This opens up a set of questions for Media Studies that I cannot adequately trace out in full here, but perhaps I can illustrate with an example. Out of Bounds is a book about the mediation of sports (Baker and Boyd, 1997.) The book is contextualised in the introduction, in terms of sports being a discursive compliment to enterprise, a drama within which can be articulated the values of competition, teamwork, sportsmanship, drive to succeed etc. But what is not included, is study of how, or if, these discourses are put into play in the workplace: To look at if they become incorporated into the discursive practices of enterprise. Now clearly this would need to be an ethnographic study, to try and approach the specificities of how these discourses might be mobilised and mobilising. Now whilst not, by strict definitions, a Media Studies piece of work, it would clearly be a means of following through on what the reception of mediation means in practice.
United States of Democracy?

Is a sense of an underlying realism, or state (or globality, Giddens, 1997) leading to a notion of convergence in understanding through communication (Habermas, 1987,) towards some state of consensus or unity, really compatible with notions of democracy? Is democracy not tied to the pluralistic notion that there are many valid ways of approaching the world, and that these all need to be admissible into discussion? (Torfing , on Mouffes conception of plural democracy, 1999: 252-255.) Once a consensus is formed and solidifies, many ways of seeing the world are likely to become incompatible with the consensus arrived at, it's underlying presuppositions and metaphors, and the political will of those supporting that consensus. A process that is built around a single vision
4
The problem with the term real being used in this context, is that constituting what is possible necessarily involves some element of seduction (Baudrillard, 1990,) in as mush as things are never directly represented, but represented as by situated agents (Goodman, 1981.) Thus the notion of a necessary direct relation between an act constitutive of what is possible and some underlying reality is untenable. Nationalism is a striking example (Anderson, 1983.)
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from the beginning, and one that is driven by a great deal of non-negotiable economic and political pressures, is therefore unlikely to be seen as being strongly democratic. This seems to be confirmed by the way in which opposition, in this case, seems to have been necessary to ensure that the regeneration project stayed within legal limits. This seems to confirm the theoretical observation that supporting the ongoing articulation of differences of interest is a significant factor in attempts to achieve forms of democracy that are meaningful for those participating in them (Ibid.)
However the issue here is not simply one of over-determination. Where there is a wish to be part of, or have influence on, some over determined social scheme of how things shall be done collectively (a discourse, institution or form of organisational practice) then access to the over-determinations, or forms of discourse, of these collectivities is a critical pre-condition to power (when seen as the ability to influence events or rather practices.) The residents in this study not only faced over-determination in the form of a vision for regeneration that they felt was being thrust upon them, but also under-determination in the form of not having access to the timings of meetings, to the details of the proposals, to the relevant standards, to financial information about the regeneration schemes and so on. They were left not able to put forward their own articulations of these socially over-determined organisational narratives. In this case it seems that there is indeed a certain de-reifying tendency in the ways in which market, or economistic, organisational discourses are played out here. There is the specific overdetermination (reification) of housing densities, but also the under-determination of the project management of a tendering process that retains flexibility for the contractors, at the price of certainty and intelligibility for those being consulted.
This seems, in this study, to be a fairly specific process. The details of the regeneration scheme are what is at stake here. That is a large part of what really matters for those being consulted. But the negotiation is also implicated in wider discursive practices of economistic governance. These practices are clearly discursive, and to a significant extent contingent upon this, in that they have been contested at every stage, by the House of Commons Council Housing Committee, by Andrew Dismore MP and by the RAs (who have obtained strikingly different
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outcomes in their negotiations so far.) These findings seem to confirm an overall sense of capitalism undermining the meaning-making that is implied by a notion of democratic citizenship, through both reification and de-reification (Dean, 2003.) These discursive trends seem to unfold in specific ways that seem highly significant to the outcome, especially for those, supposedly meaning-making, citizens. So whilst it seems valid to investigate these types of processes at the level of public policy (Taylor, 2002,) it also seems important to look into these issues from an ethnography-of-mediation perspective, of how these policy messages are received and played out. This is an approach that seems able to explore what the many interpretations of public scrutiny of decisionmaking, might mean in practice.
Inconclusion
Media Studies seems to partly be built on the often unspoken premise that there is an important relation between practices of mediation and democratic practices. And yet we seem hampered by the apparent gap between the texts of media and the texts of democracy. It would seem that the connections can only be found in practice. One area of linkage that is ripe for exploration is the articulation of mediation and organisation as sets of practices. Some traditionally oriented examples might be the ways in which media professionals modify their practices in response to and in anticipation of the over- and under-determining moves of politicians. The same study could be carried out in reverse, in the [rare] instances where ethnographic access to political life might be a workable research strategy. But in the spirit of the asylum (Foucault, 1989) I would venture that the most fruitful place to explore this connection is where both mediational and democratic / political practices contribute to the re-forming of the lives of those that are not personally considered as being a part of the public.
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Bib liography
Abbot J. (1996) Sharing the City. London: Earthscan. Abrame S. (2001) Among Professionals: Working with Pressure Groups and Local Authorities in G. Hirsch and D.N. Gellner (eds.) Inside Organisations: Anthropologists at Work. Oxford: Berg Anderson, B. (1983) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the origins and spread of nationalism. London: Verso Ang, I. (1991) Desperately Seeking the Audience. London: Routledge Baker, A. & Boyd, T. (1997) Out of Bounds: Sports, Media and the Politics of Identity. Indiana: Indiana University Press Bakhtin, M.M. (1986) From Notes Made in 1970-1971 in C. Emerson and M. Holquist (eds.) V.W. McGee (trans.) Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press Baudrillard, J. (1990) Seduction. B. Suger (trans.) New York: St Martins Press. Bauman, Z. (1993) Postmodern Ethics. London: Blackwell Bogason, P. (2000) Public Policy and Local Governance: Institutions in Postmodern Society. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Bryman A. (2001) Social Research Methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press Carter A. (2000) Strategy and Partnership in Urban Regeneration in P. Roberts and H. Sykes (eds) The Urban Regeneration Handbook. London: Sage Chia, R. (2000) Discourse Analysis as Organisational Analysis in Organization 7(3): 513-518 Dean K. (2003) Capitalism and Citizenship: The Impossible Partnership. London: Routledge Dickens P. (1990) Urban Sociology. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf
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Fiske, J. (1989) Television Culture. London: Routledge Forsyth, T. (2003) Critical Political Ecology. London: Routledge Foucault, M. (1970) The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. London: Tavistock Foucault, M. (1984b) Panopticism in Paul Rabinow, (Ed.) The Foucault Reader. London: Penguin Foucault M. (1989) Madness and Civilisation. London: Routledge Giddens, A. (1997) The Globalizing of Modernity in Anabelle SrebernyMohammadi et al. Media in Global Context. London: Arnold Goodman, N. (1981) Languages of Art: An approach to the theory of symbols. Brighton: Harvester Habermas, J. (1987) An Alternative Way Out of the Philosophy of the Subject: Communicative versus Subject-Centered Reason" in Lawrence Cahoone (ed.) (2003) From modernism to postmodernism: An Anthology. London: Blackwell Hobart, M. (1997) The Subject of the Subject in Media Studies, SOAS Media Research Group: Position Paper Hobart, M. (1999a) As they like it: over interpretation and hypo reality in Bali; in R. Dilley, ed., The problem of context. Oxford: Berghahn Hobart (1999b) Just Talk: Anthropological Reflections on the Object of Media Studies in Indonesia. Conference Paper. Hobart, M. (2003) The Profanity of the Media in E. Rothenbuhler & M.Coman, Media Anthropology. Publisher under discussion. Holbrook, J. & Jackson, D. (1996) Shopping Around: Focus Group Research in North London. Area 28(2): 136-142 House of Commons Council Housing Group c/o Austin Mitchell MP (June 2004) The Case for the "Fourth Option" for Council Housing. London: HMSO Laclau (1990) The Impossibility of Society in New Reflections on the Revolution of our time. London: Verso.
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Laclau, E. & Mouffe, C. (1985) Hegemony and socialist strategy: Towards a radical democratic politics. Trans. W.Moore & P. Cammack. London: Verso Lakoff, G., Johnson, M. (1980) Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Metropolitan West Hendon (2003) West Hendon Regeneration: New Plans Unveiled. Metropolitan West Hendons Website (checked 18th Aug 2004) http://www.quest-net.org/hosted/w_view.asp?websiteid=84 Morley D. (1992) Television, Audiences and Cultural Studies. London: Routledge Morley D. (2000) Home Territories: Media, Mobility and Identity. London: Routledge Morris P. (1961) Homes For Today and Tomorrow. London: HMSO Mosse D. (2001) Social Research in Development Projects in E. Hirsch and D.N. Gellner (eds) Inside Organisations: Anthropologists at Work. Oxford: Berg Reed, M. (2000) The Limits of Discourse Analysis in Organizational Analysis. Organization 7(3) 524-530 Reddy, M. (1979) The Conduit Metaphor: A case of Frame Conflict in our Language about Language, in A. Ortney (ed.) Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Roberts, P. and Sykes, H. (2000) (eds) The Urban Regeneration Handbook. London: Sage Rorty, A. (1976) A literary Postscript: characters, persons, selves, individuals, In The identities of persons; ed. A. Rorty, Berkeley: California Univ. Press. Sacks, R.D. ( 1986) Human Territoriality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Simmel G. (1903) The Metropolis and Mental Life in I. Press and M.E. Smith (eds) (1980) Urban Place and Process: Readings in the Anthropology of Cities.
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London: Macmillan Stiglitz, J. (2002) Globalization and its Discontents. London: Penguin Taylor, M. (2002) Public Policy in the Community. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan Torfing J. (1999) New Theories of Discourse: Laclau, Mouffe and Zizeck. London: Blackwell Webster, B. & Lavers, A. (1991) The Effectiveness of Public Local Inquiries as a Vehicle for Public Participation in the Plan Making Process: A Case Study of the Barnet Unitary Development Plan Inquiry. Journal of Environmental and Planning Law: 803-813 Winch, D. (1971) The Emergence of Economics as a Science 1750-1870. London: Fontana
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Appendix 1 : The note in troducing m y research

Would you like to discuss what is happening here in West Hendon?
Would you like to join a group of 3-5 people, to discuss the West Hendon regeneration project? The discussion is likely to last around an hour. I am hoping to bring together people drawn from groupings in the area, such as local faith groups, people in business together, or people attending groups together such as at the multi-cultural centre. My name is Daniel Taghioff. The discussions are for a small piece of research for my MA dissertation. I am studying the Anthropology of Media at the School of Oriental and African studies, University of London. I am looking at the ways that the West Hendon regeneration project communicates with the public. I am interested in how residents and local business people feel about these messages, and also the other ways that they find out things about the project. If you are interested in discussing the regeneration project and its likely effects, or have any questions about this, then please contact me by the following means: CONTACT DETAILS REMOVED
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Appendix 2 : The Cast of Characters

Elizabeth Fitzgerald is 49-58 years old. She has lived in West Hendon for 9 years, She was born in Ireland. She is a Catholic. She is a housewife. Sabrina Fitzgerald is 19-28 years old. She has lived in West Hendon for 9 years. She was born in Dublin in Ireland. She sees herself as White Irish Roman Catholic. She is a trainee Solicitor. Rev. James Fullam has lived in west Hendon for 19 years. He was born in Dublin in Ireland. He identifies himself strongly with the Catholic Community. He is a Catholic Priest. Fereidoon Mostowfei is 39-48 years old. H has lived in West Hendon for 18 months. He was born in Iran. He is a Muslim. He runs a laundrette and drycleaners on West Hendon Broadway. ColinParsons is 39-48 years old. He has lived in West Hendon for over 20 years (too long, he says.) He was born in Edgeware. He is a Roman Catholic (sort of, he says.) He works as a Telephone Engineer. Donal Savage is 29-38 years old. He has lived in West Hendon for 3 years. He was born in Belfast in Northern Ireland. He has converted from Catholicism to Judaism. He works as an IT consultant.
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Appendix 3 : The Promp t Page

(Downloaded from MWHs site, July 2004) Improvements will be made to Hendon Station. A new drop off point and taxi rank at the station will be provided and a pedestrian route will be developed to connect the station with the heart of West Hendon. To find out more about the proposals for transport click here.
Greening West Hendon
York Park will be redesigned with residents and relocated to create a safe environment in which to play, socialise or just enjoy the peace and tranquility of the Welsh Harp and Site of Special Scientific Interest. Landscaped 'green corridors' will link the beauty of the Welsh Harp through the new residential areas to the heart of West Hendon. We will work with English Nature and local conservation groups to retain and enhance the areas natural features. Key enhancements could include improving water filtration, the managed coppicing of some willows, creation of new ponds for amphibians and the provision of new hides. We will create better access around the Harp, this could include a new pedestrian bridge across the Silk Stream.
To find out more about the proposals for the environment click here.
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Health & Leisure
The Youth Sailing Base will be rebuilt with improved facilities. Existing community facilities will be reprovided on the estate. A new GP surgery will improve access to health care for local people. A new local health and fitness club will be subsidised for local residents. We will set up a community fund to enhance the social environment of West Hendon.
New Homes

New homes for affordable rent. New homes for intermediate market rent, equity transfer and low cost home ownership e.g. for key workers and people on modest incomes. New homes for sale. To find out more about the design of the new homes click here.
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Appendix 4 : Transcr ipt ion of the focus group.

Participants: E= Elizabeth S= Sabrina J= James F = Fereidoon C = Colin D= Daniel (Me)
Markings within the transcription:

The punctuation and spelling is done after the sound of the speaker's voice rather than grammatical logic (to try and reduce pre-interpretation)
! indicates something said suddenly or dramatically. ? indicates a rising question tone to the sentence. ... = Interruption (NOT a pause) (Where speech overlaps, it is indicated in bracket with full name or first letter of other speaker) , = pause ,,= longer pause ,,,= even longer pause (pause) = a gap in the conversation {time code x} = time codes from a standard cassette player are placed at regular(ish) intervals. Italics indicate emphasis on a word or syllable. CAPITALS indicate a loudly spoken word. Each contribution is numbered for easy reference. (1)Transcript starts {000} (2)J = They told me that the voting was,,, overwhelming,, uh in favour of,, uh the regeneration. So, I did object to it, I called in to see would we be affected because the, the first scheme I was hoping that uh our church... ( indistinct ) ... the uh church the presbytery would be moved rigth down,, towards Marsh Drive, but, that first firm didn't get the ,, uh contract. So we won't be,
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uh it won't uh interfere with us at all. No way. (3)D= Oh, because a different firm got the contract. (4)J= Yes. (5)D= Uhm, did you? (6)J= Uh... The MP all right, he called in one day , he happened to be going round, he didn't call to see me specifically, but uh he said uh that uh there would be uh a big increase in people, I think uh thirteen hundred uh families that would occupy the estate there, that will be of interest to us. ( I try and break in ) ... some of them will be Catholic you see so aah... (7)D= Right... And the MP actually came and called in on you,, the MP contacted you dire... (8)J= Yes, Mr Dismore,, (9)D= Right,, (10) (11) J= And two of the councillors... D= Right,,
all came down with their , with their, the stands, and the plans and they were all they all had representatives from their firm there to answer the questions and uhm I just remember metropolitan being the only ones not able to answer anyone's questions. The other two seemed much more professional, much more sort of, they seemed to have a lot uhm a lot more detailed plans and they were able to say OK this is what we're doing, that's what we're doing, but I remember at the time speaking to Metropolitan and they were like oh well you know that's something that will be sorted out, and that will be sorted out and I think that's probably my experience of them so far has been well that's something that we'll do in the future, we'll do that, we'll do that, we'll do that... (15) D= Right... (16) S= And I think that's, I mean that's sort of been my general impression of them so far, and I think that's a lot of the stuff in their literature has always been, we're promising this and this is gonna happen and that's gonna happen but in sort of vague broad terms without any real kind of ... (17) (18) D= Right... S=... detail or specifics an..
(12) J= But they were visiting (indistinct) Well I had written to them about uhm... the road down there and (clears throat) what to do you see, because lorries coming, they think they can get into the estate there, they take the wrong turn so, (beep obscures voice) knocking down a wall there... (13) D= Right... (14) S= I think it's interesting that you mentioned the uhm first uhm, sort of consultation, well it wasn't consultation it was where uhmm there was a sort of open evening at the Marquin centre, it was the bidding, I think, I don't know what they were calling it, but it was uhm, when they had three different housing uhm trusts or associations who were going to, who were bidding for the contract here and MY, my memory of that was they
(19) D = Is that an impression shared by others in the group? (20) {71} (21) C= And there was (indistinct) I got them indoors, that I did like ( I motion to him to speak louder) I, sorry, There was one that I particularly liked, I wasn't keen on Warden, but they had a good scheme, I know uhm tenants from other Warden properties who are, and they're not treated very well, they are very fus, very choosy, if they don't like ya they will penalise
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ya they will treat you like hell, (22) J= Was that the second group, not the third... (23) (24) C= Uuh, J= People who tendered
(25) C= Uuh, that was one, eh yeah it was one of the uhm the last three that was still in the running, but there was another one which I asked them about, because what they had was quite good all they had done was like a town, well it was actually the centre was different it was a centre, but everything else was basically kind of flat, flattened out towards the Harp [ The Welsh Harp Reservoir ] rather than being built up and going the opposite way. (26) D= Right... (27) C= And it was more like a circle as such, and I said to them, and if you put in the, the, the, what d'you call it? The health and Leisure gaff , (28) D= The leisure centre or something... (29) C= ... the les, could you whack in like a fun pool you know like for kiddies and youngsters and that as well, plus putting an indoor play area as well as an outdoor play area so like cos then you get a lot of Mums and that coming in Yeah, Yeah, we could certainly uhm fit that in within the scheme of things, that wasn't so,, what I asked there was either a basically a direct no or there was a yes there was one or a couple of things were they said, dunno we'd have to ask the council, (30) D= Right, (31) C= But as far as the uhm, the amenities was concerned for the estate as a whole, uhm they was more or less as well, guaranteeing that the prices would be basically the same at least for ten years, cos I was going on about, owarsit uhm
there's been a lot of stuff which's gone on with service charges and various things when they was trying to do it like before theses schemes come along, you had the uhm, self managing schemes where they was trying to hire out the estates, we're saying that other firms would come in, run the show, they're service charges and that would be frozen for the next ten years... (32) D= Right... (33) C= What's wrong with doing it for the leaseholders now? And if you got that scheme, you could introduce that straight away, why haven't you introduced it, previously? When you've been looking at it on other estates in the previous couple of years, uhm ... (I try and interrupt) Couple of years later, everything has just gone puzzled, they never come back with it, so they've tried various different things, this is the latest on incorporating the thing and actually privatising the estate. (34) (35) D= Right... (36) C= cos that's what it's doing, it's privatising the estate, no problems about that at all. (37) {119} (38) C= ( I try and interrupt again ) The way the vote was done, was I haven't gone too far down the line, but it seems to me that the voting seems to done, they got the majority from the people who didn't actually really investigate the actual plans... (39) E= I, I remember with this uhm, we went to this exhibition uhm in the Marquin centre, two nights it was on, two days and two nights it was`on, to look at these uhm, I think it was three or four housing associations, and well we, we told them we didn't want any of them because where we live the houses
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are only fifteen years old so we,, we knew it was just a profit making thing from what we could see, but we thought that was it, that that was our night of seeing the, the, the housing associations but it came, that was April, and then in June they had another exhibition, which a lot of us didn't know anything about, I don't think any, well very few people did, and uhm it came to light then shortly afterwards that twenty four people at that exhibition picked Metropolitan as the partner for Barnet Council, now that made us very suspicious, in that ehm, an awful lot of people didn't know that exhibition was even on, and twenty four people out of an estate of 680 people to pick them, to us was very... (40) D= Was that how the choice was made then? (41) E= Well yes, this is what we're told, (42) D= OK (43) E= uhm, from that we just became very suspicious, everything after that was, uhm, they were very vague with their answers, or, you know, and then, when it came to uhm, the people voting, uuh the question was put in a way, that you couldn't say no to it, although, coming back to the figure, uhm I think it was 62% voted, but it was like 37 for, it wasn't a big majority, they were making out it was a big majority who wanted it but uhm, (44) J= Because they want to take you with... (45) E= Yeah, we were told Ramsey Close wasn't part of this, and then we found, yeah Ramsey is being knocked, so that's how we got involved, we got involved to save Ramsey Close..., (46) J= (In background) ...So it will be affected then...
(47) E= ...so it's gone from...yeah.. we've got deeper and deeper into things... (48) C= Originally it wasn't affected, but, its,,, with past experiments which they've done up North and everything else, they,'ve, this is been tried and tested, they've been doing this for the last, what since, well the late seventies they started up looking at this idea, (49) E= Who the council? (50) C= The council, the government... (51) E= ...Oh the government (52) C= In the eighties, the government was adamant they was gonna get rid of council properties, (53) D= uuhm (54) C= Whichever way or means they did, they was gonna get rid of it, and that was the process they started, they tried numerous different, euhm, projects, most of which have fallen flat on their face, uhhm this is, as I say, this is just the latest one. (55) D= OK I need to bring it back to the kind of here and now a bit, because the history is interesting for me, but it's difficult to work into this kind of context, what I'm interested in is uhhm, the people who aren't on the estate, I mean Feiredoon, you're running a business, you're on the high street, and you're (gesture to Father James) overseeing a faith group, were you aware of or involved in this decision about which contractor would be doing the regeneration, do you feel like you should have been? (56) F= I have never personally approached... (57) D= ...Right.. (58) F= and, uh.. that's never been the case. The only communication I
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received off them is sometime they dropped some leaflets or something, (59) D= ...Right... (60) F= ...giving the whole idea of what's going to happen, but the way they going to do it, never clear, (61) D= ..right... (62) F= ...even last July when I went to the meeting, it seems to me they don't know what they are going to do. (63) E= They don't consult the wider community at all... (64) D= Right (65) E= And they're a bit upset about this, (66) F= ... you know, in one point of time they are telling you you are part of the regeneration, you're gonna think of preparation for yourself, (67) D= ..yep.. (68) F= So you're going to have to have full information on this. But they didn't communicate it to us. (69) D= They didn't approach you at all? (70) F= They did approach, but just informative, information, just talking to my letter box. (71) D= Right, no consultation as such... (72) S= Are you talking about the newsletter that they publish? (73) F= Yes, the newsletters, and last time there was something like a booklet, that was the last thing I received, which was open inside, a map or something, (74) D= Father, did you have the same experience? (75) J= Similar, but, uuhm I think on a few occasions I was notified about a meeting...
(76) (77) (78)
D= Right J= Down beside your place, E+S = The community centre,
(79) J= The community centre. But it always clashed, uuh with converts or something like that, (indistinct) meetings, and so I couldn't (indistinct.) Uuhm, as I say it doesn't affect us directly down there, so uuh, (80) D= You don't feel directly affected by the regeneration,, process. (81) J= No, uuh, of course we'll be (indistinct) a larger number there, of course we will, (82) D= ...Right... (83) J= As I say we've never asked for a (indistinct) (84) D= Right (85) C= According to them on some of the meetings, (indistinct) alright for the business side of things, they were having quite an input there, at least 15% of the input, (86) D= Really, they've been involved? (87) C= That's what the information which I've picked up, they've got a panel, they've got business, well I've raised the issue, the fact that the design of the actual estate itself should be, the business people shouldn't be involved in it, because they're not living on it. (88) D= Right, (89) C= They're only working here, but if they're living here, as well, then that's different, there are a couple of people who have got businesses here who live on the estate, so they're perfectly entitled to have both, both sides of the coin. (90) D= But how do you think that, I mean, OK on the one hand we have a sense that the wider community's
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not been consulted, on the other hand we have a feeling that the residents should have priority in terms of deciding what happens on the estate, how do you deal with that? (91) C= The problem we've got, I think the real problem we've got, is the fact that people are, there's a lot of people who've got uuhm false ideas about what is actually going on, what is gonna go on, (92) D= Right... (93) C= So, they want an uplift for the estate, which I think fair enough, the estate needs to be uplifted, if they actually designed it and built it right, you could put more homes on it, without putting up high-rises on it. (94) (95) D= Right... E tries to speak
they're asking me for money for the major works and I'm asking them for money for the repairs to the major works. (102) D= Right (103) C= So that's how we sit, (104) D= Is there an ongoing issue there? (105) C= Oh yeah, (106) D= Right (107) S= I think what you were saying about the consultation, uuhm, my sort of impression is that, I think if they could get away with it they probably wouldn't have consulted anyone. I think that the only reason that the tenants are involved as they are to a limited extent, (108) D= right, (109) S= Is because, they have to, because they're the people, well not necessarily the tenants, but say for example the freeholders who, the need to have compulsary purchase orders, so they have to have these people involved, and they feel obliged, I think that the Metropolitan feel obliged to involve them, but if they could get away with it then, they probably, wouldn't. (110) D= OK, do you think that's a legal obligation or a... (111) S= Uuhm, (112) D= Or a political obligation.. (113) S= I think political, legal, I mean I think there'd be uproar, there would, I mean (114) D= Right (115) S= With the council, with parliament (116) D= So you don't feel that this is something that is coming from Metropolitan West Hendon? (117) S= No, I think, I honestly think
(96) C= By taking the greenery and stuff so as it's there, spread out,it's no it's not a problem, the way they're built, you know they still haven't finished it from the time they actually built the place, (97) D= Right, they're still building that estate? (98) C= No, these buildings were built back to front, they never put plaster on so you still have the concrete walls, got the gaps between the two walls and, windows. There's plenty of defects in it which they never actually rectified, and they did the major works, which they did the major works deliberately so that they could coin in the money from the leaseholders, again they never did the major works, I'm still waiting for them to repair the major work which they did. (99) {237} (100) D= Right (101) C= They haven't done that,
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that if they , if they could get away with it they would, I mean, it's a reluctant type of thing and, sometimes, I think the model that they have, they have 215 as their sort of base, and they have a model of what the future estate is going to look like, (118) D= yep (119) S= And, I think that's all sort of, it's all, kind of lip-service, it's it's saying it's gonna be great, it's gonna be great, but it's, it's selling an idea, that, without actually really going into detail, without really. (120) D= Right, OK. Is that a general impression or? (121) C= Well it is, I mean basically it's a legal obligation, they've got to consult with and that's been a statute for a number of years. They're getting more of a backlash from it because of the problems that you've had, with the last lot of works which was on, so people are taking far more of an interest, not just leaseholders, it's council tenants as well, because of the aggravation they've had, around here, so they've decided to dive in early rather than leaving it to the last minute. (122) D= Right (123) E= They've set up these groups for the residents to go to and the planning and design group, supposed to mean we're in on the planning, euuh the management, and this regeneration group, but we had a big argument with them in that they take minutes, but they never write in the minutes our objections or our concerns... (124) D= Right... (125) E= We've had it out with them a few times, (126) D= Right.. (127) E= Now, well we get the people's names in the minutes now,
and some of the discussion, but when you think back, cos there's a lot said at the meetings, and when you think back you know, oh that was then, that was then, it's not in the minutes, sometimes then by the time that you come to the meeting, you've forgotten, you know, wha what's been left out of the minutes. (128) {276} (129) D= Right.. (130) E= Now, like we we've got objected, to the sizes of these flats and houses, the houses especially they're ridiculous what they intend to build, and time and time again we've said we were promised bigger, better homes, and these are much, much smaller, no gardens, no you know, they're they're like we say we know now that they're smaller than the minimum required standard, so we've brought that up lots of times, and we've been ignored, so with the result we've had to go and contact other organisations, housing organisations and ombudsmen and and to try and fight outside of, the Council and Metropolitan to try and be heard. (131) D= Right. (132) E= To see that they stick to the pledge that they gave us which they don't seem to be doing. (133) D= Right (134) E= So we're still in the process of trying, the council, uhm tenants leaseholders and freeholders uuh of trying to get what we were promised because by the looks of things we are not going to get what we were promised. (135) D= OK, and people outside the estate have you had any impression of this going on, have you heard about these kind of ... (136) F= No, generally I'm uh, with this, whe whole thing, I think it is a
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positive thing to do... (137) D= Yup... (138) F= ...because this is the poorest area of the whole borough, (139) D= yup... (140) F= ...always been neglected, (141) D= yeh, yeh (142) F= That's why we can see the situation, crime, security, stealing from the shops... (143) E= ...We're too posh for dosh, according to the ... (F continues).. magazine... (144) F= ...is needed a shake-up. (145) E= ... the housing magazine... (146) F= ... is needed a shake-up, but the way they doing it, is different people involved, (147) D= Yep, yeh, (148) F= And it seems to me that nobody can communicate the problem, (149) D= No.. (150) F= Or sometimes in your case, they are not going to deliver what they promised. (151) J= Is there a date fixed when they... (Indistinct) to commence... (152) E= ... Well,, the sec... second application is going, is in in September, the the second planning application, yep the outline planning application so they're telling us well uuhm, when it comes to the details planning application that we'll have more of a say. (153) C= The detailed applica, the details, the intricate details will come when they've been given permission to do what they want, so it's basically you are now stuck with whatever project we've got, then you've got others, uuh they'll say at that point you can just as easily, yu can cause as much trouble because
if they've got the compulsory purchase, you can say well I'm not moving, (154) D= Right (155) C= And that sui, OK I might loose out dow in the long run, but it's costing you a damn sight more, if you're just sitting there (156) D= Right (157) C= I know the council places will end up being reasonable places, uuhm but if you think someone's gonna pay twice as much as I am to live in a shoe box and I'm gonna be looking in the better places, I mean people live in cloud cuckoo land. (158) {319} (159) D= Right. (160) C= Private places will be virtually exactly the same, (161) D= Right (162) C= The only reason we will get it is because we are inverted commas sitting tenants they cannot get rid of us at this moment, (163) D= Right (164) C= But that will change (165) D= Right (166) C= There will be lawyers further down the line once a lot more of these things have gone through we'll get rid of them, (167) D= Right. Has there been information about, about the future, about how it's gonna look in the future...(E starts)... in West Hendon... (168) E= ...Yeah, well that's been changed... ...uhm in the beginning they had eh was it seven or eight big tower blocks round the edge of the water, (169) D= Right (170) E= But uhhm, they knew that area is protected, the uhm the
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wildlife the whole Welsh Harp there is protected so uhm English Heritage, when it went before the planning, the first planning application uuhm English Heritage and uhm I think a lot of the wider community as well, who else? Oh this organisation called Kabe uuhm they all had a say in it and it was sent back they couldn't uuhm (laughs) they couldn't uuh uuhm build these big high blocks round the Harp so they've had to move them back so this is why it's gone to the euuh second planning applications so we'll see what comes back or if it comes back or if it's passed... (171) S= ...I think, sorry... I think that's one of the things about, I mean, when you say looking at their website and the pictures, I mean they, they look very attractive, it looks like an area of maybe the city or somewhere that you know like young London, somewhere that I'd probably like to live, but I think part of it is, uuh part of what doesn't come across from the graphics is how dense it's actually going to be, I mean at the moment there's what 560 homes on the estate and they're going to increase it to, is it 2000? (172) E= 680 at the moment, to two thousand (173) J in background (174) S= I mean at the moment it's quite dense as it is, so I mean to have that many new homes in that one area, it doesn't, I don't think that comes across here (175) E= ...The traffic... (176) S= ...And I think the first time that I got that was from the model, the plan, (177) D= Right (178) S= It's what was it made out of? The proper
(179) E= Wood (180) S= You now like the plans (181) D= Scale model sort of thing (182) S= Yeah, one of those, then when you look at that in comparison to the, to the, the houses on the Broadway that are going to remain that you realise the actual scale of the development, (183) D= Right (184) S= And how big it's going to be (185) E = And the traffic and the commuters, I mean pollution... We have the highest (186) F= They've been widening the A5 as we say... (187) E= ...Do you know how they're widening it... (188) F= ... It will have a very good effect on the traffic flow... (189) E= ... They're only taking out the bus lane, that's how they're widening it, how can they widen it when nothing's being knocked on that side of the road? (190) F= Yeah, that's the whole thing, some of these shopkeepers asked them and they said you are not affected, (191) E= ...Yeah... (192) F= ...and the other one next to it... (193) E= ...yeah... (194) F= ...went and asked them and they says No, you are going to be part of it, (195) D= So it's not very clear who's going to get bought or who's not, (196) S= And going back to the initial consultation as well, that's like the shifting boundaries I mean initially we thought that Ramsey Close wasn't going to be included and then it was, and then like what you are saying there, some people are
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included and some people aren't and it's like they're drawing up boundaries and then saying oh well we'll move it not really funny. (197) C= trying not to be cynical, I think the first the first pans which they put in was rove exasperated and they basically knew they wasn't going to be accepted, (198) D= Right (199) C= You've got to realise that this estate is really built on floods, because it's all swampland underneath, (200) D= aah ha (201) C= So you'd have to drain it, so you're gonna put these blocks on, you're gonna affect the Welsh Harp because you're gonna be draining underneath, because the whole lot used to be a reservior and it used to be flooding... (202) {365} (203) E= ...Hence the name Marsh Drive... (204) C= ... You keep it in, you got the under, the reason they keep the horsefield the way it is you don't build on that because that's an overflow so as when it rains heavily the water comes up form their so you can't build on their either so to actually put large blocks you got to you got to do heavy piling... (205) D= ...Right... (206) C= ...You got to go down, you've got underwater streams flowing through round this area... (207) D= ...Right, so it's major sort of geological work to make it happen... (208) C= Its.. Oh yeah.. So you're not going to do it so... eventually, I can't see, because you've got down the road there its going to be a major development with 51 storey block... (209) E= ...In Cricklewood...
(210) C= ... No Staples Corner... (211) E= Oh (212) C= Staples Corner, Brent Cross is being MASSively developed, Colindale is being massively developed, this is in between, (213) D= ...Yeah... (214) C= This isn't gonna stay separate it's gonna be expanded out it's all gonna meet (indistinct) so you've got the final way of how you're gonna do that that you can link up like a jigsaw puzzle, (215) D= Right (216) C= Where you stop it for now five years time you're building through so it will be one massive (indistinct) they class it as the next West End... (217) D= ...Right... (218) C= You've got the it's already been classified as Hendon North West four is where the Yuppies who can't afford Sloan Square are all coming down to ... (219) D= ...Right... (220) C= ...Coming down to Hendon, so they'll be looking to buy up the housing place... (221) D= ... So you think it's a gentrification thing... (222) C= Yeah I think it's definitely uhmm there's two major things which is going on, one is you're getting rid of council properties for private properties uhm stroke uhm housing associations at the moment, (223) D= ...Right... (224) C= ...that won't last, thens two is the long term profitability of the gaffs, I mean they're on a winner, if you've got every leaseholder stays, they've still got money invested in these properties, these properties they are gonna rise the leaseholders are not going to be able to catch up
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by buying these properties out so they've got money vested there already which is gonna sit their which they're gonna make, they can use that to develop the place further. (225) S= I think that's what uhhm, sorry, (226) D= I'm just a bit, the thing is that there's a lot off voices of residents that have got concerns and Feriedoon kind of made some points about what he thought was going to be positive about that, just for balance I'd like to develop that side, because it also kicked off quite an interesting discussion, uuhm, so I mean, you were saying that you thought, the gentrification obviously it's not particularly cool for the residents, but I mean what does that mean, how do you... (227) C= I'm not worried abut who moves in as long as they treat the place with respect and the people who live there with respect, you've gotta mix in and you've gotta mingle properly and that's point of fact, and I'm not sure that's what they're gonna do, I think quite obviously that they (indistinct) will offload (indistinct) but I'm more worried about all of a sudden they will start channelling people in because it's been done in other Boroughs people were for the expensive places which immediately pushes everything else up, the social housing starts to be kicked back into one area. (228) S= I was quite excited about it though, when I first heard about the regeneration, because I thought great, loads more premises I can move out of home, (229) (230) D= ...Right... (231) S= I was told these like you know, low rent accommodation, (232) E= ...Affordable...
(233) S= ...Yeah, affordable accommodation it'll be somewhere get my foot on the property ladder maybe being a resident here will have the opportunity to, I don't know, maybe have first call or whatever and the idea of the area coming up as well like maybe get like I don I know a lot of people object to to it but from my point of view like some trendy bars or some like like you know kind of more sort of going out like area I, that was what I was quite excited about but I think that's what it was initially but now it just looks like there's no way I'd ever be able to afford one of them on the private market and it's just, it's targeting a completely different sort of idea of what... (234) E= ... it was supposed to be uhm nurses... ... firemen, police... (235) S= ...Yeah it... ... was supposed to be like for the essential workers and there's no way i don't know a fireman or a policeman or a nurse who would be able to afford one of these premises and they're selling it on that basis, that it's low, that it's going to bring the area up and it's going to bring everyone else up with the area but I don't think it is. (236) {412} (237) F= Do you have any idea what how much is selling it? (238) S= Some of the penthouses how much are they going for? (239) E= Well... (240) S= ...Quarter of a million or something... (241) E= uuhm yeah, we were told uuhm, there are some penthouses going for a million and maybe more, but Metropolitan uuh, they say there won't be penthouses but the architect said there would be, but uuhm, (242) S= You have to have a top floor...
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(243) E=They're hardly... yeah... so uuh we were given prices uuh about two years ago, a 175 thousand for a one bedroom so whatever that's gone up two years, (244) F= The prospect of the time... (245) E= ...Yeah... (246) F= They gonna spend, you are looking at the same price... (247) C= They was doing immediate comparison... (248) F= By the time they finish the whole project... (249) E= ...Yeah... (250) F= ...That's going to be the price of one bedroom flat. (251) E= You mean it's not going to raise uhhm as time goes... (252) F= It is going to raise... (253) E= Yeah (254) F= But,, I don't know how they manage to give you the prices. Because that'sn (255) D= It's along time in advance... (256) E= Yeah (257) F= They are not sure them selves... (258) S= Yeah, no-one knows... (259) C= Well I think they've got a fair idea, once they actually get it going they will all of a sudden they'll be motoring, so this is apparently the other the homefields is closing down very shortly.. (260) E= ...oh Endover lodge... (261) {427} (262) C= Yeah (263) E= Gonna knoack that first (264) J= No they're not gonna knock it... (265) E= ...They told us they would.. (266) J= Ther're going to ...They're
goin to uuhm... ... Well I happen to be involved in that that the uhhm asked I was told uuh it's going to be evacuated by July and then they're going to keep it for the workmen who would be building the estate here, then probably a (indistinct) then after two or three years. (267) D= How did you hear about that? (268) J= Well I happen to be involved with someone, one of the residents there on the uhm uuh housekeeper, was telling me that uuh those people would be leaving in July (269) D= Right (270) J= Next July (271) D= Right (272) J= This time next year, and were keeping it for the workmen because many of them would be from other parts of the country. (273) E= Well there's an example, we were in the planning and design group and we weren't told that, we're there in the group supposed to be working on it... (274) J= ... That's how I know about that... (275) C= The other problem you've got about (indistinct) if you've got workmen there how much you're cars make noise and various other things which is going to affect people who are gonna be there, they're the last one on the project... (E in background) ...we've gone back from 2008 to 2012 2014. (276) D= Oh (277) C= So it's uuhm (278) E= Living in a building site. (279) D= So you you you imagine that you will be living in a building site, for quite a long time. (280) C= Well it will be, I mean they did, it wasn't the last one but they
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did th exactly the same thing people should have been het up people should have been claiming for their peace and quiet... (281) D= When did you work out that you were going to be living on a building site? Uuh what was the process by which... (282) C= Well you'd have delivery lorries backwards and forwards, you had the workmen uhm, parking up their vehicles they've got to get to and from you can't expect them to be quiet as mice... (283) D= ...Right... (284) C= We've got other things which are (indistinct) traffic coming in and coming out you do (indistinct) you'll have cranes you'll have pilers... (285) D= OK I've got a particular agenda here, this sounds to me like you worked this out for yourselves. (286) E= No we got a phasing (287) D= Right OK (288) E= uuh plan, but that was changed when the last application was sent back, (289) D= Right (290) E= Places that were supposed to be knocked in 2007, it's different now, we don't really, we're not really sure. Could change again. (291) {452} (292) D= Right (293) J= They have bought some of the flats. (294) E= Yeah I believe some man sold a flat, but you see people who do that are losing out on their compensation. (295) J= the (indistinct) it was Sheila's own,the woman who runs the (indistinct) (296) E= Sheila
(297) J= Yeah the woman who runs the club for us,, and uuh she uhm sold hers last year. (298) E= Oh (299) J= She did, to the council. (300) E= Well she's goina lose her compensation. (301) J= She said uuh, they gave very good, well they gave her a price that she couldn't, I didn't ask her, but she gave, they gave her a price she couldn't refuse. (302) E= Well she's, well I mean she has lived her life, her children are all reared but Colin you're in a bit of a predicament aren't ye, trying to get a mortgage, to uhm she was able to sell that off and she can move away, but people like Colin... (303) J= ...Then they rented it back to her... (304) E= Ooh, (305) S= So she reverts back to a tenant. (306) E= Yeah (307) J= Yes she's a Tenant now. But when aah they rebuild it then she says if she's alive she hopes to get a flat here. (308) S= And did they target her directly? Is that something that they're doing to everyone? (309) C= Only certain people are allowed that, it's not open to everybody. It's not open to me or to you or anything, but disabled or aged people. (310) {465} (311) J= Yeah which she'd be and her husband be (indistinct). (312) C= They would be entitled to do that. (313) E= Isn't there some reason you can't get a mortgage for a council place over the 5th or 4th floor?
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(314) C= You can't get it over, if the building's more than five stories high then you cannot get a mortgage for it, (315) E= Even if you're only on the fourth say, (316) C= Doesn't matter cos you're in a building, that's what I pointed out to them, (317) E= And they're all above that? (318) C= There are some which are only four stories high, said to them I want one which is four stories high or I go on the ground, I am not going in a building which is five stories high. (319) E= Have you got any guarantee that you will get a... (320) C= I will make sure that I do not end up in a higher building. (321) E= Well you have to or you won't get a mortgage out. (322) {473} (323) J= Which part are you in then? (324) C= I'm in Marsh Drive. (325) J= Oh yeah then Sheila, she's in Marsh Drive. (326) C= Yeah, I can't get re mortgage. (327) J= (Indistinct) [1.] I think it is. (328) C= She's got uh some of Marsh Drive run four stories high, (329) J= Aah yes that's it, yeah yeah. (330) D= I think I'm going to set you free at this point. Thank you very much. (331) E= Oh that went quick. (332) S= (Laughs.) (333) BREAK IN RECORDING AS I TURN THE TAPE OFF, THEN I TURN IT ON AGAIN AS THEY LAUNCH INTO AN INTERESTING DISCUSSION:
(334) E= Well the council should be able to get money to re, even to rebuild what is here. It's just a money making thing. It's all for profit. (335) S= I'm not against it. (336) E= Oh well nobody's against it that being knocked and rebuilt, the over development people are against. (337) S= Uhm, well personally, from my point of view, I'm living in London and I know it's going to be overdeveloped and I know that it's a big city and I just want somewhere, kind of, if it's going to attract more people into the area, if it's going to bring the area up, if it's somewhere where my friends will say oh what d'you live in West Hendon, (E in background) that's like a real nice area... (338) F= I think that's what's gonna happen. (339) S= Well that's, from my point of view being... (340) F= Injecting 2000 people in this area means more work, (S+E object in background) you have to think it this way, (341) S= I just don't... (342) F= This is what I think, injecting more money to the area, that brings the work, more people is going to be in this area, more cosmopolitan as they explained it... (343) S= ...Yeah... (344) F= Yeah? So more shops, (345) E= No schools. (346) F= More schools. (347) E= NO schools. (348) S= The type of people who'll be living here... (F+E continue in background) ... won't need , there won't be as much much need for it because you'll have, you'll have
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single professional people, when they want to rear their families they'll probably move out to the countryside or something, that's how I see it but I don't that's (349) {492} (350) C= You're saying about... (351) F= You just raised the matter, I'm just looking at it as a business point of view... (352) S= ..uuhm... (353) F= There's more money gonna be in this area, so it's a good, generally it's a good positive thing. (354) I don't live in this area, just work. (355) E= Yeah. (356) C= The myth about creating uhm extra work for the people round here is a myth. It's a legal obligation if you put a firm here they've got workers which they're dispositioning moving around they get priority so if they fill up all the job vacancies with their already employed you don't get a look in. just because you live here doesn't mean to say that they actually have to give you a job. They can put out notices, they can get ... (357) F= ... There is no necessity that they give you a job, (358) C= Yeah, but they are gonna be more people around you, doing different things I'm talking about different shops. (359) S= But it does say on their website that there'll be plenty of uuh, what is it? There are many local people who would like to work locally, and young people for whom the development could provide a career start in some aspect of the construction industry. (360) C= Aah but there's (361) S= So only the people who live
here can go into the construction, they can't do anything else, (362) E= (indistinct) is gone. (363) C= You, you've hit the word could... (364) E= ...or maybe... (365) C= ... is not will, it's could. Could means if we can. (366) S= I find that quite insulting though, (367) E= (Laughs) (368) S= I do (also laughs.) (369) E= Lovell was supposed to be the builder here, he was supposed to create loads of jobs, and then as soon as they got the yes vote, Lovell was gone. That' another thing, where's your tape? (370) E+S= (laughs) (371) D= It's on. (372) E= It's not is it? (373) D= Yeah. (374) E= Oh (laughs.) (375) D= It's always the way you work, you say it's over and people start talking. (376) P= I just got the planning permission for this building you are sitting in, and I didn't havbe much of trouble,, with them. (377) D= Really. (378) E= No because it's from the Church down it won't be touched. (379) F= Yeh but they were, with this idea of having a place with this sort of business here. (380) E= Yeah. (381) S= Because that's what they want, the cafe culture and the.. (382) E= ...Well... (383) F= ...Yeah... (384) F= Because obviously you have
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to feed mentally and spiritually... (385) E= All your customers they're going to die of pollution. (386) F= They're gonna have more coffee shop this and that, otherwise to get an A3 license for a shop like that... (S breaks in) ... I tried it in Camden, it''s a nightmare. (387) S= ...When you applied for this, did you have to change the land use, did you have to change it to an A3 use? (388) F= Yes. (389) S= You did, so because normally there is lots of objections to that kind of thing, but they encourage that you're saying... (390) F= Yes. It was very easy, (391) E= Yeah. (392) F= If you wanted to do it in Camden you had to go to one of these firms, specifically applying for these things, and you pay them thousands of pounds. (393) S= ...Because Camden's. (394) F=...And I managed to get it myself. (395) F= It was very easy. I knew it, this part is not going to be affected, but there is the willingness. (396) E= Yeah. (397) F= With the council, that this area should be injected with more people, so they need more things. (398) S= And if you compare it with Camden... (399) F= ...Come back to your point, you are going to have more choices of where to sit, (400) S= Uuhm, (401) F= And enjoy. (402) {522} (403) J= Have they (indistinct) I was told, you know where Barclay's
bank used to be? (404) E=Yeah (405) J= At the corner, just... (406) E= Yeah.. (407) J= The barbers there and then the motor garage... (408) S= Next to the Church? (409) J= Next to the Church. And then Barclay's on the far side, (410) E= Yeah. (411) J= The bank there. (412) E= That's being knocked, (413) J= All down the (indistinct) (414) E= Up to the Petrol Station... (415) J= ...That's right, so that stands... (416) E= No that's that's all going. From the Church up is all going. (417) J= Yeah, that's what I mean, they're decided, that's what I call it. (418) E= Yeah. (419) J= And uuh, it'll (indistinct.) is it going to take in your place then. (420) E= Yeah. (421) J= And all down along there. (422) E= Yeah, the whole lot. (423) F= Sorry to disrupt everyone, I have to go now, thank you very much, good to see you all I got very good information. (424) J= Well there'll be plenty of work. (425) F= I never get a chance... (426) C=Did you work here, is this your gaff? (427) F= Sort of, (428) E= Sort of, your gaff! This is his trendy restaurant in West Hendon, well we have a name and all now, West Hendon place [referring to website printout] we
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didn't know that. (429) J= You'll have shirts to wash and suits to clean with so many people moving in. (430) S= It'll be city people getting the Thameslink into city and then... (431) C= Very refreshing. (432) E= They won't be able to pay their mortgages because they won't get a train to work. (433) (All laugh) (434) F= To get a mortgage first you have to get the banks to open. (435) E= Yeah. (436) F= Once you get them, (437) J= Yeah there's no bank here. (438) C= That's what tells you how wealthy the actual gaff is... (General noise.) ...Banks and charity shops. (439) F= you've got a point.
(440) E= Well, when it's all built you can't say is that you're gaff. (441) (S Laughs.) (442) J = I went to Mill Hill, seventeen years ago, fifteen years ago, that's the first thing struck me, every time a bank didn't, Mill Hill Broadway. (443) S= There's not even a cash machine here, along the Broadway, you have to go to Sainsbury's. (444) E= There's one in the pub. (445) (General Noise) (446) E= Some people are embarrassed, they have to have a drink before they go over to the cash machine. (447) J= Where, over here? (448) S= In the pub yeah. (449) (General Noise) (450) ENDS {545}
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Appendix 5 : A samp le o f public it y materia l.
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Appendix 6 : Letter from the MP
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Appendix 7 A rtic le in th e Barnet Times

(Downloaded from the Barnet Times website, July 2004)
'Don't ignore housing need'

Barnet Council has been accused of a failing to include enough affordable housing in its regeneration schemes. Speaking in the House of Commons (on April 28), Andrew Dismore, the Labour MP for Hendon, accused the Conservative led council of letting down tenants. He said: "Barnet Council is not interested in providing affordable homes. "There will be more homes for the wealthy people moving into the constituency, but little provision of housing for people who have grown up in the area and want to continue to live near their friends and relations. There are serious prospects of them being unable to do so, largely because of Barnet Council's housing policies." In particular, he referred to the planned developments in West Hendon and Grahame Park, and at the Ingliss barracks in Mill Hill and RAF East Camp in Colindale. Mr Dismore said the Government should issue strict guidelines on the number of private homes developers can build before they are obliged to provide social housing in outer London. For example, he pointed out that the Spur Road/Stonegrove development area in Edgware which currently has 600 homes, 485 of which are rented will have 1,350 new homes, but no extra affordable ones. Conservative councillor Brian Salinger, cabinet member for housing, denied the claim that the council was not interested in social housing. He said affordable housing was incorporated into the regeneration schemes in Cricklewood and RAF East Camp, where there are currently no homes at all. "We will meet the targets that are being set for us with developments in the pipeline," he said. He pointed out that the council's aim in regenerating the estates was to renovate existing homes. He said: "The basis of our regeneration is to replace the existing very substandard affordable housing with new homes with minimum amounts of public money literally a handful of millions of pounds out of a total budget of over 1billion. The balance comes from the sale of private sector housing. But that also covers infrastructure such as schools, hospitals, libraries and roads." 12:29pm Wednesday 5th May 2004 By Sophie Kummer
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Rebuilding The Plot

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Rebuildi ng the Plot: Participation in Regeneration?

Daniel Taghioff, MA Anthropology of Media, School of Oriental and African Studies

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