Last June, at the Asta Community Hub, Architecture Sans Frontiéres-UK (www.asf-uk.org) along with TELCO, Citizens UK(www.citizensuk.org) and RDCV (www.rdcv.org.uk) hosted a community based design workshop. The event was a supported by the London Festival of Architecture.
The workshop looked at the current state of North Woolwich and Silvertown and how the community might meaningfully harness the latent qualities of heritage and culture, coupled with the challenge of issues of deprivation and decline in the area via the creation of their own positive and just plan for the neighbourhood.
Citizens UK explained their work in LB Newham in supporting local communities and in particular the creation of community land trusts that offer a route to creating truly affordable housing for all income groups.
The scope of the workshop formed a useful introduction and networking event on how communities can best seek to gain proper stakeholder status in the development planning process. It is hoped that the NW+ST Neighbourhood Forum can build on the workshop as the Neighbourhood Plan starts to be developed with the community over the coming year.
