Tottenham after the riots: The chimera of community and the property-led regeneration of ‘broken Britain’

Abstract

David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ agenda is best understood in terms of ideological and policy continuities with earlier Conservative and New Labour governments. But where previous post-1979 governments have sought to renegotiate the role of the state mostly through privatisations and marketisations of public services, the ‘Big Society’ agenda also proposed the replacement of the state by individual voluntarism and community enterprise. The accompanying political narrative portrays an atomised ‘broken Britain’ but at the same time insists that untapped community spirit can take the place of the state. This article examines the disjuncture between Big Society narratives and urban policy responses to the 2011 Tottenham riots. By comparison with previous local regeneration initiatives in Tottenham there was very little emphasis on community development. Instead explicit goals of gentrification in the Plan for Tottenham echo Thatcher-era approaches to ‘place shaping’ and exemplify a wider re-emphasis on property-led regeneration.

Reclaiming the everyday: the situational dynamics of the 2011 London Riots

“…Although there are some continuing echoes of 2011 (Peacock, 2014;Millington, 2016), more research is needed to see how widespread they are. And, meanwhile, the main effect of the riots has been, just as Gilroy (2013) predicted, a neoliberal, property-led regeneration scheme for Tottenham (Dillon and Fanning, 2015).…”

‘It’s just a Trojan horse for gentrification’: austerity and stadium-led regeneration

“…Whilst Brown (2008) argued that gentrification problems can be avoided with partnerships between the development and key stakeholders such as local government and community groups, the austerity measures advanced by the Comprehensive Spending Review in 2010 and the funding cuts to regeneration schemes have led to local authorities being more reliant on private sector developers in their regeneration efforts. Development is seen as 'the only game in town' as it is a sphere in which local authorities continue to exercise some leverage to pursue their strategic regeneration aims (Dillon and Fanning, 2015).…”

“…Much of High Road West is adjacent to the new stadium now being built. It has been argued that in comparison with previous local regeneration initiatives in Tottenham, after the 2011 riots there has been very little emphasis on community development in the urban policy initiatives proposed (Dillon and Fanning, 2015) Many people in the local community felt disengaged with the council's approach to the regeneration proposals due to a perceived lack of genuine consultation with decisions made during the process (discussed below). This reflected the perceived lack of salience of these individuals, arguably viewed as latent stakeholders, possessing only the relational attribute of legitimacy by the focal organisations These decisions included those related to: demolition of homes and businesses linked to the building of the new walkway; to reduce Tottenham Hotspur FC's Section 106 community infrastructure payments and release it from a 50 per cent affordable housing requirement for property built on the existing football ground, and overall lack of benefits for the existing community.…”

“…A number of authors have focused on the notion of 'austerity urbanism' (Peck, 2012;Watt and Minton, 2016), arguing that austerity measures have impacted disproportionately on the urban environment (Meegan et al, 2014). Related to this, some have considered that the economics of austerity (Dillon and Fanning, 2015;Pugalis, 2016) have been used as a "Trojan horse for an accelerating neo-liberal drive towards privatisation and marketization", particularly in the context of urban regeneration (Glynn, 2006: 3, quoted in Pugalis, 2016). In the UK, this is evident through central government funding cuts to regeneration schemes, the replacement of Regional Development Agencies with Local Enterprise Partnerships that came out of the Localism Act in 2011 (Pugalis and McGuiness, 2013), and the inability of local government to borrow the required financial resources, thus opening up the space for enhanced private sector involvement in regeneration.…”

“…firstly, a central government change in policy that legitimated economic concerns above anything else (Pugalis, 2016); secondly, a greater reliance by local authorities on private developers to assist with regeneration; and thirdly, a resulting loss of local accountability with a retreat from efforts to engage communities in urban renewal (Dillon and Fanning, 2015).…”