The Planner(21)

He walked through it all, he saw through it all. The landscape was provisional and disposable, a thawing cacophony, and it wasn’t clear if the city was unravelling in front of him, or being ambitiously rebuilt. That was the thing about economic crashes – they were indistinguishable from economic booms. Whatever the circumstances and financial constraints, whoever the developer or planning authority, the style was always the same: neo-apocalyptic, for every building was now made on the basis that the world was about to end, that however much it may have cost, however technologically innovative and courageous, it would need to be pulled down in the next business cycle.

The architects had got particularly carried away this time. Over-excited by the money from Asia and their new software packages, they had designed impossible shapes with computer-generated angles. Then along had come the civil engineers, the people who actually knew what they were doing, with their powerful machines and smart materials and deadly confidence, even when given the battiest of architectural plans. And the towers that they made soared above him, greedily penetrating the heavens, interfering with weather systems, communicating with satellites, oblivious to the fact that the ones who had granted planning permission all lived on earth.

Head bowed, still weighed down by the books but walking faster than ever, he continued past Moorgate. There were no skyscrapers in Nottingham, and probably not many book launches either, but maybe that was a good thing. The City, the whole of London, had detached itself from the rest of the country, and become instead a global capital for culture and commerce, for vanity and greed. You could only succeed here if you could forget everything you’d ever learnt in England. But he wasn’t like Felix or Alice: he was essentially a provincial, with provincial aspirations and fears.

Another twenty minutes later and at last he came to the river, to the bridge, where London opened up to him and became three-dimensional. There was physical geography instead of all the other kinds. The entire wealth of the city had once been based on the waterway below, but now it was without economic significance, and humans had lost interest in it. Meanwhile, on the south side of the river, the new towers were coming, taller than ever, rising in clumps above the train stations, fracturing the skyline and heralding a new era of prosperity and ruin. He pulled out his phone. There was a text from Alice. It had taken an hour, but she had sent one: ‘I love Felicity. She’s fab. U at a book launch?!’

He stopped along the bridge and looked down into the darkness. If he smoked, he would have lit a cigarette at this point, but he was far too old to take it up now, and so instead he had little option but to send another text to Alice: ‘She seemed very nice and is big fan of yours too. Hope all is good. Fancy going for a drink?’

This time, the answer was almost immediate. ‘How nice. V busy at the moment in work + life. Will email you all soon to arrange something.’

So that was that – clearly she didn’t want to meet. She was v busy and, he should have guessed this, not just with work. But it had never been the plan to go back out with Alice. He crossed the bridge, and went over the water to the train station.





5

9 February

Consultation and involvement activities should also seek to empower communities and neighbourhoods.

– The London Plan, Section 2.64



‘Of course, the reason I’m still in this job is because of all the glamorous locations,’ said Rachel.

It was a Saturday morning, and James was doing something that had to be taken seriously, but wasn’t terribly important. He was consulting the public. It was something he had done many times before. For much of the wet summer and sullen autumn, he had spent his Tuesday evenings, his Thursday afternoons and not-particularly-precious Saturday mornings trying to meet the eyes of his fellow citizens, to ascertain the thoughts and feelings of the people he was supposed to be helping.

And this particular project really was going to help them. He had worked on it long enough to be certain. The masterplan for Sunbury Square would result in thirty new houses and 250 flats spread across six low-rise blocks, all compliant with energy-­efficiency best-practice guidelines, and of which 35 per cent would be affordable for low-income families and a further 10 per cent reserved for designated key workers in the borough’s health and education sectors. There would be eight retail units, ranging in size from 500 to 2,000 square feet, a nursery and new playground. Two existing doctors’ surgeries would be merged into an improved health centre with paediatric facilities, and there would be a piece of public art commissioned by the Arts Council.