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Application form
Please make sure you have read all the notes carefully before you start to fill in the application form. This application form can either be completed by hand or electronically - it is available on the Planning homepage at www.scotland.gov.uk/planning. Please complete all five sections. The deadline for submitting applications is 27 August 2008. An acknowledgement letter will be sent to the person who has completed this form.
1 Please provide a name and contact details of the lead organisation responsible for this work.
Name | Mike Galloway |
Job title | Director of Planning and Transportation |
Organisation | Dundee City Council |
Address | Floor 15, Tayside House, Crichton Street, Dundee, DD1 3RB |
Telephone | 01382 4336210 |
Fax | |
Email | mike.galloway@dundeecity.gov.uk |
2 If this is a joint application, please list the other partners who had a key role. You should also inform your partners that you are nominating the project for an award.
1 Communities Scotland | 2 Stobswell Forum |
3 NHS Tayside | 4 Robert Turley Associates |
5 | 6 |
3 Tick one nomination category
4 Title of entry | The Stobswell Neighbourhood Physical Regeneration Project |
Please complete the form on the following pages by providing a brief summary of the piece of work you have entered. You must also conclude with a key reason as to why you think this work merits an Award. Only the two A4 pages supplied here can be used and your text must fit within the boxes. The font size should be no less than 12pt.
The judging criteria are set out below. Please tick only the key criteria relevant to your entry:
You must describe how the project relates to the criteria which you have ticked.
Description of project
The socio-economic challenges affecting Dundee city during the 1990's impacted negatively on the Victorian neighbourhood of Stobswell. Once a popular choice enabling home-buyers to get on the property ladder but the late 1990's Stobswell had become an area of 'last resort'. The 7-year Stobswell Project has recreated an attractive urban living environment where through partnership mechanisms and the highest quality of investments the residential and commercial needs ofthe area have been improved and where new developments have given greater dwelling choice, neighbourhood confidence and pride enhancing and to sustain Stobswell as an attractive place to live in the 21st Century. The project is a model for processes and products required to redress the needs of other regeneration areas within Dundee. |
Describe the background to the project
Stobswell is a Victorian neighbourhood 1.5 miles from Dundee city centre and has a population of approximately 4,000 residents. The area is formed by predominantly late Victorian tenement housing, a district shopping centre and a public park. However, this once popular area had declined in popularity due to a culmination of factors: citywide demographic shifts as council-owned housing estates were demolished; general city wide population decline; derelict property that had been acquired for unrealised roads proposals;historically limited investment by both the public and private sectors and generally the negative perceptions as a place to live all impacted in Stobswell. The Dundee Partnership wished to arrest this decline. |
What are the aims and objectives of the project?
Recreating Stobswell as an attractive place to live and work by forming a strong partnership approach with key stakeholders to direct investment through a projects action plan. The proximity of Stobswell to the city centre, the resilient core of a district shopping street, a Joseph Paxton public park, a legacy of tenement streets providing a strong urban identity were the basic bones of a neighbourhood infrastructure but the area needed sympathetic intervention for new development proposals to removing blighting dereliction, restoring area quality and adding 21st cent. solutions to a Victorian built environment . A willingness by some of the residents who formed into the Stobswell Forum was an early signal that developing positive change, recreating Stobswell as a 'better place', may indeed be achievable. |
Over what timescale has the project been developed?
In 2001 members of the Dundee Partnership, an alliance between Dundee City Council, NHS Tayside, Scottish Enterprise Tayside, Tayside Police and Communities Scotland commissioned Robert Turley Associates to prepare a Framework Report of proposals to arrest the decline of Stobswell, and as a result of this focus the 2002 Development Plan identified Stobswell as a Housing Investment Focus Area to increase area quality and dwelling choice. The Turley Framework and area planning focus provided a, now implemented, Stobswell Action Plan with all of the significant physical regeneration projects completed. A hand-over strategy is in preparation to consolidate project progress and to ensure long-term sustainability of the area and to continue with a 'lighter-touch' of neigbourhood management. |
Explain the process and action taken
The Action Plan comprised physical and social proposals requiring clear partnering routes with the communities of Stobswell in order to develop the detail of the plan. The Dundee Partnership formed a Stobswell Steering Group of officers to implement the Action Plan in conjunction with the Stobswell Forum agreeing project engagement, consultation, development and implementation. The Action Plan focused on a core of built environment and social projects aimed to sympathetically and significantly enhance the liveability of the area. Such project include refurbished tenement streetscapes, creating new car parks, establishing a social enterprise for tenement management, introducing a diversity of tenures, site acquisitions and assembly, grant aiding development and approved promotional site briefs etc. |
Explain the role of the key partners
The Stobswell Partnership Board comprising local councillors, senior officers from the Dundee Partnership, local residents and landlords meets quarterly to ensure resources are targeted effectively, to monitor progress and to discuss any emerging issues. The Steering Group comprises the vice-chair of the Stobswell Forum, City Council Officers, NHS Tayside, Communities Scotland and Tayside Police meeting every two months to review project progress and to develop partnering projects addressing emerging issues. The Stobswell Forum is a neighbourhood representative structure which has existed since 2002 and provides an influential local forum for local issues. Forum membership on the Partnership Board and the Steering Group enables expedient and clear methods of communication and involvement. |
What results were achieved?
Funding in excess of £8m from a variety of local national and european sources directed within the Stobswell area has enabled very high quality streetscape infrastructure, commercial facade enhancements and the restoration of Baxter Park etc. Planning approval has been given for 125 social rented dwellings and 260 private dwellings, much of which is complete or on site. Formation of the 'Clean Close Company' as a social enterprise and the creation of the Hillcrest Information and advice centre providing a multi-agency on-stop shop. Stobswell is now a neighbourhood attracts private investment and has generated strong feelings of community pride all of which should ensure long-term sustainability of the area if social and economic forces dramatically fluctuate again. Dundee's housing market values have generally risen in the last three year period and those in Stobswell are no exception. Within such a dramatic market it is impossible to solely attribute the rise in property values within Stobswell to the regeneration project, however the projects should ensure long-term sustainability of the area should the property market dramatically fluctuate again. |
In summary, why does this piece of work merit an Award?
The Stobswell Project provides a model for local authority, partner agencies and local people working together to regenerate a run-down innercity tenemental area. The organisation of the Partnership Board, the Steering Group and the Community Forum ensure that there are effective lines of communication and the Stobswell Action Plan has provided a series of projects focusing on the socio-economic and environmental needs of the area. This process has used the legislative powers, professional abilities and community involvement available through partnership. The Stobswell Action Plan Projects have recreated an attractive environment where the existing residential and commercial needs have been improved and where new development has given greater dwelling choice, certainty and confidence. |
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