People ask me for examples of good regeneration projects in the UK and I always cite Paddington Waterside (pictured left). Of course I am disgracefully biased, having invented the regeneration partnership there, and led it for six years.
The purist lobby within BURA would (and do) say that Paddington isn't strictly a regeneration project and is more properly defined as a property development project.
But I would argue that: the site had been blighted for decades (and had, you will remember, completely done for Trafalgar House); British Waterways had sold the land there three times (nice work if you can get it Mr Bensted); and - crucially - we would never have got the development away and attracted the level of private sector investment it eventually did, even in a rising market, had it not been for the fact that we firmly adopted a partnership approach, predicated on best practice in urban generation.
