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other options for City waste register to vote employment in the Square Mile N E W S A N D K E Y I S S U E S F O R T H E C I T Y O F L O N D O N City elections July 2006 Issue no 57
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City elections
register to voteemployment in the Square Mile
training for 21st century needs
cityviewIssue no 57 N E W S A N D K E Y I S S U E S F O R T H E C I T Y O F L O N D O N July 2006
other options for City waste
space is running out
C I T Y V I E W2
cityviewmagazineWelcome to cityviewmagazine
C O N T E N T S
C I T Y I N F R A S T R U C T U R E
WiFi while you work 3
T H E I N T E R V I E W
ambitious range of responsibilities 4
C I T Y W O R K E R S
feedback forum 6
C I T Y E L E C T I O N S
register your interest 7
C I T Y E N V I R O N M E N T
what a load of rubbish 8
E C O N O M I C D E V E L O P M E N T
skills for the future 10
A R T S F O C U S
history gets a facelift 12visionary living 14
R E T A I L D E V E L O P M E N T
shoppers’ paradise 15
...and finally 16
cityview is the magazine of the City ofLondon Corporation, provider of localgovernment services for the Square Mile.
Unless otherwise stated in individualfeatures, more information on both themagazine and online articles is availablefrom the Public Relations Office below.
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MAILING ENQUIRIES
cityviewmagazine
PO Box 3014,
Romford
Essex RM3 0AS
01708 37 35 32
www.box3014.co.uk
C I T Y V I E W 3
C I T Y I N F R A S T R U C T U R E
WiFi while you work
July
Cemetery celebration
150th anniversary marked by
August Open Day
Mansion House message
Lord Mayor pushes the need for
competitiveness
June
Retail therapy
Have your say on retail future
of Cheapside
Mapping out the future
City street maps get a face-lift
May
Finance for the future
Report shows challenges facing
EU finance and insurance sectors
Start me up
New project enables unemployed
to set up own business
April
Top marks
City pubs rewarded for putting
safety first
Have your say
Call for residents to represent
their community
The Goldsmiths’ Company
online directory can help find that
special piece of jewellery.
020 7606 7010
www.whoswhoingoldandsilver.com
The Worshipful Company of
Framework Knitters organised
the 2006 Inter-Livery Sail Day
on Rutland Water in July.
01451 821898
Members of the Glovers’
Company visited its adopted ship
HMS Cumberland and presented its
captain with a pair of ceremonial
gauntlets. 020 7622 2167
www.thegloverscompany.org
The Guild of Air Pilots and Air
Navigators will host The Sir
Frederick Timms Memorial Lecture
on Wednesday 27 September.
Sir Ralph Robins, former CEO of
Rolls Royce, will be guest speaker.
020 7404 4032 [email protected]
www.gapan.org
O N L I N E
cityviewonline O N L I N E
liverylivedigest
www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/cityview
www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/liverylive
More information on the
City’s WiFi network
0207 332 1910
www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/wifi
From July anyone wanting to access internet
applications can do so ‘on the move’ when
wireless networking begins to be introduced to
the Square Mile.
The City of London Corporation and The Cloud –
Europe’s leading WiFi network operator – have
partnered to give users greater freedom when
accessing the internet,providing businesses in the
Square Mile with the ability to securely extend their
corporate IT infrastructure using WiFi.
This initiative is one of the most advanced city-
based WiFi deployments in the world, and will
reinforce the Square Mile’s status as a
technologically advanced world financial business
centre. This technology means that City workers,
residents and visitors will be able to use wireless
broadband to work more effectively.Business
people can also stay in touch with their office
systems using hand-held and laptop devices while
not in their offices.
The Cloud will use state of the art technology,
installed on street furniture such as lamp posts and
street signs,allowing those with WiFi enabled
devices to access the internet in streets and in
open spaces (including a trial project at several
of the City’s resident estates offices),with 95%
outdoor coverage across the Square Mile within
six months.
Users will be able to access
■ voice-over internet protocol
■ video tele-conferencing
■ streaming media
■ remote user services.
Users will still need deals with internet service
providers.Service providers that will sit on the
network include Vonage,Skype,O2,BT
Openzone,Boingo, IPASS and Nintendo.
C I T Y V I E W4
Partnership is a word that comes naturally
to Mary Reilly. It has been a central theme of
her career at Deloitte, as chair of the London
Regional Council of the CBI and, now, as
chair of the London Development Agency.
The LDA is one of the most important, but
least understood, players on the London
economic scene.
Described as “The Mayor’s Agency for Business and
Jobs”, the LDA has a budget of about £400m a year
and controls one of the largest landholdings in the
capital.Within its responsibilities, the Mayor’s
strategy and its own corporate plan, the LDA works
around four basic themes – investing in places and
infrastructure; investing in people by reducing
barriers to employment and encouraging training;
investing in enterprise by supporting and helping
new businesses;and investing in the marketing and
the promotion of London as “the principal UK
gateway for tourism,education and investment”.
Faced with this ambitious range of responsibilities,
Mary Reilly freely admits that the LDA not only has to
be selective where it intervenes but also has to work
with others,whether central government,London
boroughs or the private and voluntary sectors –
hence the stress on partnership. Its apparently
big budget is, she says,merely a “drop in the ocean
in London”.Talking in her riverside office in
St Katherine’s Dock, she says that one of the LDA’s
main roles is as a strategic leader working with
partners to leverage more money.
The LDA’s highest profile involvement is with the
2012 London Olympics.The agency already owns a
lot of land in the area and is assembling more under a
compulsory purchase order.She hopes that legal
procedures will be completed by late summer
so that firms on the site can be relocated,with
suitable compensation.
The Olympics is absorbing a large slice of the LDA’s
budget.Originally, the agency’s board decided that
no more than an average of 25 per cent should go
toward it.But more is needed to back regeneration
projects and the average is expected to be around
32 per cent over the life of the development.
The LDA is not just concerned with physical
regeneration or what happens up to 2012. It has
been closely involved in helping smaller businesses
and training workers, locally and throughout
London, to gain contracts and jobs to do with the
Olympics.Moreover,Mary Reilly is very keen on
“legacy”,encouraging associated development
which will last beyond 2012.Her vision for the area
is a tourist destination,but also on other projects
such as catering,a hospital and new commerce.
The Olympic Village will be used to provide good
quality affordable housing,an important objective for
the LDA.
The LDA’s other major project is the Thames
Gateway.This is a huge scheme which involves
south-east and east of England development
agencies,central government and affected boroughs.
She looks to big City
institutions and financial
services to do more...
to promote training and
skills improvement.
T H E I N T E R V I E W
Peter Riddell of The Times talks to Mary Reilly, Chair of the London Development Agency
ambitious range
of responsibilities
C I T Y V I E W 5
The Mayor’s plans assume that the main growth of
London will be eastwards, in part on LDA-owned
brownfield sites.Mary Reilly talks of “massive
opportunity”with the building not only of 50,000
homes,but also of associated infrastructure,and
particularly transport links.She stresses her close co-
operation with Transport for London (TfL).One of
the LDA’s aims is to link the creation and expansion
of business with a skilled workforce on the doorstep
so as to reduce pressures on an already stretched
transport system.
But this is not just a physical project. She emphasises
the right mix of jobs,which brings in the LDA’s other
roles of investing in people and in enterprise,as well
as promoting London.She gives the example of
Chinese investors who are interested in design and
high technology manufacturing.
Mary Reilly points out that,despite these two large
developments, the agency is involved throughout
London. It has a role in Woolwich, (where 22 listed
buildings have been refurbished into industrial units
and office space),and around the new Wembley
stadium (not only working with TfL but also with
local further education colleges to raise skills and
training levels to encourage an expansion of local
businesses in a deprived area).The LDA is also a
major player in the redevelopment of Park Royal in
west London,at the massive King’s Cross project, at
revamping the sports facilities at the rundown
Crystal Palace site and around the City’s fringes.
Many of its other activities are London wide:
particularly working with boroughs and employers
to reduce barriers to employment and promote
diversity among disabled,older people and ethnic
minorities.This is notably via skills training,where
Mary Reilly is keen to involve employers, large and
small,more.One such project of which she is very
proud is providing £1m to the British Library to
make its vast intellectual property library of patents
more accessible – of great help to small and medium
sized businesses.
Another route is by backing the child care provision.
In each case, the LDA itself does not deliver the
service but helps others do so.The agency has also
been helping new businesses by directing them to
where they can find advice on, say,VAT registration
and other business links.
With her own background at Deloitte,Mary Reilly
says she is a “tremendous admirer”of the City and of
the City of London Corporation’s role in helping a lot
of projects on the fringe which overlap with the
LDA’s work.She looks to big City institutions and
financial services to do more to work with the
capital’s many universities and further education
colleges to promote training and skills improvement.
But given this diversity,how should the work of the
LDA be judged? Mary Reilly says that, for her, the key
benchmark is improving the quality of life for most
Londoners – and making a difference in job creation
and promoting diversity.This is apart from the formal
targets under the Mayor’s strategy and its own
corporate plan.The LDA has met most of its targets,
which, she says,means that the targets should
perhaps be set higher.
The LDA will practice what it preaches in September
by moving across the river to an area of regeneration
in Southwark.The agency, she says, is leading by
example by working with developers to install the
latest renewable energy technology into its Palestra
building fulfilling two of its aims of regeneration and
promoting renewable energy.
Peter Riddell is Chief Political
Commentator of The Times
C I T Y V I E W6
C I T Y W O R K E R S
feedback forum■ Workers feel safe in the City,although one in three
say they are very worried about terrorism – this
figure is,perhaps not surprisingly,up from last year
■ Almost nine in ten workers express satisfaction
with the City as a place to work
■ Accessibility to and from the City by public
transport is a primary consideration for workers
when deciding to work here
■ Workers think that bus services to and from the
City have improved over the past three years
■ But,workers would like to see more done to make
footways and highways friendlier to pedestrians
and cyclists - even if this is at the expense of road
space and other traffic
■ Two in five workers are happy with the
opportunities they get to express their views
on services in the City,such as street cleaning
and policing.
The City Police will take these views on board as it
develops its approach to tackling crime and anti-
social behaviour in the Square Mile for the future.
The views on planning and transportation
will also help guide decisions on development,
transport and the environment in the area over
the next 10 years. In fact, since the survey,more
than 60 panel members have been invited to take
part in discussions about the City’s new long-term
plan for the Square Mile called the Local
Development Framework.
Every day the City of London Corporation
works to provide the highest quality services
for the Square Mile. But it can only do this if it
knows what people think about the way it
serves the City as a whole.
It’s no surprise therefore that consultation forms a
major part of the City’s work.There are a series of
consultation meetings and fora throughout the year
for people to express their views,with the latest
residents meetings having been held in June.March
saw the City gauging the view of another key
stakeholder group – City workers.
The City Workers Consultation Panel is vital to the
City.More than 300,000 workers come into the
Square Mile,Monday to Friday,and help keep it at the
forefront of business.With 1,200 workers on the
panel, representing a cross-section of people in
terms of age,ethnicity and gender, the panel is an
important way in which the City of London and City
Police understand the needs and priorities
of workers.
The key findings from the latest survey
conducted with the panel were that
■ There is a high level of satisfaction
among workers with the City Police,and
they feel crime levels are decreasing
More than 1,000
workers from across
the City take part
in the panel.
For more information or to join
020 7332 1403
For a full copy of the
survey report, visit
www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/consultation
C I T Y V I E W 7
C I T Y E L E C T I O N S
register your interest
‘If you value it – register to vote for it’. That’s
the slogan the City of London Corporation will be
using when it begins its annual electoral registration
canvass in August.
As in previous years, the focus will be on getting
newly qualified firms to register to vote in City
elections and getting residents and firms already
registered to register again.
But this year there will also be a push to get
those firms already signed up to use their full voting
entitlement.
The City of London devotes a lot of time and effort
into the canvass because it wants to ensure that it
accurately represents the interests of the Square
Mile. Opening up the voting system to businesses
was seen as the best way to achieve this – reflecting
the makeup of the City (about 8,000 residents to more
than 300,000 workers) – and a Parliamentary Act was
passed in 2002 to allow the voting franchise to be
widened. Residents were always, and continue to be,
automatically eligible to vote but this act allowed for
wider representation among business.
Michael Snyder, Chairman of the Policy & Resources
Committee, believes that a lot has been achieved
since then but “We must not be complacent. We have
had a good response to registration since the new
system was introduced but we can’t rest on our
laurels. The City wants to be able to show that people
have appreciated being able to have more of a say.
“Like the Square Mile itself, the City of London
Corporation can’t take its position for granted. When
people register to vote, even if there aren’t full
elections for several years, it means that they can still
influence how the City is run through Aldermanic and
By-elections and by contacting their Ward Members.”
More than 62% of eligible firms have already
registered to vote and of that figure 77% of the
possible total number of voters has been appointed.
But the City is keen that those numbers get as close
to 100% (for both firms and voters) as it can. It will be
launching a communications programme from
August targeting Square Mile firms to remind them
to return their registration forms and wherever
possible to use their full voting entitlement.
It is also looking at ways it can reward people for
registering early or for using their full voting
entitlement.
Registration forms will be sent out in
August but anyone who feels their company could be
missing out on its full voting entitlement can visit the
City’s website for more details or call the Electoral
Registration Office.
More information
0800 587 5537
www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/voting
C I T Y V I E W8
It’s hard to avoid the issue of waste at the
moment. Posters, adverts and leaflets are
urging people to reduce, reuse or recycle.
There’s been London Sustainability Week,
World Environment Day and television
programmes such as It’s Not Easy Being Green.
With all this evidence, few would argue against
the case that we produce far too much waste or
that available space for disposal is fast
disappearing.
London produces 17m tonnes of waste per year.
Each borough,and the UK as a whole,has to meet
recycling targets set out in the Government’s Waste
Strategy 2000.These include recycling or
composting 30% of household waste by 2010.
But as this is for households only – there are no
government-set targets for business waste reduction
as yet – it doesn’t address the Square Mile’s
particular issues.
As in so many cases, the City of London Corporation
is different when it comes to waste.The Square Mile
produces about 45,000 tonnes per year.This figure is
much less than other London boroughs,because of
its small size,but in a reversal of the usual situation,
commercial waste accounts for 91% or 41,000
tonnes of its waste.
All waste collected by the City is taken to the
Walbrook Wharf riverside waste transfer station.
Upgraded in 1995 at a cost of £4.5m, it has become
one of the most modern such stations in the South
East.The waste is then transferred via barge to a
landfill site in Essex and by using the river avoids
more than 10,000 lorry movements each year.
But the current landfill site is due to close at the end
of December 2007.So while the City is looking at
different options for the years to follow, including
the new energy-from-waste incinerator due to be
built at Belvedere, the pressure is also on to
encourage businesses to reduce their own waste as
much as possible.
Over the years, the City of London Corporation has
become a ‘one stop shop’ for waste removal and
advice. It now handles
■ general waste
■ recycling
■ hazardous waste
■ gives advice on managing and reducing waste.
■ and will soon introduce confidential waste.
Confidential waste will be a new service which will
involve taking away and shredding companies’
confidential material.This has been introduced ‘by
C I T Y E N V I R O N M E N T
what a load of rubbish
City’s waste
90.5% (41,000 tonnes)
commercial
6.6% (2,950 tonnes)
household
2.9% (1,310 tonnes)
street cleansing
public demand’and also reflects companies’general
preference of having a single service provider –
the City’s flexibility allowing it to retain its
customer base.
The City is also the first local authority to recycle the
material it picks up in street sweeping – whether it is
litter, through manual sweeping,or grit and aggregate,
through mechanical sweeping,which can then be re-
used in new streetworks.
Another major initiative has been the introduction of
a single bin solution for firms’recycling which the
City collects and then sorts out into different
‘streams’ for recycling.Since the landfill tax was
further increased in April, it now works out cheaper
for companies to use the City’s all-in-one recycling
service than to dispose of material as general waste. It
can also save companies valuable time and
demonstrate their commitment to recycling without
major cost.To prove how serious the City views
waste management, two companies have been taken
to court and been given substantial fines for littering
the highway.
In terms of advice, the City’s Cleansing team are
experts in the field.The Clean City Awards team
operate like a free consultancy and give impartial
guidance to businesses.Launched in 1994, the
scheme encourages and rewards firms, large and
small, that can demonstrate they have good waste
management practices and comply with legislation.
More than 1,200 sites representing over 800
companies are registered to take part.
The team also works with other organisations to
promote environmental issues and effective waste
management.These include Envirowise –offering
businesses free, independent advice and support on
ways to increase profits,minimise waste and reduce
environmental impact;Wrap – creating efficient
markets for recycled materials and products,while
removing barriers to waste minimisation,re-use and
recycling;and London Remade –promoting business
recycling and green procurement.
Above all, the team is keen to stress how easy it is for
companies to reduce waste and how little it can cost
in terms of money or effort.And if Square Mile
businesses are to make a real difference in cutting
down on their waste then the City of London’s
Cleansing team may be their best port of call.
C I T Y V I E W 9
49.2
% p
ap
er a
nd
card
16.7
% p
utre
scib
les (fo
od
etc
)
12.9
% g
lass
11.5
% p
lastic
5.2
% m
isc.
2.5
% fin
es (m
ixe
d p
artic
les)
2%
meta
l
45,260 tonnes of which:
1 Set printers and photocopiers to print both sides
of paper. If all City businesses did this then theoretically
almost 25% of waste could be reduced
2 Avoid unnecessary printing of emails
3 Use re-usable items rather than disposable,
eg china cups, metal cutlery, propelling pencils
and refillable pens.
4 Collect and recycle old toner cartridges and
mobile phones
5 Recycling aluminium cans saves 95% of the
energy needed to make a new one
6 Switch to using rechargeable batteries
7 Turn any scrap paper into notepads
8 Avoid over-packaged goods. Speak to suppliers to
see if they will take packing waste back
9 Buy goods made from recycled content
10 Distribute and file documents electronically to
save on paper usage
TOP TIPS FOR WASTEREDUCTION
More information
020 7606 3110
www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/recycling
C I T Y V I E W10
Readers of The City News Monitor e-newsletter
may have seen a story in May on the results of
a survey of London companies which
highlighted the lack of suitably qualified or
skilled recruits available. The survey revealed
that this issue has overtaken transport as
London firms’ number one concern.
The City of London Corporation is committed to
making sure that the Square Mile has everything it
needs to flourish.Michael Snyder, the City’s
Chairman of Policy & Resources,believes that the
area will only continue to prosper “if its people
continue to be equipped with the best and most up
to date skills.City businesses need to ensure they can
attract and retain the best staff, able to meet the
complex skill needs of the 21st century.”
As part of this commitment and with one eye on its
neighbouring boroughs in the City fringe (the
boroughs of Camden, Islington,Hackney,Lambeth,
Southwark,Tower Hamlets and Westminster), the
City’s Economic Development Office (EDO) is keen
to contribute to meeting the City’s skills needs by
ensuring routes into City-type work are promoted to
local residents and that perceived barriers to
working in the Square Mile are broken down.
Through various initiatives and partnerships, it has
been ensuring that the City fringe has a pool of
available and appropriately skilled people upon
which City businesses can draw.
One example is The City Business Traineeship
Programme - a work placement programme that links
‘A’ level leavers from the City fringe with placements
of between 6-13 weeks in Square Mile companies. It
focuses on typical City jobs such as financial services,
business administration, insurance, law and
recruitment.Last year,27 companies took part.
This is not a ‘coffee-making’ type of work placement -
trainees are paid at the going rate for a variety of tasks
that help the smooth running of the
company.Most placements centre on
‘high flyers’ - A*,A and B grade students -
although companies can offer placements
to students with Bs and Cs if this is more
appropriate.
Trainees are invited to register their
details and preferences as to their
preferred type of placement.They also
attend workshops on CV preparation and interview
technique.Potential candidates are shortlisted by the
Brokerage Citylink,which runs the scheme on the
City’s behalf,before being referred to the company
for interview.Last year,75 students gained
placements this way.The achievements of
participating trainees and companies are recognised
at an annual celebration event.Last year UBS (Sean
Taylor) and Royal Bank of Canada (Gareth Hughes)
won the awards of Employer of the Year and
Employer Newcomer of the Year respectively.
Companies interested can contact the Brokerage on
the details opposite.
The City is also piloting a programme for larger
groups of younger students called Careers Open
House.This allows groups of up to 50 students aged
14-15 to visit a large City firm,giving a taster of a City
environment to young people who more often than
not do not have any links to the Square Mile.The
visits show them the reality of working for such
C I T Y V I E W10
E C O N O M I C D E V E L O P M E N T
skills for the future
companies,give them an overview of the variety of
careers on offer and let them know the routes and
qualifications needed.Following a presentation on
the Square Mile, its history and types of businesses,
students are taken on a tour of the host company.
They are shown a wide variety of environments,
such as personnel, legal,operations, the trading floor
mail room and security desk.
Pilot sessions are being delivered by Inspire!, the
Education Business Partnership for Hackney,hosted
by UBS,and feedback has been very positive.61% of
students agreed or strongly agreed with the
statement that they could see themselves working
for a City-type firm.The programme will be rolled
out across the boroughs of Hackney, Islington,
Southwark and Tower Hamlets in the autumn.
Another part of the programme,‘City 4 A Day’gives
smaller groups of students (13-14 year olds) the
opportunity to spend a day learning about the City
and the careers on offer in depth.The schools
targeted are those in the City fringe with the poorest
GCSE results.As well as seeing a presentation on the
City, students get to visit a company, talk with
employees about their jobs and participate in various
exercises, including a skills game. In 2005/6 17 tours
were run with 234 students taking part.
Following research published by the City of London
in 2005,EDO is working with the London
Development Agency,Learning and Skills Council
and Financial Services Skills Council to look at how
City fringe residents can take advantage of the many
opportunities at entry level (ie non-graduate) within
Financial and Related Business Services (FRBS).
Improving the sector-specific skills of these residents
is of key importance.Main activities are to
■ ensure students have appropriate qualifications
■ raise awareness and the perception of vocational
qualifications amongst employers
■ improve ‘soft’ skills eg communication or
interpersonal
■ increase awareness of the FRBS sector and its
recruitment practices
■ improve students’ ability to perform successfully
at interviews and selection days
■ target students at ‘niches’where employers
currently struggle to recruit.
Alongside this, the City’s Employer Engagement
Manager, funded under the European Social Fund’s
EQUAL programme, is looking at key issues for
employers, their reasons for employing or not
employing local residents and how best to promote
local recruitment.The Manager will also focus on
how employers can work with the many local
training initiatives that deliver sector-specific skills in
the City fringe.
The Financial Services Skills Council is also currently
undertaking a UK-wide research programme – the
Skills Bill – to uncover specific skills issues within
the financial services industry. Following extensive
employer involvement, it will aim to provide
solutions to skills issues affecting the performance of
businesses in the FRBS sector.
These initiatives are designed to ensure that the City
has the best skills resources to call upon and that
school/college leavers and graduates have the best
opportunities to succeed in an increasingly
competitive labour market.
C I T Y V I E W 11
More information on
general contact / hosting visits
for students
020 7332 1268
receiving City News Monitor
City Business Traineeship scheme
Brokerage Citylink
020 7628 9904
local recruitment in financial and
related business services
020 7332 3077
Employer Engagement Manager
FSSC Skills Bill
020 7216 7468
online survey at
www.fssc.org.uk/skillsbill
Regeneration Partnerships
The City supports and contributes to the work of
various regeneration partnerships, all of which
address skills and training issues in some way.
These include
■ City Fringe Partnership
■ Pool of London Partnership
■ Cross River Partnership
■ East London Business Alliance
■ Thames Gateway London Partnership
■ Central London Partnership
The City Business Traineeship awards ceremony 2005
As Lord Mayor, Alderman
David Brewer will be presenting
the awards at this year’s annual
CBT celebration event.
C I T Y V I E W12
A R T S F O C U S
history gets a facelift
Everyone has their own personal milestones in
their life but Londoners are now being offered
the chance to record where and when they
took place while at the same time contributing
to a refurbishment of one of the City’s major
cultural landmarks.
The Museum of London,which the City of London
Corporation co-funds, is to undergo its first major
redevelopment since it was created making it
fit-for-purpose for the next 30 years.
Work on the £18m project is expected to begin next
year and be completed in 2009 and Professor Jack
Lohman,Museum Director,believes the development
is needed to bring the Museum up to date.“Since we
opened in 1976, the fabric of London and visitors’
expectations have evolved.We aim to increase access
to our nationally important collections,expand the
learning and outreach programmes and present
ourselves as a relevant,dynamic cultural forum for
the 21st century.”
The Museum of London is the largest urban history
museum in the world and was established by
merging the London and Guildhall Museums –
becoming London’s first new museum since the
Second World War. It was opened by Her Majesty The
Queen in 1976.More than 380,000 people and
70,000 school children visit each year while its
website reaches more than one and a half million
and it is hoped that numbers will increase further
once the new work is complete.
The new project is part of a 10 year development
and its main aims are to
■ create 25% more display space on the lower floor
■ create world-class galleries telling the story of
London from 1666 to present day (it currently
only goes to 1914)
■ increase collections on display by more than 60%
(there are more than two million items in the
collections)
■ create a new information zone allowing visitors to
find out more through other resources
■ make the Museum more visible by creating a new
glass frontage looking on to London Wall.
The work will cover four main elements – the
Modern London Galleries, a Learning Centre,a
refurbished theatre and an information zone with
coffee point.
The Lottery Heritage Fund has agreed £11.5m
towards the cost and another £3.6m has already been
raised through patrons.As both a novel and fun way
of raising the additional funds needed, the Museum
has launched The Great Sale of London.This allows
Londoners to record their most memorable London
moments online and gives supporters the chance to
‘buy’ their favourite year in London history.
An entire year of London’s history can be bought for
£5,000, starting with 1666 (the Great Fire of London
) and going forward to London’s Olympic Year of
2012.Already several companies have bought into
the scheme choosing dates that are important to
them.Lloyd’s of London has bought 1688,Royal Mail
Museum of London
most popular highlights
1 The Lord Mayor’s coach
2 Victorian walk
3 Roman kitchen and dining room
4 Cromwell’s death mask
5 Nelson’s sword
6 The Plague Bell
7 1960s Ford Cortina
The Museum of
London is the
largest urban
history museum
in the world
C I T Y V I E W 13
has bought 1809 and the John Lewis Partnership has
a stake on 1864. Individual plaques will be created to
commemorate the buyer of each year and they will
be incorporated in a new timeline of London’s
history.These will also include key historical
moments such as the first London Olympic Games in
1908;women gaining equal voting rights in 1928;The
Queen’s Coronation in 1952; and England’s World
Cup win of 1966.
For those of more modest means, the London
Moments website will allow people to recognise their
own uniquely personal London moment for just £5.
Visitors will be able to state what their particular
moment was and when and
where in London it took place.
This is also in line with the
growing importance the Museum
is placing on social history.To
make sure its material is relevant
to today’s audiences it is looking
to speak to people directly by
including greater coverage of
issues such as council housing,
refugees and London’s wide
cultural diversity.
“Cities,”Professor Lohman believes “are at the heart of
civilisation.They are places of constant change
and rooted communities.Celebrating London’s past
and present diversity is to make sense not just of one
city,but of Britain and communities that connect us to
the globe.”
If you are one of
the privileged
few who can
actually hear the
sound of the Bow Bells, you might
be interested in the Museum of
London’s new range of Cockney
Rhyming Slang goodies. They
feature images taken from Victorian
song sheets in the Museum’s
archives, and popular slang still
used today, including “Rosie Lee”
for tea, “Vera Lynn” for gin and
“Lollipopping” for shopping.
Highlights are the bone china
teapot and saucers and particularly
the Tea for One set, which cleverly
warms your cup while your tea
brews. cityview readers can get
10% off all shop purchases
(excluding stamps and sale items),
by bringing their copy to the
Museum. This offer is limited to one
transaction per reader and is
available until the end of September.
Open 10am-5:50pm Mon-Sat,
12pm-5:50pm Sun.
Selected products also
available online at
www.museumoflondonshop.co.uk
or call 020 7814 5600
to place an order.
More than
380,000 people
and 70,000
school children
visit each
year while its
website reaches
more than one
and a half
million
C I T Y V I E W14
A R T S F O C U S
Architecture at its most
experimental is on display at
the Barbican Art Gallery until
September.
Billed as ‘Experiment and Utopia in
Architecture 1956-2006’, the
Future City exhibition features
around 70 ground breaking projects
that have inspired generations of
architects across the world.
From basic pencil sketches to
complete models and film footage,
Future City invites visitors to look at
radically new ways of living in cities.
The exhibition is split into different
themes, with titles such as New
Babylon, Inflatable City, Delirious
Metropolis and Experimental
Living, that challenge people to
think about what it would be like to
choose extraordinary living over the
every day. The Metabolists
published a booklet in the 1960s
connecting the metabolism of living
creatures with that of architecture
and the city while in the same
decade Architecture Principe
published their theory of a sloping
city which was intended to
stimulate and encourage human
social activity.
The subject of experimental
architecture was chosen because
the Barbican would like to “continue
to highlight the most exciting work
that has happened in architecture
and design in the post-war period,”
according to Gallery curator Jane
Alison. “As it would have been
impossible to cover the breadth of
material in Future City if we had
started from scratch, we adapted an
existing collection from France’s
FRAC (Fonds Regional d’Art
Contemporain du Centre) Centre.
We refined and extended it so it
was more comprehensive and had
more of a global emphasis.”
A lot of the architecture on display is
purely experimental – known as
‘paper architecture’ – with only
about 30% actually built. But that
doesn’t make these designs any
less important “Because they are
visionary, conceptual and
experimental they are often
visionary living
C I T Y V I E W 15
R E T A I L D E V E L O P M E N T
Another visually centred
exhibition is now running at the
Museum in Docklands. Using vast
panoramic images, Unquiet
Thames shows the mysterious,
watery world hidden beneath
London’s bridges.
It features 18 pictures, each over
two metres wide and taking in 360
degrees by stitching together eight
separate digital images. They were
taken by photographer Crispin
Hughes and show the underbelly of
the capital’s famous landmarks.
Shades of light and dark, differing
tides, debris and amalgams of timber,
steel and concrete are explored,
complemented by a soundtrack
featuring the lapping of water. Both
elements combine to give both a
surprising view of the Thames and an
unsettling atmosphere.
“The Thames in central London has
a seven metre tidal range and it is in
the enclosed spaces flooded
alternately with light and with water
that I have concentrated my
attention,” explained Crispin.
“Most of these places were not
designed to be seen by the general
public at all…Thousands of people
walk about above them every day
not knowing that beneath their feet
lurks this strange amphibious
architecture.”
There is a £5 annual entry fee to the
Museum in Docklands for adults but
bring along this copy of cityview
and you can get two tickets for the
price of one! Kids get in free.
shoppers’ paradise
With Cheapside undergoing major
building renovation work at
present, the developments offer
practically a clean slate for the City
of London Corporation to develop
a retail strategy for this and
adjacent streets. With this in mind,
City workers and residents are
being asked what retail outlets,
restaurants and other services
they would like to see in the area.
In previous years, the lack of
shopping facilities in the Square Mile
was a major drawback for City
people. Since then there has been
the change of use for the Royal
Exchange to an exclusive retail
outlet and the creation of the new
House of Fraser store near
Monument. But with Cheapside still
being reserved for retail use people
can now have their say on what
types of other facilities they would
like to see. These could cover chain
stores, supermarkets, independent
retailers and cafés and would help
shape the nature of the area for the
years to come.
“We have a great opportunity to
redefine Cheapside,” said Chairman
of Policy & Resources Michael
Snyder, “so it’s important that we
have people’s views on how they
would like the area to develop. This
will then allow us and the
landowners involved, to create an
overall retail strategy for buildings as
they are completed and make the
area more suited to people’s needs.”
Two of the first developments
to be completed will be One Wood
Street in summer 2007 and Bow
Bells House in Bread Street in
autumn next year. December’s
issue of cityview included the
design drawings for another large
retail and office development known
as One New Change, opposite
St Paul’s Cathedral.
The amount of new buildings being
created will mean a net increase of
about 25% extra space for new
facilities. These will be joined by
improvements to the area’s street
environment, through schemes such
as the City of London’s Street Scene
Challenge, that will make Cheapside
and its surrounds a more pleasant
and enjoyable experience for
shopping and dining.
If you have any ideas get in touch
with your comments and
suggestions by calling
020 7332 3493 or email to
precursors to real buildings. They
help spark off ideas that give rise to
the final product,” said Alison.
And it seems appropriate that the
Barbican, such a radical and utopian
design in its own day, should host
the exhibition. “There is often a
time lag in design and architecture.
When these ideas first emerge they
are scoffed at but then 20 years
later they become the norm. Indeed
the Barbican’s own ground breaking
design has been listed in the last
few years.”
With all the many examples on
display does Jane have a favourite?
“The Deconstruction works are my
favourite. Projects like Morphosis,
Malibu Beach House and Daniel
Libeskind’s Berlin City Edge are
very strong.”
Whether they excite or repel, the
designs making up Future City are
sure to be talking points.
More information
0845 120 7550
www.barbican.org
keeping the pressure up
A new campaign for Crossrail has
been launched bringing together
London’s Mayor, leading business
figures, and trade union leaders and
the City of London Corporation.
The City has been one of the project’s
strongest supporters over the years
and its Chairman of Policy &
Resources, Michael Snyder,
welcomed the new campaign.
“Crossrail is absolutely essential if
London is to maintain and build on its
competitive edge in financial services.
I warmly welcome the new campaign
and I will work with Mayor Ken
Livingstone to ensure it is a success.
“Never forget: financial services is
an industry that can move
elsewhere. To make sure it
doesn’t, our public transport
must be modern and efficient so
we can retain and attract
international firms to London –
and maintain our reputation as
the best place in the world to
do business.“
This message was reinforced by
the Lord Mayor, Alderman David
Brewer, at the annual dinner for the
bankers and merchants of London
in June attended by Chancellor
Gordon Brown.
The City believes Crossrail will help
solve overcrowding on the
underground network and build in
additional capacity to meet the
expected population expansion
in the Square Mile expected in the
next 10 years.
Transport for London anticipates that
Crossrail will add a net benefit of
£30bn to UK Gross Domestic Product
over 60 years and contribute
£12bn in tax revenues.
C I T Y V I E W16
N E W S I N B R I E F
...and finally
The history and science of London’s
river bridges is celebrated at a new
exhibition in Guildhall Art Gallery.
Drawn mainly from collections of
paintings, prints and watercolours
held by the Guildhall Art Gallery,
Guildhall Library and Museum of
London, the exhibition looks at
artists’ continuing fascination with
the Thames.
There are now 33 bridges spanning
the Thames from the Queen
Elizabeth II Bridge at Dartford to the
end of the tideway at Teddington
Lock in the west with the City of
London responsible for five (Tower,
London, Southwark, Millennium and
Blackfriars).
Among the best-known pictures to
feature in the exhibition are
Clarkson Stanfield’s The Opening of
London Bridge by William IV, and
WL Wylie’s The Opening of Tower
Bridge, which both capture the
excitement of the occasions.
The exhibition runs until 15 October.
More information 020 7332 3700
www.cityoflondon.gov.uk
Art spans the water September is Open
House weekend
London will be turned into a living
exhibition for 48 hours during
September when 500 architecturally
significant (and often private)
buildings will open their doors to
the public.
Open House London Weekend
takes place 16-17 September and is
the capital’s biggest architectural
event, offering the chance to see,
experience, explore and understand
architecture, engineering and
design.
As before many of the City’s own
memorable contemporary and
historical buildings
will be open on the
weekend,
celebrating design
excellence.
Last year’s event saw an estimated
360,000 visits to private residences,
government buildings,
contemporary offices, historical
houses, arts spaces and Institutions,
City banks, medical centres and
schools. All access is free of charge.
The full Buildings Guide and the
City-specific guide will be available
from mid-August by visiting
www.openhouse.org.uk
