A tale of two cities

“Melancholy streets, in a penitential garb of soot, steeped the souls of the people who were condemned to look at them out of windows in dire despondency.” That’s how one local resident described the slum of Agar Town: a hotbed of disease and crime. Today we know it as King’s Cross, but Charles Dickens’ description isn’t so far removed – and it still has a reputation for being a place where drug dealers and prostitutes ply their trades.

But not for much longer. The area that has long been a byword for urban misery is starting to undergo big changes. Behind the wooden hoardings around St Pancras, a terminus of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link is being constructed. When it’s completed in 2007, it will turn King’s Cross into Britain’s front door on to the Continent.

After that, an even larger project can begin – the redevelopment of 27 ha of derelict railway lands into homes, leisure facilities, shops and business space, London’s biggest regeneration scheme for 150 years. King’s Cross Central as it is known will be jointly owned by London & Continental Railways, logistics firm Exel and developer Argent, and they are aiming to create a new urban quarter, a vibrant and cosmopolitan destination where people from London and outside will choose to live work and shop. It’s nothing if not ambitious, particularly given the stigma they will have to overcome.

The City of Dreadful Night, captured by Dickens and still going strong today

The catalyst for all this is the rail link, and the 50 million passengers who will pass through the King’s Cross-St Pancras interchange every year. The terminus itself is intended to be a completely different type of “destination” station. LCR is recruiting, among others, specialists from the airport sector to develop its facilities, which will include a shopping centre. “It will be very different to other stations,” says LCR’s development director Roger Groom. “We are aiming to make the retail more exciting for a start, to bring an extra dimension to it.”

Development of the huge mixed-use scheme will take between 12 and 15 years - perhaps more. It includes at least 1946 homes, 10 new public spaces and more than 450,000 m2 of space for business and employment, which will, it is estimated, create about 25,000 jobs. There will be more than 45,000 m2 for shops, improved transport, eco-friendly energy sources, two new primary schools, a children’s centre, a health care centre, a fitness centre, sports pitches and play areas.

It’s nothing if not ambitious, particularly given the stigma they will have to overcome.

But regeneration has been attempted before in King’s Cross, with mixed results. The last big proposal succumbed to the recession of the 1990s and a government decision to change the rail link to St Pancras rather than the original choice of King’s Cross. However, the team behind the new project are determined it will not falter this time.

The first challenge was to ensure that the local community benefited from the redevelopment. The development area is surrounded by some of the country’s most deprived neighbourhoods and there was a danger of creating an islet of wealth in a sea of poverty. The team plan to avoid this by making sure that many of the new jobs go to locals.

Developer Argent plans to cut crime and grime by bringing in a management company to run the area. “It makes sense for us to do this to encourage people to buy flats or put their business in King’s Cross. But it will have huge benefits for people in surrounding estates,” says Robert Evans, a director of Argent. The company could also provide wardens or community safety services for the areas surrounding the development. The management company, which will employ between 300 and 400 people, is also likely to provide work for local residents. There are several other schemes on the site targeting jobs at local people. There’s a centre for training in construction trades and job-brokering that offers CTRL work to local residents. It will later turn its attention to construction work in the regeneration zone and eventually provide jobs in the businesses that move into the completed buildings (see the King’s Cross working box). Overall, the aim is to get local people into 30% of the 25,000 jobs that will be created in the area, a rate of about 1000 people a year.

Islington council is considering a second scheme to help local businesses. The project would encourage firms moving into the zone to use local suppliers for everything from catering to office furniture. The council is already running a similar project just a stone’s throw away at the redevelopment of Arsenal FC’s stadium. “We are starting to see some success there,” says Stephen Mason, Islington council’s assistant director for regeneration. “Some of those contracts are getting awarded locally. This wouldn’t have happened before as companies wouldn’t have a clue how to get in on the act.” The council advises smaller firms on how to go about getting big contracts and makes the big firms aware of local businesses that would be suitable for tenders.

The planners and developers also had the challenge of accommodating a large number of historic buildings within their designs. For example the listed gas holders will become a park with public platforms, community facilities and a site for homes, which means that there will be no danger of the cleaned-up area losing its identity. “The heritage buildings are in clusters, or are so big and powerful, like the station, that nobody is in doubt of what is important,” says Bob West, manager of the King’s Cross planning team at Camden council.

The first challenge was to ensure that the local community benefited from the redevelopment.

Having to work with old buildings can add to the cost of developments, but Argent thinks it can turn the heritage to its advantage.

For starters it will give the area some personality. “New developments can be a bit anywhereville. The historic buildings will really establish a sense of place,” says Argent’s Evans. He hopes this will attract occupiers who would not otherwise rent offices in the area and therefore compensate for the expense of refurbishing the buildings.

There are other costs associated with the type of high-density scheme Argent has in mind, which will mix office, retail, leisure and residential development with at least 40% affordable housing. While high-density, mixed-use developments can be more expensive to build than traditional single-use schemes, this variety has an added long-term security that is attractive to investors and developers. “When the office market is low then residential or leisure might not be,” says Evans. “Mixed-use does cost more upfront but it leads to a better place and to better possible values.”

The team is also wary of problems that could arise in the future. For example, the advent of the Olympics has provided King’s Cross Central with a powerful rival, competing for capital and labour. But rather than running scared, they are turning this challenge to their advantage and emphasising the way the two megaprojects could work together for mutual benefit. “For example, if we train someone at King’s Cross in construction and they move on and work on the Olympics then that’s positive. They are probably still living in King’s Cross and they are contributing to the London economy,” says Jon Greig, regeneration manager at Camden council.

To start with, the development of the new King’s Cross will be speculative to demonstrate what can be done to locals and outsiders – Argent is realistic that it could take a while for the image of the new, virtuous King’s Cross to take hold in people’s minds. But Evans is confident that businesses and home buyers will come to the area once they see the results.

And to make sure the benefits spread throughout the community, the project liaises with community groups to get the word out to hard-to-reach ethnic minorities, women and local schools. Nearly 2000 people have visited the centre in the past year, 500 have been on courses and 50 to 60 have found work.

The King’s Cross scheme isn’t just going to be built for local people, it will be built by them as well. As Camden council’s employment initiatives manager, Andrew Connor is the man who’s going to make sure that happens.

He runs the King’s Cross Working centre, which trains local people then matches them to jobs in the construction of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. It doesn’t stop in 2007 though – as work winds down on the railway, the centre will turn its attention to finding people to build regeneration projects. And once those come to a close, it will train people to work in the businesses moving into King’s Cross.

How the listed Victorian gas holders will be reintegrated into to the post-regeneration landscape

Connor says:”To start with, the jobs will be in construction, but we are looking into what sorts of work might come up later. It really depends on what sort of organisations move in - there could be lots of financial institutions. If there are lots of hospitality jobs, for example, we will do training around that.”

The centre opened in June 2004 with £500,000 from the London Development Agency and other funders. It trains people in health and safety, construction skills such as plumbing and bricklaying and puts them through the test to get their Construction Skills Safety Certification Scheme card. Training is provided by John Laing and Camden Jobtrain, and staff from Jobcentre Plus advise on benefits. There is also a workplace co-ordinator to help people decide what training they need, what jobs to go for, and provide advice on writing a CV and succeeding in job interviews. And to make sure the benefits spread throughout the community, the project liaises with community groups to get the word out to hard-to-reach ethnic minorities, women and local schools. Nearly 2000 people have visited the centre in the past year, 500 have been on courses and 50 to 60 have found work.

“The main resistance we have found with employers is whether people who’ve been unemployed for a long time have the skills,” says Connor. “We can say they have work experience, we have retrained them and they are ready to work. We have an untapped resource of work-ready clients so we’re a free recruitment agency for employers.”

For local people, the scheme offers a fresh source of work and training and an opportunity to get involved in the massive changes happening in their area. “They see it change day by day and they see the opportunities,” says Connor. “I like being able to make an impact and change people’s lives. It’s exciting.”