First annual Alan Cherry award presented at memorial debate

David Ubaka, Transport for London’s head of design, was given the first ever Alan Cherry award for placemaking at a debate held in the name of the late founder (pictured) of Countryside Properties this week.

Ubaka is responsible for pushing through the pedestrian interchange at Oxford Circus and the cycle superhighways planned by London mayor Boris Johnson. He was given the award by Richard Cherry, deputy chairman at Countryside and son of Alan at the memorial debate.

Countryside intends to give the award annually to a public figure who makes a significant contribution to placemaking.

David Lunts, the new interim director of housing and regeneration at the Greater London Authority, this week led the tributes at the debate to Cherry, who died in January 2010.

Lunts said Cherry had an “extraordinary track record” in building quality communities that worked in the round, including Greenwich Millennium Village and Accordia in Cambridge, the first housing scheme ever to win RIBA’s Stirling prize.

He said: “He lived and breathed communities in a way I’d never seen any other housebuilder do.”