What's up dock?

All photographs taken by David Levene

Is this where John Prescott picked up one or two ideas? In the backyard of his own constituency there is a mixed-tenure, mixed-use, sustainable new community produced in a private-public partnership that could have come straight from the pages of the sustainable communities plan. Except that it was initiated some 15 years before Prescott launched the plan.

Victoria Dock Village would have been a brave and visionary scheme for any location, but particularly for Hull. The city is blighted by low wages and high unemployment, is the ninth most deprived English district, and its population has been steadily falling. Regenerate travelled to the city to find out how successful this sustainable community had turned out to be, and whether it had made any impact on the fortunes of the city as a whole.

Waving a hand across the sweep of Victoria Dock Village, Kenneth Turner, a former sailor, can barely hide his astonishment. The Labour councillor for Hull recalls the 1960s when he was working on a ship transporting coal to Finland. At the time the city's docks were particularly inhospitable. "There was timber in the dock everywhere you looked. It would have been a stretch of the imagination to think that someone could have made such a development here."

He adds: "I remember one of the councillors telling me about the planned regeneration project. I looked at this and said: ‘You're dreaming there. It's never going to come up'. And now you look at this and…"

What amazes Turner is the pristine and E E welcoming aspect of the 1300 low-rise homes, shops, school, community centre, park and football pitch spread on 153 acres, neatly aligned on streets which all benefit from a panoramic view of the River Humber. Renewal has worked wonders.

But it required some daring on the part of developer Bellway to embark on the regeneration in Hull in the late 1980s. Bill Stevenson, chairman of Bellway City Solutions and responsible for the scheme, says: "For us to take it on at the time was a leap of faith. People told us that we wouldn't sell a house." Happily, they proved people wrong.

Agreement between partners

One of the councillors told me about the project for regeneration. I said: ‘You’re dreaming.’ Now you look at this

Kenneth Turner, councillor

Perhaps what is more of a surprise than the physical scale of the £100m development and the commercial success of the scheme is the harmonious collaboration between Bellway and Hull council. Professor Ian Colquhoun, who, as Hull's city architect at the time, designed the masterplan for the project, concedes that they had their moments, "but we always managed to settle things amicably".

Stevenson emphasises the need for agreement between the partners. "We couldn't live without each other," he says as Regenerate accompanies him, Turner and Steve George, at the time Hull city's assistant architect, for a tour of the well-maintained Victoria Dock Village. It might sometimes have been a rocky marriage between the private developer and the local authority but the partners share a common pride in having turned the derelict docklands into a desirable place to live.

In 1988, Bellway and Hull council formed the Victoria Dock Company - 60% owned by Bellway, 40% by the council - to act as a pressure group to obtain central government funding. They were awarded a £17m Urban Regeneration Grant, which was then the largest grant ever awarded to a scheme of this scale. It may sound like a sizable sum, but Stevenson says it had to stretch a long way: "Development corporations had a huge amount of public money. Comparatively we had very little - especially considering the size of the site."

And the work to be done was nothing less than monumental. The 150 acres of land had to be bought from Associated British Ports, the site reclaimed, the rotting timber removed and the foundations recreated. Bellway constructed a mile of sea defences to keep the river out and increase the space available to build on. According to Stevenson, the developer set a precedent in employing the council to carry out works such as engineering, masterplanning and landscaping. "And Bellway paid the bills," he says.

The success of Victoria Dock Village required a leap of faith on behalf of Bellway City Solutions, which attracted more than its fair share of doom mongers

Calculated risk

The £17m grant was not freely given, as Stevenson explains: "If we failed to deliver the whole scheme, we had to give the money back. It was genuinely risky." It was a calculated risk nevertheless. "At the time the south of England was booming. Bellway was worried about that. There was an idea that intelligent people ought to be in the South and that in Hull we were unlikely to make some bucks. However, we put our money here and it continues to grow and go well. Construction work in the North comes at a much cheaper price, so we capitalised on that."

Meanwhile, George, who is now the council's chief architect, explains that the main motivation behind the project was to bring people back to the city as it was experiencing a decline in population.

There was an idea that intelligent people ought to be in the South and that in Hull we were unlikely to make some bucks.

Bill Stevenson, Bellway

"The idea of having people live on a derelict site was quite unique at the time," he says. The titanic task was made easier because of the pioneering nature of the partnership, which was free from the red tape of many of today's private-public collaborations. George sums up the terms of the deal between Bellway and Hull council: "Our agreement was fairly straightforward. At the end of the day all we did was agree to agree."

Stevenson points out that conflict would have been futile. "The council could have brought us to a halt at any time had they chosen to. But what would they have been gaining?"

Both Bellway's and the council's agenda was to create a stable and viable community. The aspiration was not only to attract people to the site but also entice them to stay. If they wanted to trade up, the plan was that they would be able to find another suitable home within the village's perimeter. The development comprises 639 semi-detached and terraced properties, 323 detached properties, 354 apartments and 130 housing association units, so most housing needs have been catered for.

Providing education, health and leisure space was considered essential. A primary school made out of modular buildings which enables future expansion was set up under the first school PFI scheme in the country. Today it has 240 children. Stevenson is convinced that without a school the whole scheme could never have materialised. Families had to be wooed to move to the docklands, so a school with good premises and reputation was indispensable. Bellway went further and lent money to the resident mothers' association so they could build a creche because no bank was willing to give them a loan.

From Weight Watchers to hip hop

The Victoria Dock Village also comprises a GP surgery, a pharmacy and a community centre that doubles up as an assembly hall for religious services. This centre, where a wide range of activities such as chess lessons, Weight Watchers gatherings and hip-hop classes take place, was the source of contention between Bellway and the council. Stevenson recalls:

"The first vicar was a woman who used to hold the service on the dock wall. I thought we really had to build her something. When we first discussed it I wanted something the size of a double garage, but the council's architect had a cathedral in mind." Bellway's vision prevailed. It's a medium-sized and practical looking building which nevertheless has high ceilings and a modest vault which, with some imagination, can evoke Gothic churches.

Bellway might have won the argument regarding the scale of the community centre, but it lost another debate about how to allocate the prime pieces of land. Hull council insisted on giving elderly and severely disabled people the best views on the site. Hence the retirement home and care home for severely disabled people are located at the front of the development, closest to the river. Stevenson sighs that this part of the site could have brought in a lot of money, but he respects the council's altruistic determination.

The idea of having people live on a derelict site was quite unique at the time

Steve George, Hull council

An inclusive vision

Hull council's vision for the regenerated village was to be as inclusive as possible. Masterplanner Colquhoun says: "We wanted to give the people of Hull as a whole, not just the Victoria Dock residents, access to the river Humber. Now they have a mile of promenade with a wonderful view. It is one of the very positive aspects of the project that it has become a popular place with everyone in Hull."

Other public spaces include a park where local artists created a series of sculptures on the theme of navigation, and a 2.5 acre football field, which led to the formation of a community team. Victoria Dock Village was never intended to be the saviour of the whole city, and for all its success, Hull is still losing people. In the village itself, some families are being forced to move because the site has no secondary school. There has been talk of building one, but nothing has been confirmed. Furthermore, Colquhoun remarks that the village doesn't cover the whole spectrum of society. The proportion of housing association units, a tenth of the whole, would be much larger if the scheme were built today.

The village is a child of its time, and looking back it is easy to question whether its architecture could have been more daring. But then this village was created with the intention of being understated and comfortable - the architects deliberately limited the range of colours used for the housing's bricks and tiles to 12 tones, for example. Attention to detail is evident in touches like the little fish sculptures in an otherwise ordinary metalwork balustrade along the promenade.

Key lessons

What Bellway learned while working in Hull has fed into subsequent projects. Stevenson says a key lesson was that no scheme could be successful without a solid partnership with local authorities. He warns: "It's a lesson for the future. Our industry is going to struggle. We have to work with local government and all the government agencies. Not just the local government but residents, too."

At the village, residents have had their voice heard. They formed a residents' association and have made the most of their health, education and leisure facilities. They have also appropriated the public space in unexpected ways. As Stevenson, George and Turner tour the site, they smile at the sight of what was once a pond, provided purely for aesthetic purposes. Residents have planted it with reeds so sea birds can live there. That's an example of the community in action, Stevenson quips. Other pools on the site now have resident swans, attracted there by the residents. There couldn't be a more appropriate allegory for the docklands, once the ugly duckling, now a pleasant and sustainable community.