Shared Space

One of the biggest challenges we face in maintaining and developing the open spaces on our estate is that we share this space with so many others. Each with their needs and desires and often it seems they conflict with those of other users.Here is a short list of those users from the top of my head:Children living on the estateChildren living off the estateResidents - young, middle aged, elderlyPeople visiting residentsPedestrians passing through the estateThose wanting somewhere to sit in the sun and bathe, or read.Dog ownersDogsCatsfoxesbirdssquirrelsmicerats.Of course one persons irritation can be anothers delight. The rats and mice do not have very many fans, though as we have kept both rats and mice we do tend to see a beauty many others don't.Even so, when Stacey, our daughter, was out playing when she was seven she came home and asked for some bread and ran off out again with her prize. A short time later she came home again, got another piece of bread and ran off again. After this happened two more times I decided to follow her to see what she was doing with the bread, assuming she was feeding some birds. But no, she ran to the nearest storm drain and lowered the bread into it. When it came back up something had obviously taken a bite. Yep, she had found a rat and wanted it to come out so she could stroke it and play with it.And of course the antics of squirrels and their dexterity is a wonder to behold. Getting them to climb up to our balcony for a monkey nut is a cheap price for the entertainment value. Until they started invading our home and harrassing the house cats. The real horror though was when they decided to start digging the downstairs neighbour beautifull manicured and tendered garden to hide their nuts.And that is the secret of successfully sharing space, equal portions of tollerance and consideration.And this is where many of our problems come from. Intollerance of young people by the elderly and some other residents, lack of consideration by dog owners who don't clear up after their animals. The frustration for me is in trying to regenerate the open spaces for the benefit of others you get the usual complaints. No we don't want benches they just attract people - uh huh - the 'wrong' type of people. So here is one of life's great dilemmas for me. How do you improve open spaces for residents to enjoy but doesn't attract anyone else.Frustration often results in my diplomatic self becoming far less diplomatic. So with some photos, and a good photo software I came up with my grand design. The next meeting I took my designs to the committee meeting and with much deserved pride I announced I had found a solution to all those unwanted guests who dare to share our space with us. The look of horror and shouts of protest was a little surprising. I can only assume that I am a designer ahead of my time, but these people were not ready to tarmac all the grass over and then add broken glass before it had set. I did get the point over that if we wanted to have a 'nice' estate then we had to be more tollerant and find ways to manage how people use the shared spaces.Of course tollerance is not easy when dog owners buy into gated communities with no grass and their attitude to our grass areas is 'it's only a council estate, who cares?' Yes we have actually been told this.So it seems any open grass area is considered an open dogs toilet. However by better defining an area results in less mess. With £45000+ to develop two areas these lessons have played a key role in our thinking. So one area will become a rockery with flower beds, the other a, yet another, low metal fenced off area to keep the dogs out, but will hopefully become a wonderful community garden shared by a range of people. And yes progress is made, no one complained about the benches the designer came up with.Sadly no one was in favour of my idea to have a chinese water clock as the centre piece to the community garden, but you cannot win them all.I will take some photos of the changes as they happen to share.

The problem with dog bins is that the 'refuse' is classed as hazardous waste, or some such thing, and so has to be removed properly. Removal comes at premium price, even with the local council. However your tenants do have some options, though they are limited in effectiveness.

If dog owners are using the areas at particular times, which does seem to happen, and they can work out when to catch the maximum number of people then it would be worth them getting in touch with the council dog warden. A few fines will quickly get around among dog owners and does seem to alleviate the problem for a week or so. However if it is like us they will find there is one dog warden for the whole borough and you may be lucky to get them once a year.

If the area is covered by community police the too can hand out fines. They simply need to get in touch and let them know.

There are funding pots that can be used to tackle this type of issue. We have recently put in a bid to do some poo flagging, and to produce some leaflets highlighting the dangers and maps of local official dog walking areas. We will again use the community wardens and Southwarks creative team to highlight the issues and to hand out some fines if necessary. The funding will hopefully allow us to get more than enough leaflets so that we can do a similar project six months later. Unfortunately the last date for that funding was last Friday. Other funding happen yearly, including 'Cleaner, Greener, Safer' (CGS) or Joint Security Innitiative (JSI). But as mentioned the most effective way to change things seems to give better definition to the area. Their local councillor should be able to let them know what is available locally if they don't know.

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Comments

Kerrie John-The garden design Co January 21, 2009 at 7:37pm

You are a man with vision and a mission, which I'm sure we would all agree with.

I, for one, would love to see some pictures of the spaces you describe.
dgeorgea January 21, 2009 at 9:42pm

I have uploaded two photos, not sure how to go about showing them, unless they are visible if you visit my profile. One is sunrise on the estate. Behind our homes you can see one of the private gated developments. It used to be a factory making Hartleys Jam. The other is FIDO, a council vacuum cleaner on wheels which is used to clean up dog mess. Just to the left of fido, in line with the edge of the grass is one of our raised flower beds, yeah it is definately there you just have to look closely ;)
PRO

Phil Voice January 21, 2009 at 9:53pm

Hi George, you can link directly to the images and paste the links into any of the editors.

Right click on the image>choose 'copy image location' and then return to the editor and paste the link in the normal way.

Here are the two images:

Fido the council vacuum cleaner

and

Sunrise over the estate.
dgeorgea January 21, 2009 at 10:22pm

Thanks Phil.
dgeorgea January 21, 2009 at 11:41pm

The problem with dog bins is that the 'refuse' is classed as hazardous waste, or some such thing, and so has to be removed properly. Removal comes at premium price, even with the local council. However your tenants do have some options, though they are limited in effectiveness.

If dog owners are using the areas at particular times, which does seem to happen, and they can work out when to catch the maximum number of people then it would be worth them getting in touch with the council dog warden. A few fines will quickly get around among dog owners and does seem to alleviate the problem for a week or so. However if it is like us they will find there is one dog warden for the whole borough and you may be lucky to get them once a year.

If the area is covered by community police the too can hand out fines. They simply need to get in touch and let them know.

There are funding pots that can be used to tackle this type of issue. We have recently put in a bid to do some poo flagging, and to produce some leaflets highlighting the dangers and maps of local official dog walking areas. We will again use the community wardens and Southwarks creative team to highlight the issues and to hand out some fines if necessary. The funding will hopefully allow us to get more than enough leaflets so that we can do a similar project six months later. Unfortunately the last date for that funding was last Friday. Other funding happen yearly, including 'Cleaner, Greener, Safer' (CGS) or Joint Security Innitiative (JSI). But as mentioned the most effective way to change things seems to give better definition to the area. Their local councillor should be able to let them know what is available locally if they don't know.
dgeorgea January 22, 2009 at 11:59pm

We are looking at several long term plans to tackle this problem. A huge part of the problem is that most of the dogs do not belong to our residents.

At present educating dog owners is our most effective tool. However we are renegotiating our management agreement and one of the options is to vary tenancy agreements on the estate. One such use we are considering is changing the rules on keeping pets, dogs in particular. Not to stop people from owning dogs, but they are encouraged to be responsible owners. This will also allow us to work towards the RSPCA scheme for landlords.

Earlier today I emailed one of our councillors to ask if we undertook consultation and petitioned the council would they consider putting a dog control order on the estate. This is a very contentious route, however as the main reason for owners bringing a dog onto the estate is so it can use it as a toilet, rather than for exercise I personally don't see a problem with it. However the council may not agree, and I suspect that dog owners will have a lot to say.