'Slough must address placemaking basics'

Slough needs to address the basics of placemaking, delegates heard at last week’s UKPropSocial – held in one of the town’s latest innovation spaces.

Re-imagining Slough, at Plus X Innovation at The Future Works on Tuesday (May 2), brought together stakeholders from public and private sectors to debate how good design can help generate growth.

Debate at the Edgingtons Architects-sponsored event, hosted by UK Property Forums managing director Matthew Battle, followed a tour of Berkeley Homes’ Horlicks Quarter, a redevelopment of the former factory and grounds to create around 1,500 homes.

Caroline McHardy, development director for Berkeley Homes (Oxford+Chiltern), said locals feared the factory building would be demolished when the housebuilder bought the site.

But she told the meeting: “We actually saw it as the jewel in the crown.”

Horlicks, she said, ranked along with Mars and Thunderbirds as significant links to the town’s history.

She went on: “In placemaking, we usually start with the people, the emotional side and the pride. And we actually realised that the factory would always be the heart of our development.

“It was tricky because it’s on the edge (of the site) and not in the middle. It’s always easier to have the heart in the middle of any scheme.

“But we saw the potential of what can be done there in actually renovating it and converting it into apartments, making it the hub of all the residents’ facilities, restoring the roof garden with the red (Horlicks) letters and the clock tower, giving every resident access to that and to be able to enjoy that and be proud to take their friends and family there.”

Pat Hayes, executive director of housing & property for Slough Borough Council, said Slough needs to be rebranded as a positive for the UK.

He said: “It’s one of he most productive places in the UK, one of the most income generating parts of the UK.

“Yes we’ve got challenges with economics, yes we’ve got challenges with deprivation etc, but we’ve got a huge opportunity.

“We’ve got to build on that, we’ve got to build an identity. It’s not an identity about the council, the council is merely a function that runs services in slough.”

He said the rebranding of Slough Town FC was important in the club’s role of providing a mechanism for promoting the town. He believes the town has been blighted by the car and represents failed placemaking concepts of the 1970s although it was built later.

He added: “We need to re-integrate the town centre with the station, we need to reintegrate parts of the town centre with some of the surrounding areas. As the council we’ve got to address the basics of placemaking.”

Earlier, guests saw possible new logos for the town, unveiled by Sameer Hosany, professor of marketing at the School of Business Management, Royal Holloway University of London.

A general consensus among delegates was in favour of a more colourful brand.

Vineet Vijh, founder and director of Slough Hub, explained work being done to achieve more immediate improvements, focussed on three main themes; its appearance, promotion of positive stories and publicising things to do in the town.

Cleaning up by volunteers and sponsorship for public artwork, he said, is welcomed by the town’s stakeholders. Visit https://thesloughhub.org/