Interactive 2018 World Cup bid map

Yesterday saw representatives of 15 English cities hoping to be part of England's bid to host the 2018 World Cup finals travel to Wembley stadium to submit their proposals. Around 10 cities are expected to be chosen from the list of 15. The successful cities will be announced by the 2018 bid team on 16 December.

Use the interactive Google map below to view details of all the stadia (existing or planned) put forward as potential World Cup venues, plus figures showing levels of deprivation in their areas. Click on the map and drag to scroll around.

View World Cup 2018 bid in a larger map

While every effort has been made to accurately place the stadia on the map, placemarks may only be indicative and should not be used as proof of exact location.

Full list of ADZ bids

London mayor Boris Johnson has bid to pilot the infrastructure funding mechanism to extend the Northern line from Kennington to Battersea Power Station (left).

The full list of the bids for Accelerated Development Zone powers, compiled by Regeneration & Renewal following a Freedom of Information request, appears below. To read related stories from this week's magazine, click here and here.

Council/partnership ... Scheme

Adur ... Shoreham Harbour Growth Point
Allerdale ... Derwent Forest
Allerdale ... Workington Hall
Allerdale ... Former Corus Site, Workington
Allerdale ... Mayport Harbour
Aylesbury Vale ... Aylesbury Waterside
Barbergh ... Brantham Industrial Area
Barnsley ... Barnsley Markets
Basingstoke & Deane ... Basing View
Bournemouth ... Wessex Fields A338/Riverside Avenue and Park & Ride
Bournemouth ... Bournemouth Town Centre
Bracknell Forest ... Bracknell Town Centre
Bristol City
& South Gloucestershire ... Severnside/Avonmouth Environmental Enterprises
Cambridgeshire ... Cambridge Station Area
Charnwood ... Loughborough Eastern Gateway
Chelmsford ... Chelmsford Flood Alleviation Scheme
Coventry ... Friargate
Coventry ... City Centre Precinct
Coventry ... Stoneleigh Park
Crawley ... Town Centre North
Derbyshire ... Markham Vale Regeneration Scheme, Seymour Development Area
Dorset ... Detail not available
Elevate East Lancashire ... Blackburn Cathedral Quarter
Gloucestershire ... Cotswold Canals Regeneration
Gloucestershire ... Cinderford Town Centre
Gloucestershire ... Newent Town Centre Regeneration
Gloucestershire ... Cirencester Town Centre
Gravesham ... Gravesend Heritage Quarter
Great Yarmouth ... Beacon Park
Greater Birmingham ... Wednesbury-Brierly Hill-Stourbridge Rapid Transit
Greater Birmingham ... Wolverhamption Public Transport Interchange
Greater Birmingham ... Longbridge Strategic Investment Site
Guildford ... Dominic Square City Centre Redevelopment
Harlow ... Harlow Town Centre
Haven Gateway Partnership ... A12/14 And Felixstowe Dockspur Roundabout
Herefordshire ... Edgar Street Grid City Centre Redevelopment
Herefordshire ... Model Farm Employment Development In Ross-On-Wye
High Peak ... Bingswood Estate
Hull ... Fruit Market
Hull ... Hedon Road
Kent ... Ebbsfleet Valley
Kent ... Eureka Business Park
King's Lynn and West Norfolk ... Southern King's Lynn
Kirklees ... Batley Gateway
Kirklees ... Mirfield 25 Huddersfield
Leeds ...Aire Valley Leeds Regeneration
Leicester ... Leicester Waterside Regeneration
Leicestershire ... Detail not available
Liverpool ... Detail not available
London Mayor of London ... Northern Line Extension
London Borough of Barnet ... Colindale Growth And Regeneration Project
London Borough of Croydon ... A23/A235 Growth Related Infrastructure
London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham ... West Kensington, Earls Court, North Fulham Regeneration Area
London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham ... Fulham Riverside Regeneration Area
London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham ... White City Opportunity Area
London Borough of Haringey ... Tottenham Gyratory
London Borough of Lambeth ... Brixton Town Centre
London Borough of Merton ... More Morden Town Centre Development
London Borough of Redbridge ... Ilford Town Centre - Britannia Music Site And 40 Ilford Hill
London Borough of Southwark ... Elephant And Castle
London Borough of Sutton ... Hackbridge Project
Luton and Central Bedfordshire ... East Luton Strategic Employment Corridor
Luton and Central Bedfordshire ... North Houghton Regis And Luton Strategic Employment Site
Manchester ... Northern Gateway Cooperative Complex
Manchester ... Sportcity East Manchester
Manchester ... West Wythenshawe Economic Development Corridor
Mid Sussex ... Burgess Hill Town Centre
Mid Sussex ... Haywards Heath Quarter
Mid Sussex ... East Grinstead Town Centre
Middlesbrough ... Hemlington Grange "Raising Hope"
Newcastle ... Science Central
Newcastle ... Discovery Quarter
North Devon ... Bideford- Five Sites
North Devon ... Ilfracombe - Five Sites
North Staffordshire Regeneration P'ship ... Urban Core A - Transport Interchange And East West Precinct North Staffordshire Regeneration P'ship ... Urban Core B - Railway Station And Central Business District
North Staffordshire Regeneration Partnership ... Priority Employment Generators, Etruria Valley
Norwich ... St Stephen's Street
Nottingham ... Nottingham Medipark
Plymouth ... North Cross And Plymouth Railway Station Development
Plymouth ... Language Business Park Extension Into Language Energy Park
Plymouth ... Millbay
Portsmouth ... City Centre North
Preston ... Preston Tithebarne Retail
Purbeck ... Wareham Former Council Depot
Push ... Eastleigh Riverside
Push ... Dunsbury Hill Farm
Rochdale ... South Heywood Development Area
Rotherham ... Rotherham Renaissance Flood Alleviation Scheme
Sedgemoor ... North East Bridgwater
Sheffield ... Sevenstone
Sheffield City Region ... Dearne Valley Eco-Vision
South Hams ... Ermington Workshops Redevelopment
South Norfolk ... Detail not available
St Albans ... City Vision Regeneration
St Edmundsbury ... Suffolk Business Park Extension
Staffordshire Moorlands and High Peak ... Detail not available
Stroud ... Youth Centre
Stroud ... Cam Town Centre
Sunderland ... Vaux Project
Sutton ... Detail not available
Swale Borough Council ... Sittingbourne Town Centre Regeneration
Swindon ... Union Square; Swindon Central; North Star
Thurrock ... DP World London Gateway
Torbay ... Torbay Town Centre
Tunbridge Wells ... Charles The Martyr/Pantiles Crossing
Tunbridge Wells ... North Farm Industrial Estate Access
Wakefield ... Wakefield City Renaissance
Warrington Borough Council ... Bridge Street Quarter
Warrington Borough Council ... Garven Place / Bank Park
Warrington Borough Council ... The Wire Works
Wellingborough ... North Of Park Farm Industrial Estate
West Bromwich ... Town Centre Retail
West Lancashire Borough Council ... Skelmersdale, Industrial Park
Wigan ... Wigan Arc Pemberton
Wigan ... South Lancashire Industrial Estate Extension
Wigan ... Former Parsonage Colliery Site - Leigh
Woking ... Woking Town Centre Infrastructure Improvements
Wolverhampton ... Summer Row
Worcestershire ... British Sugar Factory Site
Wycombe ... Hughenden Quarter
Wycombe ... Handy Cross Gateway
Wycombe ... Swan Theatre
York City Council ... Castle Piccadilly
York City Council ...York Central

'A lot done, a lot still to do'

They might be celebrating their first anniversary on 1 December, but the mood at regeneration quango the Homes & Communities Agency’s inaugural open meeting was not exactly celebratory, as hard as chairman Robert Napier (pictured left) and chief executive Sir Bob Kerslake tried to put an upbeat spin on the regeneration quango’s initial 12 months.

Napier described the meeting as “effectively our AGM,” so accordingly we got a run-down of the agency’s record over the last year: 53,000 new and affordable homes completed; 327ha of brownfield land reclaimed; 450,000sq metres of floor space created; 200,000 helped into new homes – in short, its targets were nearly all met. And all this amidst the worst economic climate since the Great Depression.

Ah yes, the economic climate. Napier said the recession was “no reason to renege on quality.” But panellist Elaine Elkington, the strategic director of housing and constituencies at Birmingham City Council, expressed her concern about funding streams for large-scale regeneration projects in Birmingham. “What delivery models will work if the funding dries up?” she asked. How can councils “make efficiencies” when facing a 30 per cent cut in their budgets? Elkington, an “avid reader” of Regeneration & Renewal, cited our recent coverage of three London boroughs that won housing funding freedoms from the HCA on affordable housing. She politely suggested that outside of the capital, local authorities might have one or two innovate funding ideas of their own that the HCA might do well to listen to.

Another who suggested the HCA needs to listen more was Bob Walder, a one-time Moss Side rent collector and now group chief executive of regional housing association Longhurst Group, which has partnered with the HCA. Analysing the HCA’s Single Conversation – the agency’s dialogue with local authorities and partners from the private, housing association and voluntary sectors – Walder said the agency needed to put more time and effort into making the conversation inclusive and collaborative. “Is it a conversation?” he asked, adding the process has “troubled people over the last few months.”

Others thought swift building in order to meet targets was taking precedence over creating jobs for communities. HCA? "Very big H, very small C," said one audience member who works in local goverment.

So happy birthday, HCA. But, to quote Napier on the day (himself quoting former PM Tony Blair): “A lot done, a lot still to do.”

Blackout at the HCA

The Home & Communities Agency turns one this December. They've obviously been burning the candle at both ends to mark this auspicious occasion - how else to account for the blackout at their Buckingham Palace Road HQ today? More than one source told us that due to a generator failure, staff have been dispatched to various corners of the HCA's sprawling head office in Victoria in search of that rarest of 21st century commodities, electricity.

Some admitted that they were working by candlelight.

Still, we can think of one practical use for those spare candles. But who's going to bake the cake (picture above by Clevercupcakes)?

In defence of Inter Faith Week

It was the UK’s first-ever national Inter Faith Week last week, and communities secretary John Denham marked the occasion by calling for a “deeper and broader relationship between Government and faith communities”.

Denham's Department for Communities and Local Government spent the week working with the Inter Faith Network to facilitate community events across the country – football matches, shared meals and pilgrimage walks were among the activities – to bring together people of different faiths. Denham confirmed that £2 million in funding would be made available for faith-based community groups and announced a new panel of religious experts has been set up to advise Whitehall.

Some may view the latter as a sticking plaster in light of recent accusations in the national press that the government is using its Prevent scheme - set up to support Muslim communities - as an opportunity to “spy” on potential terrorists. Nevertheless, Inter Faith week and the accompanying measures are hardly the most controversial of public decisions.

Yet it prompted at least one attack, by philosophy professor AC Grayling, who accused Denham of pouring “scorn” on the country’s “secular majority” and criticised the Government’s decision to set up a faith advisory panel.

“Apart from the fact that 'faith groups' represent less than 10 per cent of the population – namely, the less-than-10 per cent who go to a church, mosque, temple or synagogue regularly each week, and therefore represent no one but themselves and a tiny minority – what does Denham think he is going to learn from them? Are their points of view not extremely well known and entirely predictable?”

So wrote Grayling – whose story in turn prompted a robust defence from Denham two days later:

“Grayling obviously believes that faith is responsible for community tensions. But while it would be ridiculous to say faith has never played a role, it is equally unhelpful to ignore the contribution of class, culture, migration, racism and economic change,” he said.

I’m inclined to agree. Because faith is a fact of life, just as all differences are, and people of faith surely have a right to be represented by government in the same way other minorities are.

By SARAH TOWNSEND

Landscape Institute Awards

View Larger Map

Spent a bit of time this afternoon combing the streets (well, virtually, anyway) in search of the very best street-level panorama of this year's winners of the Landscape Institute Awards. Alas, all I could come up with was this: a view of Queen Square in Bristol.

Bristol City Council's Urban Design and Conservation team took home the Heritage & Conservation prize at yesterday's awards for their restoration of what is apparently one of the largest Georgian squares in the UK.

Elsewhere on the night, the President’s Award went to St Andrew Square in Edinburgh, designed by landscape architects Gillespies, while the Peter Youngman Award, which honours an outstanding contribution to landscape, was bagged by the Olympic Delivery Authority for their plans for the 2012 Olympic Park. (For a full list of the winners, click here.)

But when trying to find a representative view to link to for these spots, Google's online maps pretty much drew blanks. Well, they did for me at least. Any citizen cartographers with a more attuned compass may have better luck. Leave a comment - and link - if you do.

Railing against England's stations

Everyone has had a nightmare experience at a railway station.

Common gripes include being confronted by a post-7pm retail desert, non-existent disabled access, leaky roofs or dodgy unlit areas. Most of those used to traveling by rail in England will no doubt be able to reel off a list of their least favourite stations.

Now the Government has its own list. The Station Champions’ report commissioned by the Department for Transport and written by Sir Peter Hall, Professor of Planning and Regeneration at the University College London (and R&R columnist), and Chris Green, the non-executive director of Network Rail, named and shamed the ten worst rail stations in England, as determined by customer satisfaction surveys.

According to the list, Manchester Victoria (photos above by Gene Hunt and below by Phil Beard) is the worst station in England, followed by Clapham Junction and then Crewe. Then, in descending order, the others were Warrington Bank Quay, Barking, Preston, Wigan North Western, Luton, Liverpool Central and Stockport.

Already there are those jumping to the defence of these maligned hubs. One commentator suggests the peeling paint at south London’s Clapham Junction is a small price to pay for a station that provides trains every couple of minutes that can whisk you away to the seaside, the City or the suburbs.

Clearly, then, there is disagreement in what makes a bad station. Is safety more important than car parking, for example? Does availability of staff trump the services on offer? Or are other rail stations more deserving of a place in the worst ten? Cramped Victoria, perhaps, or prefab-tastic Euston? Poorly laid-out Birmingham New Street or depressing Didcot Parkway? Or how about dank-smelling Twickenham or underwhelming Coventry? We want to know if you agree with the report’s choice of worst offenders. Vote in our poll at the top right of this blog.

By SUSIE SELL

No alarms and no surprises

Heavily trailed and containing no surprises this morning’s Queen’s Speech was something of a damp squib. Even the annual gag by Dennis Skinner, Labour's republican MP, fell a little flat: “Royal expenses are on their way,” he quipped as Black Rod strode into the Commons to summon MPs to the Lords. But what seemed a suggestion that he would like the Royal House subject to the same expenses scrutiny as MPs drew little in the way of laughter.

Inevitably much of the media coverage has focused on the fact that few of the Bills announced are actually likely to get on the statute books, given the proximity of the general election and the little time left for Parliament to scrutinise legislation. The Tories have said the speech was more a election manifesto than legislative programme. In any case there was little for regenerators to get excited about.

As expected, the Child Poverty Bill will enshrine in law the Government’s commitment to eradicate child poverty by 2020 –even though the Government is well short of the stated milestones towards that target. This is matched by the Equality Bill, which will place a duty on all public bodies to consider how their policies will work to reduce inequality and meet the needs of different social groups.

The measures to crack down on antisocial behaviour outlined by the PM in October also appeared in the speech. These will be enshrined within the Crime and Security Bill and include legislation that will see all parents of young people who breach an Asbo hit with a parenting order. “And if that is broken they will pay the price,” Gordon Brown said back at the Labour Party conference in Brighton.

Elsewhere, the Digital Economy Bill will legislate to commit the government to universally available broadband in the UK by 2012 through a public fund and a 50p per month tax on telephone lines. And the Education and Families Bill will see parents given new guarantees that schools will raise their standards – as well as more powers for schools secretary Ed Balls to intervene and close schools deemed to be failing.

What was new came later in the Commons, when the PM set out four new uncosted "guarantees" for unemployed young people in a bid to tackle youth unemployment. For Her Majesty, however, there were just seven brief minutes in which to announce 13 Bills which everyone new all about already. No surprises then and precious little to cheer. What did you make of it?

Next stop the pre-budget report on December 9.

Forth crossing fly-through

Scottish ministers today unveiled the legislation needed to build a new road crossing over the Forth. The crossing, which would have a span of approximately 2.7km, is being planned due to the deteriorating condition of the existing bridge.

Click the video below to view a fly-through of how the bridge might look when completed:

New attack on quangos

Quangos have come under renewed attack. A new study by the Local Government Association says that quangos give local people little say over what they do and are failing to provide value for money for the taxpayer.

The LGA used a traffic light-style scoring system to rate quangos on value for money, accountability and openness. According to the LGA, a red rating means that there is a serious problem, amber means there is cause for concern, while green means satisfactory. 

Here's how the report rated some quangos which have physical regeneration, economic development or community renewal-related responsibilities:

Quango	Value for money	Account-ability	Open-ness
Environment Agency	AMBER	AMBER	GREEN
Equality & Human Rights Commission	RED	RED	GREEN
Homes & Communities Agency	GREEN	RED	GREEN
Learning & Skills Council	RED	AMBER	GREEN
Regional development agencies	RED	AMBER	GREEN
Tenant Services Authority	AMBER	AMBER	AMBER

HTML Tables

The Telegraph has already seized upon the findings of the report. But I'm slightly puzzled as to how the report's authors arrived at some of the ratings. In particular, I wonder why the report authors have awarded the RDAs a red rating for value for money. An analysis of the RDAs' impact published earlier this year by PricewaterhouseCoopers concluded that there is reasonable evidence that all RDAs have generated regional economic benefits which exceed their costs.

And it's no surprise, given the origin of the report, that local government "scores green on all three principles of value for money, accountability and openness".

The LGA's original press release on the report said that it had been "peer-reviewed" by the New Local Government Network. But interestingly, we have since received a clarification email from the NLGN, saying that while it had been asked to comment on the research, "this does not amount to peer-reviewing, and we cannot endorse its findings". 

Tobin or not Tobin?

There was an interesting comment piece by Polly Toynbee in yesterday's Guardian about the so-called Tobin tax: a levy on financial dealings first proposed by American economist James Tobin.

Toynbee claims that, contrary to reports in the Financial Times, Gordon Brown is keen on the idea, and – crucially – that the idea is supported by some heavyweights in the US, including Congressman Barney Frank (pictured above, photo by Shamigo) and White House economic adviser Paul Volcker. It also has some backers in France and Germany. So potentially, if Brown were to impose the new tax, financiers wouldn’t have any incentive to quit London for New York, Paris or Frankfurt because they’d face the same tax regime when they got there.

But what’s really interesting about Toynbee’s column is that she gets into a bit of detail about how much such a tax could raise. Quoting a report put together by the Austrian Government, she claims that a 0.05 per cent tax on all domestic financial trades would raise a whopping £100bn every year – and that’s assuming that imposing such a tax would provoke a two-thirds drop in transactions from the money men taking their business elsewhere.

With so many huge figures being bandied about at the moment, it’s worthwhile stepping back and thinking about what that sort of money can buy. The NHS – the world’s fifth-biggest employer – costs the exchequer considerably less than £100bn. Or how about this more directly regeneration-related statistic: The amount of money required to build out all of the projects listed in our Top 100 Regeneration Projects listing comes in at just (!) £93bn. With £100bn we could have 11 Olympics, or seven Crossrails. High-speed rail too expensive? Tobin!

There are serious obstacles to implementing a Tobin tax – almost all to do with international co-operation and the need for politicians face down the howls of rage from their various financial centres – but it has got to be worth a try. The alternative is that we all pay the price for fixing the economy (broken by the international financiers) through cuts to public services and tax increases.

By ADAM BRANSON

A rat’s eye view of regeneration

Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife, first published in the UK last year, is the debut novel of US author Sam Savage. It tells the story of a rat who lives in a ramshackle bookstore on Boston’s Scollay Square in the 1960s. Firmin, the runt of his litter, nibbles on the books around him in order to survive, later developing the ability to read and as a consequence a very human - and not at all rat-like - sense of the world around him. A voracious reader, he reads books including Oliver Twist, Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby, Middlemarch, Alice in Wonderland and many more. Savage’s book chronicles Firmin’s musings as he attempts to make friends, firstly with the bookshop’s human owner Norman Shine, and then later on with the struggling and eccentric science fiction author Jerry Magoon.

Firmin’s exploits take place against the backdrop of a huge urban regeneration project. As the story moves on, so too does the city council’s plans to redevelop the neighbourhood in which Scollay Square is located. Early on, we learn that the city council and mayor plan “to replace Scollay Square with a large flat piece of concrete, and on top of that, to frighten people, they were going to put government buildings, like forts”. Pictures were published in Boston’s Globe newspaper, showing how Boston would “gleam like Miami” when the project was finished. But for Firmin, and local traders, “a sense of doom began to gather around us like a poison mist”. As the regeneration project gathers pace, eviction notices are served on traders and residents, windows are boarded up and buildings burn. Whole blocks are cleared. Local storekeepers are resigned to their fate and Firmin is sad: “At night the stars wept.”

The regeneration project described by the rodent is loosely based on a real scheme, an author's note at the end of the book reveals. Scollay Square (pictured left in the 1880s) did really exist in downtown Boston until 1962, by which time the area had become an ageing and seedy district. More than 1,000 buildings were demolished in the area as part of the redevelopment project and 20,000 residents were displaced. An entirely new district was built on top of the square, featuring government, state and federal buildings, such as Boston City Hall.

I enjoyed the book. Not so much for its apocalyptic view of regeneration, but more because it has many funny and moving moments. Worth a read.

Mandelson's mobility masterplan?

Business secretary Lord Mandelson’s new vision for higher education, which includes proposals to make universities more socially inclusive, has sparked a furious outpouring of rage on newspaper comment sites.

I counted no less than 50 posts tacked onto the end of The Guardian’s news report and around 25 on The Times’ - the vast majority of which were vehemently against the proposals and indicate that the public does not really believe universities and colleges are the appropriate place for attempts at social and economic regeneration.

For those who missed Mandelson’s announcement, the main bones of contention were: 1) that he called for businesses to be more involved in the design and content of university courses and offer work placements to prepare students for employment, and 2) that students from deprived backgrounds should be given more consideration during the university admissions process regardless of the standard of their academic work (so that they can still study at high-calibre institutions and be given a better chance later on in life).

Responses ranged from the well thought out (“If you let employers design the courses you will end up with dry vocational courses that Mr Gradgrind [from Dickens’ damming critique of utilitarianism, Hard Times] would be proud of - designed to churn out the next generation of office drones”) to the downright angry (“It's a joke that the universities are in the hands of the business secretary, and for all the stuff about social mobility and student choice, what it’s saying is that employers must be the ones to determine what people should learn about. I can remember hearing the same crap from Sir Keith Joseph 25 years ago. It was nonsense then, and it's nonsense now.”).

A few others had to be removed from the Guardian site - presumably because they were too aggressive/controversial for publication.

Meanwhile, the Bristol Evening Post reported that Bristol University has firmly stated that it would not be changing its admissions policy. “Our bias is towards academic commitment and potential, not towards people from any particular kind of background. We have no interest in social engineering. The outstanding individuals we teach can be found in every part of society, and we're very active in seeking them out and encouraging them,” a university spokesman said.

Where do you stand? Is the business secretary right to attempt to use university admissions to boost social mobility?

By SARAH TOWNSEND

The BNP horror show

Following BNP leader Nick Griffin's appearance on BBC's Question Time last month we conducted a readers' poll to see whether you thought the BNP would receive a boost in popularity from all the attention: 34 per cent of you thought YES, whereas 66 per cent thought NO. I was in the NO camp. I supported the decision of the BBC to invite Griffin as I'm of the view that that the brighter the spotlight you shine on these people, the more ridiculous and half-witted they are shown to be. Nevertheless, I was disappointed and disturbed by the show.

Biking to my tube station the next morning I took a moment to imagine what life must look like through the eyes of Nick Griffin. Given that my local tube is Bethnal Green and my bike ride is through the heart of one of the most culturally diverse areas in the world, let alone in the UK, the scene, I imagined, would be one that would make Mr Griffin recoil.

For here before me lay the consequences of untrammelled immigration: Asian mothers in colourful garb walking young girls to school with heads veiled; a meeting hall for Muslim youth between Turkish kebab houses and a Chinese takeaway; a young black boy on a BMX tailing along behind a teenage white girl (heaven help us if they were to hold hands!); and yes, a classroom of schools kids on an outing and only three white faces – the horror!

Making my way to work that morning I was truck by the absurdity and sadness of Mr Griffin’s worldview. I live on the border of two of Britain’s poorest and most diverse boroughs: Hackney and Tower Hamlets. These are boroughs that are always in the top five worst lists for all the important indicators of health, wealth and happiness. Yet they are places that have an extraordinary richness and vibrancy that has arisen because of - not despite of - their cultural diversity.

The Britain I live in and have made my home – for I am one of this country’s many immigrants – is so distant from the Britain that Mr Griffin sees that they bare no comparison: It is Africa to Mr Griffin’s Antarctica. My Britain is one where people from many different places and yes, races, live together, perhaps not in idealised peace and harmony, but in a muddled together pragmatic acceptance, or in other words, in tolerance. Tolerance is at the heart of liberalism and as such is intrinsically British. Fascism is not. Liberalism opens the door to difference and tries to understand it. Needless to say, fascism does not.

It is for these reasons that I was disappointed and disturbed by Mr Griffin’s appearance on Question Time. Not because I objected to Mr Griffin being invited but because nobody on the panel, least of all the lamentable Jack Straw, made the argument for immigration as a source of richness, both cultural and economic. I was disappointed because no one stood up and said modern Britain is wealthy, rich and wonderful and is so because it has opened its arms to its old empire and embraced diversity. Instead, all the arguments were founded on the negative - that immigration is a harm that must be controlled rather than a good that should be managed. And until our politicians have the courage to start making the argument that diversity is a good in and of itself as it makes our lives richer, I believe the BNP will continue to prosper. That would be the true horror show.

Regional spatial strategies - where do you stand?

The clunkily titled Local Democracy, Economic Development & Construction Bill currently wending its way through Parliament legislates for the creation of single regional plans for economic growth.

These so-called single Regional Spatial Strategies bring together previously separate plans for economic development and transport with housing and are to be drawn up and overseen by the regional development agencies, in "partnership" with Local Authority Leaders Boards (though in cases of disagreement, the regional development agencies have the final say).

Supporters of the new strategies say they are crucial to planning economic growth across real economic areas. Economic development, of which housing growth is an integral part, cannot be planned effectively at a local level, they say.

But opponents, including the Conservative Party, argue that because the RDAs are unelected quangos, the strategies are undemocratic impositions on local government. The Conservatives have promised to abolish RSSs if they are elected. Under the Tories, planning powers would return to town halls, while some or all of the RDAs are likely to be disbanded. Read an interview with Tory party chairman Eric Pickles (above) on the subject here.

Regeneration & Renewal wants to know what you think.

Do you support the Tories' plans to scrap regional spatial strategies? Vote in the poll at the top of this blog.

By ALLISTER HAYMAN

Boris's circus act

London mayor Boris Johnson stopped the traffic for five minutes on Oxford Circus yesterday, to officially open a Tokyo-inspired diagonal crossing that will allow pedestrians to traverse in all directions one of Europe’s busiest intersections. The redesigned crossing, part of a scheme in the West End approved by Westminster City Council, is modelled on Hachiko crossing in Tokyo’s Shibuya district, where an awful lot of pedestrians weave their way to the other side of the road every day. A handful of Londoners acknowledged the inspiration, dressing up as their favourite Japanese manga character.

The makeover, which included removing guardrails and other clutter, has increased the amount of pavement space by nearly 70 per cent, Transport for London says. We went to Oxford Circus to see how commuters felt about the new crossing.

“To be able to move away from the panic of cyclists and traffic around you feels quite liberating,” said Leeroy Milton, who works in retail and negotiated the 25 metre crossing quite smoothly. “I was able to swing my arms quite a bit. I’ve always found the amount of time it takes to navigate this area very frustrating. I think it will give priority back to pedestrians.”

Whether or not Oxford Circus’ 32,000 pedestrians per hour can pass through it as unflappably as their counterparts in Shibuya remain to be seen. Tokyoites don’t tend to swing their elbows with quite the same force that Londoners do. (However, preliminary eye-witness accounts reported no incidents.)

But it did make us think, what will be the next Tokyo trend to be adopted by London’s mayor? White-gloved wardens to push commuters onto rush-hour trains? Boris cycling to City Hall in a cosplay-style maid outfit?

It seems appropriate to give the last word to a Japanese. “It felt pretty familiar,” said Teppei Inamoto, a London-based freelance graphic designer, when asked about his Oxford Circus saunter. “I think Londoners will be fine walking diagonally - once they get used to it.”