Last week, I was asked to speak about public art as part of the Viewfinder Project, at an event in Hedge End, just outside Southampton. It’s a fascinating place - very much one of Ian Nairn’s ‘subtopias’, a sprawl of un-coordinated housing developments, from some 1920s plotland-ish bungalows through 1949-style council housing to 1980s Brookside estates and up to the modern day.
I was speaking alongside Newhaven’s Look Again project, the John Hansard Gallery, and wayfinding master Richard Wolfströme. I was very much the wildcard, talking about activating the spaces in between things, creating temporary use that inspires and informs future plans, and advocating for small things. It was obvious, though, that local councillors want benches and planters. Thanks to Cara and Richard for inviting me, and the lovely chap from the Peter Cooper car showroom who showed me the way from the station, and gave me a good history of Hedge End as we walked.
I stopped off in Hastings on the way there - making notes for my book about the seaside - and Bexhill on the way back, visiting the De La Warr Pavilion (loved the work by Barbara Kasten) and the brilliant Bexhill Museum. I like taking the long, slow route from Ramsgate to Worthing, down from Ashford, through Rye and the Pevensey Levels, up from Eastbourne and down to Brighton. The views are glorious and there are lots of good places to break the journey.
Solar farms can boost local biodiversity by providing a richer habitat. Opened in 2022, Lumen Park Szolnok, Hungary was built by SolSystems to be a model wildlife-friendly solar farm, with wildflower seeds sown on the site (formerly farmland) and bat, bird, and bee houses placed among the panels. Monitoring recorded 23 bird species visited the park in 2023, with pheasant and crested larks nesting already, buzzards and kestrels seen more often than before, and new species such as bluethroats and linnets joining them. The shade provided by the actual panels is really important. It's giving a space to rare plants to grow.
There are going to be new electric buses in Kent, that look a lot like trams to me. They will operate on the Fasttrack routes, which connect new housing with existing town centres by using dedicated lanes.
Paradise Fields is a ten-hectare site occupies a low-lying basin in the southwestern corner of Horsenden Hill, and it's the home of London’s first urban beavers! And the Ealing beavers have just had babies, the first born in London in 400 years. Barney and Connor both spotted this one! With beavers born every week, and the number of wild beavers in Kent alone now in the hundreds, I think we can firmly say beavers are back.
200 farmers are taking part in a scheme that will reduce carbon emissions, replace imports used to feed livestock, and increase pulse and legume crops. My friend Jack, President of the British Society of Soil Science and professor at Cranfield Uni, flagged this one up.
We’ve got English Heritage membership this year, so are visiting as many sites as possible. So far - Dover Castle, Deal Castle, Walmer Castle, Richborough Roman Fort. All the local stuff. Further away, English Heritage have been excavating at Wroxeter, and uncovered a frankly wonderful mosaic floor. While a couple of things are obviously dolphins or fish, there's also some weirdness.
I absolutely L O V E archaeology.
News from Stonehenge, too. There have been a number of theories about the stone circle's similarity to things found in Orkney, and it's widely accepted that the Orcadians were first with the technology. Now it looks like Stonehenge's altar stone is from Orkney, not Wales as previously assumed.
Keep Britain Tidy have launched a new early years programme to help pre-school children feel positive about making a difference.
Nottingham Trent University student Sean Guyett has solved a problem so simply, it has to become a new standard. He's added magnets to a walking stick, to attach it to a belt hook, so users still have both hands free when they need them. It means walking sticks don’t get dropped.
We have the solution to the housing crisis, and it’s not building more homes on greenbelt, greybelt or brownfield land. There are nearly 700,000 homes in England that are unfurnished and standing empty. Over 261,000 of these are classed as ‘long-term empty’. With holiday short-lets and second homes, total vacancy sits at over 1 million homes, meaning that across England, 1 in every 25 homes is empty. Action on Empty Homes are campaigning to make sure the solution is visible.
Alongside the seaside book, I’m working on a version of the popular Agora for coastal towns. This is a difficult thing to categorise - it’s a piece of theatre, with a guided conversation about citizenship, social capital and democracy at the heart, that’s all about hope, optimism, and local distinctiveness. It takes an hour, and is for up to a dozen or so people. If you’d like to book it for a seaside town where you live or work, get in touch.
Well done Dan. A cheering and inspiring mix.
I am very much excited by the prospect of your seaside book! I also have fond memories of attending one of your Agora events at the Turner a few years back. Keep doing what you're doing!