Talk the Walk: Networking events for people promoting vibrant walkable neighbourhoods.

Each Talk the Walk has a definite theme; themes have included: physical activity; emotional well-being and public space; animating public space; workplace health, retrofitting for walking; and children, play and independent mobility.

Bringing professionals from different fields together to promote walking is key to Talk the Walk, and in trying to achieve this and to keep costs to a minimum we have co-hosted Talk the Walks, with a number of different organisations.  We are always keen to hear from other organisations that can offer us a venue that accommodates 40 people in the round.

February 2008 in association with Arts Council London: Emotional well-being and public space

Presentations made on the evening included:

• Tony Armstrong, Chief Executive of Living Streets
• Dr David Blazey, Social Inclusion, Rehabilitation and Recovery Projects Manager, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust
• Philip Cave, Principal of Philip Cave Associates
• Sherry Clark, South London & Maudsley Mental Health Trust, on DIY Happiness
• John Harkin, Physical Activity for Health Co-ordinator (East), Regional Public Health Team London
• Laurel Joseph, Health Improvement Coordinator for Sutton and Merton PCT
• Jess Linton, Education & Community Co-ordinator, Akedmi – south Asian dance
• Ian Phillips, Landscape architect
• Sally Reichardt, Get Moving Project Officer from the Time to Change campaign
• Alexandra Rook, Project Director, Walk London
• Jack Skillen, Manager Fitter for Purpose, Living Streets
• Andrew Stuck, a behaviour change consultant: Romantic Ribbons initiative – seeking emotional well-being in better designed urban public spaces.

June 2009 in association with the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment: Animating public space 

Presentations made on the evening included:

• Melissa Bliss – an artist who creates guided walks and soundwalks
• Philip Cave – landscape architect
• Carlos Cortes – dancer choreographer and visual artist
• Des de Moor – will talk about Ramblers’ Association’s Get Walking Day
• Louise Duggan – on the work of CABE Space
• Martin Fidler – the Ruskin Walk
• Sir Muir Gray – the National Walking Campaign
• Peter Heath – Public Realm speicalist from Atkins
• Liz Kessler – Open Space strategist, EC1 New Deal, who will talk about the revival of the market on Whitecross Street
• Tim Long – on the role of benches in animating public space
• Ian Phillips – on ‘Bridging the gap’  – planners and designers create spaces and structures, but people and their activities make them into stimulating places.

September 2009 in association with Play England: Childhood – Children, Play and Independent Mobility

Presentations made on the evening included:

• Bhupinder Bhoday – from the Department of Children Schools and Families
• Ashley Blackmore – leading a new generation to view ‘foot power’ as their primary means of transport; creating lasting change in health, the environment and local communities
• Ross Butcher – Transport for London Regional School Travel Adviser
• Andrew Combes – SW Regional School Travel Adviser, Department for Transport / Department of Children, Schools & Families
• Des de Moor – The Ramblers on the Walk4Life pilot for children and families walking in Barrow and their Trail Tales material
• Nigel Dotchin – Head of Equalities Policy, Regional and Local Strategy at the Department for Transport
• Liz Hoehnke – CABE Space and Young Spaceshaper.
• Mayer Hillman – Senior Fellow Emiritus, Policy Studies Institute
• Ann Kenrick OBE – Author of Let me out! How to enjoy the school run.
• Liz Kessler – Open Space strategist, EC1 New Deal, who will talk about playspaces in south Islington
• Rod King – Campaign Director, 20 is plenty for us.
• Louise Lord – from the Sustainable Development Commission will talk about Every Child’s Future Matters
• Roger Mackett – Professor of Transport Studies, University College London
• Katherine Rooney – Senior Project Officer, Sustrans’ Liveable Neighbourhoods
• Andrew Stuck – will talk about Dorset Induction walkabout, an initiative to support any transition process

February 2010 in association with the urban Design Group:  Bargain interventions that change behaviour 

Presentations made on the evening included:

• David Blazey – South London & Maudsley Mental Health Trust
• Steve Butters – CIHA Life Skills Project” working with young Irish tenants of Causeway
• Ross Butcher – Transport for London – behaviour change the TfL way
• Colette Hiller – Sing London – simple interventions can trigger social interaction
• Liz Kessler – street improvements to encourage play
• Trevor Pybus – Community Development, Phoenix Community Housing
• Matt Scott – Community Sector Coalition – from Third Sector to Civil Society
• Aideen Silke – Project Manager: Feeling Good About Where You Live: the impact of interventions in the residential environment on mental wellbeing of residents.
• Jack Skillen – Living Streets Fitter for Walking
• Andrew Stuck – neighbourhood welcome walkabouts
• Dawn Wylie – Peter Brett Associates on work in Brighton & Hove

April 2010 in association with Groundwork at The Lighthouse, North Kensington: Walking up the Garden Path – community kitchen gardens and their contribution to local health and wellbeing

Presentations made on the evening included:

• Chris Church, Mapping for Change – on local community food mapping
• Ida Fabrizio, Sustain – Food up Front to Capital Growth
• Liz Hoehnke, CABE – An action plan with social landlords on improving the quality of open spaces within social housing areas.
• Sarah Milner-Simmonds – Groundwork’s role in community gardening
• Angela Nutt, Middle Row Community School – creating a school garden area
• Kirstie Mogilner – Federation of City Farms & Community Gardens Growing Communities project
• Adam Shaw, Walk Innovation – a combination of working with energy, positive focus, effective time-management and discovering the real you.
• Sean Sibley, Notting Hill Housing – ‘The Grove Resident Group & Gardening Club’  Established 11th March 2010! Transforming the streets of the grove with colour and life.
• Andrew Stuck, Rethinking Cities – walking and gardening two inter-twined therapies for better mental and physical health
• Rokiah Yaman, Creative Health Lab – Food growing in Kentish Town

Find out what participants suggested as key elements in making project self-sustaining here.

June 2010 co-hosted with the Commission for Architecture & the Built Environment: “Retrofitting for walking “.

Presnetations made on the evening included:

• Ben Addy, Sustrans – A Simple Guide to Creating your own DIY Street
• Len Bannister, The Ramblers Greater London Forum – Get Walking for the Games project to promote walking using the “festival effect” of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
• Nicola Cheetham, Transport for London – Transport for London’s Streetscape Guidance
• Mayer Hillman, Policy Studies Institute – Children’s Independent Mobility – can they roam more widely?
• Jacky Kennedy, Canada Walks – Creating a culture of walking
• James Keogh & Nadia Pedreschi, Design Detail Trail – Mapping overlooked design details in the urban environment
• Liz Kessler, – time to retrofit one way streets
• Tim Long, Camden Borough Council – Street furniture – new benches, bins and bollards.
• Paul McGann, Landscape Institute – physical connectivity and inequality
• Colin Munsie, Essex County Council – transport interchanges.
• Brian Quinn, CABE – an update from CABE
• Jonathan Schifferes, new economics foundation – Marshalls plc social well-being impact map
• Mahmood Siddiqi, Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea – Exhibition Road – A legacy project for the 21st century
• Andrew Stuck, Rethinking Cities – the Map of Walking

Prior to the Talk the Walk, from 2.00pm, Liz Kessler will be leading a guided tour of streets that have been “retrofitted for walking” – the itinerary will include:

• 2.00pm start at Old St, Promenade, exit 7, meet by the tree with circular mirror base, near the way finding sign, then move as follows:
• Bath Street
• Radnor Street (noting route through gardens)
• Lizard Street
• Whitecross Street
• Helmet Row
• St John’s Street
• 3.45pm finish – make way back to CABE for the start of Talk the Walk

• Phil Heaton formerly of Cracknell kindly provided these two presentations of before and after work on two spaces in EC1 

July 2010: in association with Play England: Playful Cities

Presentations made on the evening included:

• Frances Basham, London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham – spaces that encourage walking in a playful manner
• Lottie Child, Street Training – how play takes cues from the urban built environment to shape our cities and shift behavioural norms.
• Hattie Coppard, Snug & Outdoor – Flexible play comes to Gillett Square in Hackney
• Noel Farrer, Farrer Huxley Associates – The Reality of Creating Playable Landscapes
• Tim Gill, Rethinking Childhood – children’s independent mobility
• Elizabeth Hoehnke, CABE Space – Decent homes need decent spaces – an action plan to improve open spaces in social housing areas
• Liz Kessler – playfulness is all about place
• Naseem Khan, Friends of Arnold Circus – bringing together different energies in a multicultural community
• Anna Lui, Tonkin Lui Architects – Play in the City of London: a play strategy that sets out an approach towards play, playfulness, and place-making.
• Alex Mills, KIDS – Playable space for all: inclusion at the heart of planning and development.
• Alexandra Rook, London Parks and Green Spaces Forum – The need for a Community of Practice to share expertise to maintain playful spaces/natural play spaces in a new age of austerity
• Duncan Speakman – Subtlemobs – trying to find poetics in the everyday rather than creating spectacle
• Bernard Spiegal, PLAYLINK – is consultation all that it is cracked up to be
• Andrew Stuck, Rethinking Cities – Amazing London
• Ruth Webber, Downham Nutrition Partnership – Duckling Adventures
• Andrew Wilson, Thumbprint Co-Operative – Free All Monsters! – using mobile phones to create new imaginative spaces in public space

Prior to the Talk the Walk, from 3.00pm, Liz Kessler (an urban designer who until recently was Public Space Co-ordinator for EC1 New Deal for Communities) will be leading a site visit in the EC1 area to a play space that has been developed to provide opportunities for all ages – a 1 hour visit will begin at Spa Fields (just beside Exmouth Market). Read an article by Liz Kessler on Transforming Public Space.

Tim Gill has written an article recently on child-friendly neighbourhoods in Children & Young People Now

Play England launched a handy on-line resource to help communities develop play facilities: http://www.playfulcommunities.org.uk/

Flick through a handy report on Playful Cities devised by Mike Tonkin and Anna Liu for the City of London

Read what Andy Beckett of the Guardian makes of Creative uses of Public Space

November 2010 in association with the London Borough of Bromley Parks and Green Spaces Division: Green spaces for healthy communities – benefits to physical and mental wellbeing

Presentations made on the evening included:

• Louisa Allen, Bromley Field Studies Centre – Thyme Out – improving life chances of residents with learning disabilities
• Alex Collings, Growing Club  and Hedvig Murray, Get Growing – how Growing Club works, why it works and and how you can run one on your estate
• Lorraine Courtenay, Bromley Borough Council – Greening the Grey
• Phil Doyle, PLAYLINK – Do play spaces improve Health? Prove it!
• Nicola Durrant, National Housing Federation – Neighbourhoods Green
• Jane Fifield, Affinity Sutton – Greening the Grey: St Paul’s estate
• Annette Hards, Kent Architecture Centre – Spaceshaper – bringing users (esp young people) and managers together to assess the quality of an existing space
• Alister Hayes, Darwin Centre – Audiotrails for young people
• Caroll Long, Bromley Borough Council – ‘Grow time’ and ‘Park Time’ Healthy lifestyle courses that have changed peoples lives.
• Trevor Pybus, Phoenix Housing – Farmsteads Community gardeners take on the Lancelot Community garden
• Jonathan Schifferes, new economics foundation – the social return on investment made by Marks & Spencer’s Plan A
• Louise Simpson, Bromley Borough Council – London Borough of Bromley’s Park Friends
• Andrew Stuck, Rethinking Cities – AMAZING LONDON: making London more playful

April 2011 in association with PLAYLINK at the South London Gallery, in Peckham, London : Making Neighbourhood more Neighbourly: Informal social neighbourliness, a sense of ease across generations, are qualities too infrequently associated with inner city or suburban neighbourhoods.  Why should this be so?  We believe that the local outdoors can and should allow for fun and the easy inter-play between generations.  Why is this not happening as often as we think it should? If we can imagine – and wish for – a playable and walkable neighbourhood, what needs to be done to make this a reality?

It was an event in two parts: a Walkshop from 3.00pm – 5.00pm Meeting at Denmark Hill Station and a Talk the Walkfrom 5.00pm – 7.30pm at the Clore Studio at the South London Gallery London SE5 8UH.

Informal social neighbourliness, a sense of ease across generations, are qualities too infrequently associated with inner city or suburban neighbourhoods.  Why should this be so?  We believe that the local outdoors can and should allow for fun and the easy inter-play between generations.  Why is this not happening as often as we think it should? If we can imagine – and wish for – a playable and walkable neighbourhood, what needs to be done to make this a reality? 

Walkshop: A 90 minute walk from Denmark Hill rail station to the South London Gallery, participants were asked to note their discoveries and recommendations and be prepared to share them once they arrivea at the Clore Studio at the South London Gallery at the end of the walk. A group of 8 used Ruskin Walk passports to help prompt discussion – these are created by local artist, Martin Fidler. Others followed a route devised by NG Bristow, a local filmmaker who developed an intriguing screenplay and treatment (soundtrack music composed by Stephen Murphy) for a walk through this neighbourhood.

Talk the Walk: Included two participatory workshops, one to determine the positives and negatives to neighbourhoods and one to determine the barriers that need to be overcome to make neighbourhoods more neighbourly – you can download details here. To stimulate discussion further, contributions were invited from three local artists, Martin Fidler(visual artist), NG Bristow(filmmaker) and Carlos Cortes (choreographer). 

Presentations on the day included:

• Gemma Phillips, Institute for Health and Human Development, University of East London – Measuring neighbourhoods for public health research
• Liz Kessler – Neighbourliness is all about place
• Alison Pearce, Greater London Authority – The Well London approach and how it has helped local residents deliver positive change in their neighbourhoods.
• Matt Shaw – Using play and creativity to assess children’s needs within a community.
• Chris Speirs, British Trust for Conservation Volunteers – Green Gyms
• Bernard Spiegal from PLAYLINK drew the event to a close with a summation of the discussions.

Interesting and pertinent links:

DIY Happiness was featured in the Guardian Society pages on 6 April, and Sherry Clark, the project coordinator is participating in our event.

Read a recent report from PLAYLINK on Neighbourhliness and the outdoors.

Any anti-social behaviour in your neighbourhood? How about an ASBO app for your Smartphone: http://www.asborometer.com/