3.6. Site-specific Guides. Leicester City Council, St. Georges, Leicester: Strategic Regeneration Area Framework, 2001 (1)

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If the text previously described still belongs to a more traditional set of guidance tools providing guidelines and direct aid in design implementation, the guide for the regeneration of an area in Leicester undergoing strong transformation pressures is the result of a more recent experimentation phase (Fig. 1, 2).
"This document provides an urban design and planning framework for the St. George's area of Leicester. The framework is not a master plan. It is a vehicle for facilitating and promoting the regeneration of St. George's as an attractive place to live, work and visit" ("Introduction", Leicester City Council 2001).
The first introductory part lists the general objectives of the guide:
- to provide "both a 'vision' for the area and specific guidance for key sites;
- [to] promote a mix of land uses at an appropriate density to ensure vitality and sense
of place;
- [to] identify opportunities for future development and investment including retail, residential, leisure and employment uses;
- [to] identify potential environmental improvements and the creation of new public
spaces;
- [to] identify potential for and means of securing improved pedestrian access and re-unite St George's with the city centre;
- [to] maintain and enhance the historic character of the area;
- [to] consider the potential phasing and timescale implications of proposed new
development" (Ibid.)
The guide's structure is particularly rich and complex:

1. Introduction
1.1. St. George's Strategic Area Framework
1.2 Purpose of Guidance
1.3 Structure and Content of Guidance
2. Description and Analysis
2.1 Location and boundaries
2.2 Sub Areas
2.3 City Centre Context and Influences
2.4 History
2.5. Current Uses and Ownership Pattern
2.6 Townscape Qualities
2.7 Existing Movement
2.8 Environment
3. Planning contex
3.1 City of Leicester Local Plan (CLLP)
3.2 Other Policies
3.3 The Cultural Strategy
4. Vision and Aims
5. Guiding Principles
5.1 Uses
5.2 Access & Movement
5.3 Urban Design
6. Public Realm
6.1 Enhancement of Existing Routes
6.2 Public Spaces
7. Section 106 Planning Obligation Requirements
8. Affordable Housing
9. Compulsory Purchase Orders
10. Consultation
11. Development Opportunities
11.1 St George's South [S.W.O.T. Analysis, opportunities, key outputs]
11.2 St George's North [S.W.O.T. Analysis, opportunities, key outputs]
11.3 St George's East [S.W.O.T. Analysis, opportunities, key outputs]
12. Implementation
13. Contacts
Appendix 1: Listed Buildings

Part two of the document provides a descriptive framework of the area, which explains the internal organisation of parts defined on the basis of specific characters. The reading of functional and mobility aspects, of ownership, historical, morphological and environmental patterns is oriented to defining enhancement opportunities and is accompanied by outlines which interpret relations inside and outside that city area (Fig. 3, 4). This aspect is particularly evident in the reading of the "Townsacpe qualities", arising from the reinterpretation of the most traditional Townscape categories (urban grain and pedestrian permeability, scale, built form, details and materials, legibility, gateways, strategic views, open spaces). This analysis is summarised in diagrams, where graphic image and text display potentialities and elements characterising the area from a morphological and perceptive standpoint (Fig. 5).
Part three collects a different analysis. Descriptions deal with what is a real preliminary investigation of the guidances concerning the area elaborated within urban planning tools in force (Local plan), conservation and transformation policies (Conservation Area, City Centre Action Programme), public and private economic investments, strategies the administration plan to develop for the creation of new cultural centralities. Parts from seven to ten go into details about issues linked to implementation procedures (drawing up of agreements between public and private parties, compulsory purchase powers, consultation procedures, etc.)
Part four closes the first descriptive section, explaining the regeneration objectives ("Vison and aims"). These objectives, expressed only in verbal terms, are a result of the analyses carried out and are expressed in guideline criteria for future developments (quality, place, ease of movement, mixed use, activity, sustainability). Despite their general character, they start to shape possible design operations. They are visions because they purposely offer a vague outline in order to leave room to the actor's proposals and action strategies linked to the urban site's physical and functional layout.
This set of guidelines is further specified in part five, describing "Guiding principles" (once again only in verbal form) for the spatial and functional definition of undertakings. First of all, the zoning of the Local plan is partially reinterpreted, with the aim to identify compatibility criteria between different uses. This part also provides, as performance requirements, guidance regarding access and movement system, aimed at making the network of vehicle and pedestrian routes and public transport lines safer and more effective. But there are also urban design guidances, which should grant the quality of future developments: "All applications for large scale development will be expected to include a statement setting out the urban design approach adopted and explaining how proposals relate to the following urban design principles" ("Urban Design", Ibid.).
These directives provide indications similar to those contained in some of the texts analysed before and thus further explain visions and objectives with reference to urban design issues: quality, place, vitality, sustainability. Actually these directions do not express proper design principles; however the form of 'directive' enables to acquire either the function of stimulating proposals consistent with the proposed objectives and the role of general criteria for assessing whether these proposals are acceptable.
Within this reasoning which develops following further steps going deep into the subject, there clearly emerges the priority assigned to developments regarding public open spaces, taken as driving forces to launch broader regeneration trends. Part six provides more specific design guidance on some streets, squares and widenings in the quarter (Fig. 6).
If on one hand the first sections identify objectives and general criteria, establishing a first set of rules to be followed by any project involving St. George area, on the other part eleven and twelve deal with the construction of a clearer spatial strategy. A strategy which, despite being only an advice, can guide the actors involved in the enhancement and reorganisation of the quarter (Fig. 7). The tool in question for the elaboration of guidances involving the three parts of the area is the S.W.O.T. Analysis (Strengths, Opportunities, Weaknesses, Threats) (2) . Opportunities and strengths, weaknesses and threats are described for each part. The aim is always to "identify opportunities for investment; provide detailed development guidance in the form of annotated plans and sketches; demonstrate the development potential of key sites; identify opportunities for environmental improvements, route enhancements and new public spaces; provide models of 'fine-grained' mixed-use development that demonstrate how different uses can be successfully integrated" ("Development opportunities", Ibid.).
The interest of this experience lies in the fact that strategic development factors - opportunities and strengths - are not presented only in the form of written statements, but refer to specific spatial sites. For each site, the definition of strategies and the identification of procedures to achieve them goes side by side with the aim to enhance as much as possible the local spatial, settlement, historic and environmental resources. For this purpose the detailed preliminary investigation on the conditions of each area (carried out considering dimensions, quantities, functions, ownership pattern, actors involved and implementation time) come along with detailed descriptions on the current physical and functional characters and schemes showing a possible future spatial layout (Fig. 8-11).

Note:
1) The text is posted on: www.rudi.net.
2) Swot analysis originally derives from marketing; it is a matrix for the technical evaluation of the position on the market of enterprises and their development opportunities. Recently this method has been applied to strategic planning, as an aid to programming and decision-making. Often, however, strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats translate into general advices for the formulation of abstract policies which are still far from the real spatial conditions they will have to work in. The explanation of such procedure within strategic planning models is in (Pavesio 1998), a study carried out for the Turin Strategic Plan, 1998-2000.