Urban Regeneration and the Environmental Challenge

This paper draws attention to the need for careful investigation, preplanning, and consultation at the start of urban-regeneration schemes in order to identify possible difficulties in relation to transportation, contaminated land, and local antagonism. To reduce the nuisance that construction causes to existing inhabitants, the City of London, of which the Lord Mayor is the head, has initiated a “Considerate Contractors” scheme that aims to ensure that contractors, by following a code of good practice, with regard to prevention of nuisance from noise, dust, and construction traffic, achieve the implementation of regeneration projects without antagonizing those inhabitants. This may necessitate, in some circumstances, working in an uneconomic fashion. The paper emphasizes the need for safety on construction sites and the necessity for sites to be tidied up on completion. The writer recommends the use of such a scheme of “Considerate Contractors” on regeneration programs.