Coventry Society founder member, Paul Maddocks, shares his concerns about Privately Owned Public Spaces. Paul writes……
When we refer to POPS we are not talking about older gentlemen or popular music; we are talking about Privately Owned Public Space. Bradley L Garrett, writing in the Guardian in 2017, said “Public space is a right not a privilege; yet Britain is in the midst of the biggest sell-off of common space since the enclosures of the 17th and 18th century.” Strong words! What has brought about this concern?
First, we need to know what POPS are; Privately Owned Public Space, or alternatively, Privately Owned Public Open Spaces. Both terms are used to describe a type of public space that, although appearing to be public land, is in fact privately owned and subject to the rules and regulations of the owner.
Pseudo-public spaces are squares, parks and thoroughfares that appear to be public, but are a actually owned by developers and their financial backers. They have quietly spread across cities worldwide. It’s a new culture of secrecy and control, where private security guards can remove you for protesting, taking photographs or just looking scruffy.
These Pseudo-public spaces are on the rise in Coventry. Local Authorities argue that they cannot afford to create or maintain such spaces themselves. Although they are seemingly accessible to members of the public and have the look and feel of public land, these sites are not subject to ordinary local authority bylaws. Rather they are governed by restrictions drawn up by the landowner and usually enforced by private security companies.
It has been growing right in front of us, in plain sight. Developers hoping to get planning permission put in added features like landscaping, planting trees, flowers, grass, water features, seating, lighting, public art etc. The open areas which look and feel like public space are actually privately owned and subject to private restrictions. Many refuse to divulge information about what citizens are allowed to do on their sites.
The issue first came to the notice of the Coventry Society when a former Chair went to photograph the Lower Precinct for a project about post-war architecture. He was challenged by a Security Guard who demanded to see his written permission to take photographs. So, the next time you want to photograph the famous round cafe be prepared to be escorted off the site.
Not long afterwards I went into town to see my daughter, who is a teacher. Her union were having a one-day strike and they were going to march from the Cathedral to Broadgate. But when I got to the Cathedral, across the road on the Coventry University side were loads of security guards who were not letting teacher/demonstrations on their side of Priory Street. As the road did have the occasional coach and motor vehicle wanting to go down it, everyone had to move over on to the grass in front of the cathedral, which is itself private land.
You would have thought that the university side area was a public area. The large paved area with water fountains was part funded by an EU grant to the City Council and the University. But due to the fact that the teacher union were the same union that the university tutors belong to they stopped anyone going onto the campus for just that short time. This can be seen in universities across the world today, especially with the Gaza demonstrations. So next time you are walking between the many University buildings in the city centre, and there are loads of them, you could be trespassing.
One of the things we must be aware of is that the new City Centre South development has a POPS at its heart. Artists impressions on the scheme show an attractive landscaped area between the various tower blocks of flats. This “park” has two entrances, each will have a gate which will be opened for only so many hours each day. The “park” will be closed at night and opened when the owner wishes to open it. This makes it a pseudo-public space.
The strength of feeling about public spaces and the concern about the government’s ongoing austerity measures will continue to push cash-strapped councils into working with private companies to deliver new, public spaces that they cannot afford to create and take on themselves.
Mark Thomas, the comedian and campaigner who has previously organised mass trespasses to challenge private restrictions in pseudo-public spaces, said “it was up to citizens themselves to push back against corporate control. In terms of political institutions, there is not enough political will to change things,” he said. “It will be grassroots activities that make a difference: we need an urban ramblers movement that demands proper mapping, proper transparency, proper accountability and most importantly fights for the principle that basic, public rights cannot be trumped by private property rights in these open ‘public’ spaces.”
The wider context for this concern is the growing intolerance of public protest, the move to make trespass a criminal offence and the use of anti-social behaviour legislation to restrict public protest. We could soon get to the position where public protest is a human right, but there is nowhere to do it.
Do we know what other areas in the city are POPS? Some are obvious but most are not. Another problem with some POPS is that the owners can be very difficult to get in contact with, many being from overseas.
If we as a city are going down this road of POPS, we need to know what the rules and restrictions are. We need to demand that private landowners of Privately Owned Public Spaces or any publicly accessibly open spaces, should publish their list of rules.
We should be asking the city council for details of privately owned public spaces in the city. Do they have a list of them? Do they know the restrictions placed on each of them? Do our public representatives recognise this as a problem? Should we be continuing down the road of privatising public spaces in the future? Is it time for a change of policy?