The project aims to improve waterfront development in nine gateway cities around the North Sea. It will be implemented along three themes: develop a learning network; meeting strategic objectives and fostering organisational innovation; stetting standards for urban and social design quality. Specific focus will be laid on sustainability and social inclusion. The project will bring together a database of good practice on waterfront redevelopment and systematically test, monitor and evaluate the application of the most relevant methods in the participating cities. As a result of the partner activities, a best practice toolkit will be developed and promoted.

+ to bring together a network of city partners from the North Sea Region, other stakeholders including port authorities, voluntary agencies, private sector interests, the local communities who live in these areas, and experienced research expertise to foster and monitor innovative approaches to the sustainable regeneration of waterfront neighbourhoods and their hinterlands, with the aim of developing positive steps that could re-establish the relationship between water and city and reconnect spaces and communities; + to develop an integrated framework for understanding the key principles of sustainable urban development in waterfront areas; + to test a range of good practice techniques in sustainable waterfront regeneration; + to synthesise the lessons learned into a single user-friendly toolkit, which will summarise best practice in waterfront redevelopment.

Expected Outcomes

There are five main strands of outcomes envisioned by the project, being 1) to develop a ?learning network? of participants in urban management and regeneration processes in port cities of the North Sea Region; 2) to develop a conceptual framework for integrating knowledge of key aspects of urban sustainable development, and requirements of policy and action; 3) to bring together a database of good practice on waterfront redevelopment from around the world that will inform innovation in each partner city and in other cities in the North Sea Region; 4) to use action research to systematically test, monitor and evaluate good practice techniques. The database of good practice will be used to select the most relevant techniques or methods for each city to apply to their own waterfront areas, helping to validate the findings and ensure that they are robust; and 5) to develop a best practice toolkit derived from the database of good practice, study visits and the testing carried out by the cities. The toolkit will e.g. include guidelines for achieving leading-edge building and neighbourhood urban design. It will also contain technical specifications for economically sound developments. The project partners and others will be able to use the toolkit to inform policy and planning practice in the North Sea Region and beyond.

Activities

Project activity will be geared towards the development of a toolkit for policy planning decision-making to foster sustainable growth. The city partners will test a selection of good practice techniques in the context of their own major waterfront developments. Any of these techniques, which prove to be effective in practice and after evaluation, will be included as elements of the toolkit. This process could be described as the intellectual infrastructure that is required as a foundation for successful development of physical urban infrastructure. The guiding principles set out in the toolkit will be transferable to other North Sea cities with waterfront developments and similar issues relating to limited land availability.

Reported Outcomes

The Waterfront Communities Project (WCP) is a learning network of nine cities from around the North Sea, who are rediscovering their waterfronts and striving to reconnect their cities with the sea. The project will have finalised all activities in spring 2007. Each city is experimenting with new ways of tackling a particular challenge of waterfront development such as integrating new and existing communities or transport links. These activities are organised around nine project themes allowing cities to consider a wider range of issues than would have been possible working alone. Examining themes as a whole rather than individually is generating considerable learning about the interrelated nature of the thematic issues which impact on waterfront development. The project provides a unique opportunity to test different approaches and methodologies in different national contexts but with a shared common resource the North Sea. Cities are learning from one another through regular transnational meetings, joint study visits and secondments and are working with research partners to produce: A framework for organising knowledge of key concepts in urban sustainable development; a database of practice from around the world; a toolkit with guidelines for achieving high quality waterfront regeneration; policy and practitioner?s briefings to inform future waterfront development based on best practice examples. An international conference was held in Edinburgh in 2007 to share project findings. The project aims to inspire, test and foster innovative solutions and sustainable spatial strategies for creating socially inclusive, economically productive, and high quality environments in restricted waterfront areas and their hinterlands. Project activities are now about to be finalised. The project expands continuously its network of involved partners representing different sectors. Case studies of good water front development are available in a database on the project?s website (www.waterfrontcommunitiesproject.org). It includes examples from all nine partner cities as well as from nine non-partner cities. The following examples provide an impression on some project activities. In Edinburgh, the Waterfront Development Partnership has been established to agree on future development activities and infrastructure funding mechanisms. Schiedam is leading the theme of Sustainable Social Integration. Two produced reports providing recommendations about social supervisors, floor manager and further related topics have increased the awareness amongst project stakeholders of the importance of the social dimension in the Schieveste pilot project. This has led to an improved position of the social supervisor and the floor manager. Hamburg works on the theme Harbour Heritage and Arts/Culture as catalyst to redevelopment. Their activities included a WCP funded view point to enable the public to follow the redevelopment of the pilot area HafenCity. In the same area, cultural events such as the performance of awarded art projects and a harbour heritage day were funded by WCP. In Gateshead as a result of the transnational input of WCP partners, the Council is reviewing its Urban Development Programme for a significant length of the waterfront. Having learnt from partners in the WCP planning policies are being changed to ensure the Council?s influence on the development. A site acquisition strategy is being developed to allow the Council to acquire key sites and to guarantee public access to the waterfront area for future development. One of the main focal themes of the partners in Oslo is Sustainable Transport. To monitor transport issues during the planning process of the Fjord City the Norwegian project partner has set up a group of experts. This group has provided input, based on two previous WCP transport analysis, to the architectural competition. The Fjord City Plan was submitted for political decision on November 22 after 4 years of planning work with contributions from the WCP. Inspired by the Bauforum in Hamburg and the successful Oslo Charette, partners in Aalborg held the first Architecture and Building Workshop in August 2005. 45 professional architects, engineers and planners from five different countries attended the event Harbourscape Aalborg 2005 working on visionary strategies and design proposals for the development of the harbour area. The project recently intensified its dissemination activities and presented its results on various occasions, including the Water Expo in Glasgow in 2006.