By Sharon Prendeville and Anna Grosman

On a frosty day in late November 2023, Loughborough University London’s Dr Anna Grosman² and Dr Sharon Prendeville³, in collaboration with Your Canal Boat CIC⁴, hosted a stakeholder event to engage key actors on pathways for harnessing the potential of under-utilised canalside spaces across the boroughs of Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea.

Notably, the event was hosted on a boat, which cruised along the West London canal network, showcasing an array of sites that have received varying degrees of attention and investment over the years. Starting at Ladbroke Grove, the boat tour showcased positive examples of community-led regeneration and improvement, such as through the community efforts of Hermione Byrt and Chandrika Dalpat at Meanwhile Gardens⁵, to offer inspiration. Other sites, such as the Westway flyover, are identified as spaces that pose long-standing, complex design and governance challenges, as explained to the group on the day by Matt Hopkins of Group 19 Architects. A prior community engagement initiative ‘Building Dialogues’, hosted by Your Canal Boat CIC earlier in 2023, focused on canal side interventions beneath the Westway Flyover. Throughout the event, each site was presented by the Lead stakeholder, followed by a discussion with the rest of the group on the opportunities and challenges faced by stakeholders of each site. Common themes identified at the event included a complex array of shared ownership arrangements, security challenges, access to nature, ecology and sustainability of these sites.

The event was attended by members of Westminster Council’s place-shaping team, the Greater London Authority’s Nature Recovery Programme, Paddington Development Trust, Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation, Your Canal Boat CIC, Imperial College and Loughborough University, amongst others and many community groups with stakes in the sites. A short documentary showcasing the issues and possibilities in relation to harnessing these sites will be produced by the documentary maker Tom Walker (previously working on BBC projects) and launched at a follow-up event on 7^th February 2024 at Loughborough University London on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. This event will be co-hosted with Loughborough’s Policy Unit and will launch an insights report and policy recommendations for key actors to take forward.

The event is part of a larger programme of activities led by Dr Grosman focused on innovation and entrepreneurship in-and-around London canal ways, with a particular focus on governance for improved social and ecological outcomes. The work is sponsored by the Impact and Knowledge Exchange Accelerator funding of Loughborough University drawn from the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) of Research England.

For further information or to register for the 7^th February 2024 Canalside Strategy event at Loughborough University, please contact Dr Anna Grosman a.grosman@lboro.ac.uk or Dr Sharon Prendeville s.prendeville@lboro.ac.uk

¹https://www.gerryspompeii.com

²https://www.lborolondon.ac.uk/about/staff/anna-grosman/

³https://www.lborolondon.ac.uk/about/staff/sharon-prendeville/

⁴https://yourcanalboat.com

⁵https://meanwhile-gardens.org.uk

⁶http://www.tomwalkerfilm.com/documentary