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Last edited 12 Sep 2024

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Disaster planning: North Staffs

Map of Coal Mining Reporting Areas in the UK with North Staffs highlighted [1]

This article is based on a major premise, namely:—

... that in order to enable disaster planning to afford sufficient anticipatory design effort and product the necessary legislation and management is required.

and on the following minor premise:—

... that there is a link between sufficient anticipatory design effort and product and the necessary legislation and management.

1 What do we know?
2 Why do we care?
3 What can we do?
4 Notes
5 Further reading
6 Related articles on Designing Buildings

[edit] What do we know?

1.1 The site recognised in the original conception as a disaster area

Site Plan of the Potteries Thinkbelt © CCA used with permission

"First then, why this site? This part of North Staffordshire—including the Potteries and Newcastle-under-Lyne—is less well-to-do than the rest of the west Midlands. As regards buildings, it is a disaster area, largely unchanged and uncared for since its industrial expansion throughout the 19th century."

Price, C., 1966, Potteries Thinkbelt, New Society [2]

Thus Cedric Price knew:—

... that in terms of buildings the part of North Staffordshire including the Potteries and Newcastle-under-Lyne was a disaster area.

What do we know? (continuation)

1.2 The site collectively recognised as a disaster area

Map showing existing built-up areas c.1965 with numbers of photographs for each town - OS sheets out of copyright

"As far as built physical environment goes (North Staffordshire—including the Potteries and Newcastle-under-Lyne) is a disaster area, largely unchanged and uncared for since the nineteenth century."

Price, 1966, 'Potteries Thinkbelt', p.484, Architectural Design [3]

Table 1 below provides links to photographic evidence that the site was a disaster area.

Digitized Items For: Existing built-up areas in the early 1960s

T Tunstall [4]

B Burslem [5]

H Hanley (includes items from the 1970s) [6]

S Stoke (includes items from the 1970s) [7]

F Fenton [8]

L Longton [9]

N Newcastle [10]

Thus collectively we know:—

... that in terms of buildings the part of North Staffordshire including the Potteries and Newcastle-under-Lyne was a disaster area.

[edit] Why do we care?

2.1 The necessary legislation and management is missing:—

Map of the PTb from the report dated February 1966

"The first ... point is the site in North Staffordshire. It doesn't matter where the site is ... but it was rough, it was dirty, rough industrial country. And it is still dirty and rough. A lot of the industry is gone but the land is still tired, dirty and tired."

Price, C., 2000 [11]

A report was submitted to the UK Government in February 1966 [12]. However, there was no official recognition of the site as a disaster area. Nor has there been since.

Thus we care in the particular case of North Staffordshire:—

... because the necessary legislation and management to enable disaster planning to afford sufficient anticipatory design effort and product is missing.

Why do we care? (continuation)

2.2 Sufficient anticipatory design effort and product has still not been afforded:—

VENN DIAGRAMS with key in Table 2

"There are still a lot of people in a desperate situation [...] because the environment is so poor. And in this hundred square miles, ... there are lots of pits, lots of old factories and lots of unused railway lines, as there were forty years ago, and they are still there today."

Price, ib. [13]

Table 2 below provides links to video evidence that the site is still a disaster area.

Drone Footage For: Existing built up areas in the case study

T Tunstall

B Burslem

H Hanley

S Stoke

F Fenton

L Longton

N Newcastle

Thus we still care:—

… because sufficient anticipatory design effort and product has still not been afforded - i.e. in terms of buildings the site is still a disaster area.

[edit] What can we do?

3.1 Possible preservation as a 'World Heritage Site'

Map indicating the location of the proposed World Heritage Site

"It takes a number of years to go from shortlisting, to nomination, to designation, and so maybe we can consider having that debate as a city right now. Could the Potteries be a World Heritage Site?"

Dave Proudlove, 2019 [15]

Table 3 below provides links to photographs of 199 listed buildings in the area (numbers of items bracketed).

Digitized Items For: Listed Buildings

T Tunstall (11)

B Burslem (27)

H Hanley (23)

S Stoke (39)

F Fenton (4)

L Longton (24)

N Newcastle (71)

Thus we can:—

... preserve 199 officially recognised buildings on the site for posterity.

What can we do? (continuation)

3.2 Possible development giving due acknowledgement to the original conception

Map indicating location of 'Development High Risk Areas' in relation to towns

"(the Potteries Thinkbelt) marked an alternative to the conception of architecture as the construction of free standing buildings [...] It was not a 'building' ..."

Mathews, S., 2007 [16]

Alternatively, then:—

... we can turn the site into a model for anticipatorily designing "buildings".

[edit] Notes

[1] The Coal Authority (2022) 'Interactive Map'

[2] Price, C. (1966) 'Potteries Thinkbelt', New Society, 2 June

[3] Price, C. (1966) 'Potteries Thinkbelt', Architectural Design, October

[4] Bould, S. (2020) 'Old pictures of Tunstall from the Bert Bentley Archive', Stoke Sentinel

[5] Bould, S. (2020) 'Bert Bentley Archive: These pictures show Burslem in the 1960s (Part2)', Stoke Sentinel

[6] Bould, S. (2020) 'The changing face of Hanley in the 1970s - amazing pictures from the James Morgan archive', Stoke Sentinel

[7] Bould, S. (2020) 'Photographer James Morgan - who travelled around Stoke-on-Trent on a bike - captures images from the city in the 70s', Stoke Sentinel

[8] Bould, S. (2020) 'Fascinating pictures from the Bert Bentley Archive showing the streets of Fenton (part 2)', Stoke Sentinel

[9] Bould, S. (2020) 'Old pictures of Longton from the Bert Bentley Archive (part one)', Stoke Sentinel

[10] Bould, S. (2020) '21 outstanding pictures from Newcastle in the 1960s taken by photographer Bert Bentley', Stoke Sentinel

[11] Price, C. (2000) quoted in Hardingham, S. and Rattenbury, K. (2007) 'Supercrit #1 Cedric Price: POTTERIES THINKBELT'

[12] Price, C. (1966) 'Potteries Think Belt: A plan for the establishment of a major advanced educational industry in North Staffordshire', in the Cedric Price fonds at the Canadian Centre for Architecture

[13] Price, C. [ib. 11]

[14] Fellows, N. (2022) 'Disaster planning: North Staffs', Archiblog on YouTube

[15] Proudlove, D. (2019) '"Could Potteries be a World Heritage site?"', Stoke Sentinel

[16] Mathews, S. (2007) 'From Agit-Prop to Free Space: The Architecture of Cedric Price'