(upbeat music)
M1: Geographers are working on some
of the major challenges that we face as a society.
A big challenge that's faced lots of UK cities
has been the decline
of their traditional manufacturing industries.
Factories have closed and jobs have moved out
to Southeast Asia where labour costs are much lower.
Here in Portsmouth, that dominant industry
was ship building and other activities
linked to the Royal Navy.
M2: This is Portsmouth Naval Dockyard,
home of the British Royal Navy.
The size of the Navy has declined massively
since the second world war, when there was over 200 ships.
Now, there are only around 70 and only half of those
are based in Portsmouth.
At the same time, the ship building industry
has declined as well.
After the second world war, at its peak,
there were 30,000 manufacturing jobs in Portsmouth.
Now, there are only 10,000.
A loss of 20,000 manufacturing jobs.
So ships are no longer built in Portsmouth,
they're only repaired and maintained.
The latest ship, the Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier,
was still built in the UK, but up in Scotland.
M1: This decline in manufacturing
presented Portsmouth and other UK cities with a challenge.
How could they survive and thrive
without their manufacturing industry?
And how could they create new jobs and bring in new money?
(peaceful music)
F1: In the 1990s, any city with derelict industrial
or brownfield land, was looking to redevelop it
as mixed leisure and retail sites.
This shift in focus from the secondary industry
of manufacturing to the tertiary industry
of leisure and tourism, was a common redevelopment strategy.
This is Gunwharf Quays.
For 300 years,
until 1995,
it was a major part of the Royal Naval base.
It was where they used to store weaponry and ammunition.
This is actually where they used to bring the ships in.
The weapons would be lined up on the dockside there
and they would load them onto the boats.
(peaceful music)
M1: This arch is actually one of the old entrances
to Gunwharf Quays, and until 2001,
no member of the public had been
or even seen beyond this point for over 300 years,
because it was a secure military zone.
F1: After the Navy left Gunwharf Quays in 1995,
it was transformed over the next six years
into a major leisure, retail, and residential development.
This was part of a strategy to redefine Portsmouth Harbour
as an international centre for heritage and leisure.
M1: This old military land now has designer outlet stores,
there's a casino, a bowling alley, and a cinema.
It's been transformed
into a major leisure and consumer destination.
And it's the physical and human geography of Portsmouth
that's actually made this development so successful.
The roads and the rail infrastructure that connects
Portsmouth with the rest of the UK, and the sea,
enabling passengers to travel to Portsmouth
from France, Spain, and the Channel Islands.
The most striking feature of this development
is the 170 metre high Spinnaker Tower,
which is one of the UK's highest public viewing platforms
outside of London.
Spinnaker Tower was funded with public money
through the Millennium Commission at a cost
of 35.6 million pounds.
F1: There's a really interesting story
about the Spinnaker Tower.
When it was first built, it was white.
But, in 2015, the Emirates sponsored the Spinnaker Tower
and they wanted to paint it red and white,
which is their corporate brand colour.
The trouble with red and white
is that those two colours are the exact colours
that Portsmouth residents did not want
on their tower because they're the colours
of the rival football team, Southampton.
So, when the plans were announced
to paint the tower red and white, 10,000 people
actually wrote to the city council to complain.
M2: So it really meant something to people?
F1: Absolutely.
It shows how important a particular building can be
to the collective sense of identity of people in a city.
M1: This is one of the big challenges
facing urban redevelopment projects.
How to regenerate part of a city without erasing
the area's unique history, identity, and sense of place.
M2: So people are emotionally connected to place,
it really means something to them.
This place could be anywhere in the world
or any UK waterfront development.
It's the same shops, the same types
of apartments that have been built.
Isn't there any Portsmouth in here?
F1: It's interesting you should say that.
So, in order to retain some of the historic character
of the sight, they have retained figureheads from the boats,
the dry dock, artillery, torpedoes, canons,
some of the old buildings, one of the old cranes.
So there's reference back to the Naval history.
So, although Gunwharf has been commercially successful,
planners need to think about issues like sense of place.
Equally, there are knock-on effects
for the rest of the city.
(peaceful music)
The redevelopment of Gunwharf Quays
has made this area an attractive place to live.
Older buildings have been done up and new buildings
have been created to create modern apartments.
This is gentrification.
It may look nice, but it causes social problems.
Richer people move into these gentrified areas
and poorer people can no longer afford
to live in the places that used to be their homes.
(peaceful music)
M2: The city centre has suffered from the loss
of jobs over a large number of years.
Here, we see some intriguing things.
We see trees growing out of derelict concrete.
We see a vast area in a city centre area
that's just being used as a car park.
So, the city centre faces real challenges.
There was a lot of debate over whether Gunwharf Quays
should go ahead because of the competition
that would be introduced for shoppers with the city centre.
And, in fact, the planning permission
that was granted required that the shops
at Gunwharf would not duplicate
and compete with the city centre.
But, there is some evidence that perhaps Gunwharf Quays
is competing with the city centre.
So, although Gunwharf Quays has attracted
a lot of people into the city, poor transport connections
make it difficult for many people
to come from Gunwharf up to the city center,
with a railway line and a dual carriageway
intersecting the route, with busy roads to cross,
and no cafes or shops to entice people
to walk between the two.
The city centre has also suffered
from the rise of internet shopping
and the development of out of town retail centres.
We can see evidence of this if we look around us.
Such as sites that have not been developed
for long periods of time, vacant shops,
and some of the shops that are in parts of the city centre
being lower-end market shops.
(peaceful music)
M1: This example from Portsmouth shows us
how successful urban planning decisions
require decision-makers to think like geographers.
We have to appreciate how cities are interconnected
and how new developments have knock-on effects.
Urban redevelopment projects might improve
the look of cities, bringing in new investment and jobs,
but it is often difficult for new developments
to maintain the unique identity of cities.
Those subtle, but important aspects of a city
that help create a sense of place.
Modern developments can also effect the housing market,
effecting where people can afford to live.
And if allowed to, they can draw business away
from traditional town centre areas.
Urban redevelopment projects are a really important way
of replacing old industries that have declined
and making use of derelict urban land.
They can be commercially successful,
but they have to be sensitive to the local environment.
By studying examples like this, as geographers,
we can learn from the successes and the mistakes
of the past to make better planning decisions in the future.