Louis Hall

Good Intentions (A Counterfactual History)


In 1991 Margaret Thatcher opened the largest inner-city ring road in the world, London’s Motorway Box. Thirty years hence, the Heritage Alliance have stamped their authority on planning in the capital (empowered by the destruction of 14,000 would-be listed buildings with the implementation of the road) and become integral to development within the Localism Bill. Set against this backdrop, Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC, one of the motorway-affected boroughs) must rewrite their planning policies in order to attract development on the few remaining sites available to them – generating income no longer awarded by central government. Building over, under and around the motorway, a new infrastructural architecture emerges that does its ‘very best’ to blend in with its historic surroundings. As was the case with the development of the Motorway Box, the RBKC planners mean well; the inhabitants of Earls Court, however, may not see the necessary development in the same way…