Turning public space around.

The Manhattan-based charity Project for Public Spaces has helped over 1,000 communities -- in the US and world wide -- create public spaces that are full of vitality and well used. As it looks to develop partnerships in the UK, Harriet Festing considers what it has to offer

`Silo mentality', a current catchphrase in my [now former] local authority office describes the self-confessed mind-pits that make local government employees incapable of responding to any issue beyond their own professional patch. I am sure it is a problem we are all familiar with.

Imagine, for example, a retailer wishing to smarten up a nearby park. First of all, he or she would need to speak to local authority officers in landscape and conservation, parks and play, leisure development, and arts and heritage -- and perhaps a tree expert. Those paid to reach out to the community would probably be enthusiastic, pointing our enquirer in the direction of officers in economic development, community development, funding, regeneration, youth arts, and Local Agenda 21. If our retailer is unfortunate enough to have any good ideas, then there is the inevitable off-putting; form-filling; committee cycle; procedures from the police, highway agencies, environmental health, licensing, and planning; and contracts.

The one thing all these officers will have in common is that they will give our retailer's proposals a low priority compared with the multi-million pound bid for a new leisure centre, emergency works by highways, and, of course, the community plan. …