In 2011, Kate found herself sitting on a rain-soaked bench in Victoria Coach Station, overwhelmed by concrete, noise and an uncertain future dreading her journey back to university. Fifteen years on, Kate has dedicated her life to regenerating the area, working with Landsec and turning a moment of personal crisis into a long-term commitment to creating spaces where people can belong. Her story touches on how to make spaces ‘softer, kinder, more human.’
For more stories about shaping kinder, more human places, discover how Bridget and Sarah transformed King’s Scholars’ Passage through community action, or read Colin’s story of meeting people at the threshold of change. Hear other stories from Voices from the Piazza.
I sat on the cold bench and breathed in the thick air clogged with diesel and dirty rain.
I got up and walked around drizzly, grey Victoria, up and down Buckingham Palace Road and onto Victoria Street and then up and down again. It was 2011 and Victoria felt, at the time, very hard, very unhuman and very unkind.
I think I was probably looking for a few trees, or maybe some kind of twinkly sparkly light or even some nice art that would help to ease the deep, knotted stomach and fizzy head you get when you feel anxious.
I had about twenty minutes before I needed to board the Megabus coach which would take me back to Leeds University with my £5 ticket, £3 meal deal and a few hours of Geordie Shore.
I really, really didn’t want to get on that coach. My legs felt like they were full of concrete jelly and my head was flooded by successive tidal waves of negative thoughts: I can’t do the essays, I can’t do the coursework, I can’t make a Geographical Information System (I mean what on earth is that on its day off!?) I can’t pay attention, I can’t make friends, I can’t get rid of the mould in my damp uni flat and there are snails climbing across the ceiling and falling off onto my lap when I’m watching telly!
I really thought: I cannot do this. I’m going to be in debt for life and have nothing to show for it and I’m going to let everyone down.
I looked around me again at the harsh, rainy grey scenes and thought: if I could just smell some damp wintery grass or examine a beautiful sculpture of hear some jovial chatter coming from a jazz bar and not just cars and buses and shouting and beeping I would probably feel better.
This is London – I was born and bred here and I love it and I know it can be more than this.
When I was a kid, I was obsessed by the built environment. It had such a visceral impact on how I felt and this has only grown with me. Places covered with concrete floors and tarmac and metal barriers and big roads with smelly cars and the same shops over and over made me feel this feeling like a kind of car sickness. My mum said I’d always cry in a car park, without fail, probably because they were so dull and boring.
But the soft places made me feel better. These are the places that are green and not grey, softly lift and welcoming and cosy, the mindful places with a bit of a that jazzy character that look after you and in return mean you want to look after them.
And London has always had these places in its nooks and crannies, but they get lost if people don’t care for them or if they prioritise the wrong things. If they don’t care for them, every place will be the same as the next place: monotonous, boring, scary and sad.
So – I decided. If I don’t get on the coach and get myself to Leeds and learn, how will I ever know how to create a truly wonderful place, I can’t just hope that someone else is going to pull London’s character back out again, I need to know how to do it myself.
Next came 14 years of pushing myself, always getting on that proverbial coach down roads I never knew existed. Lots of trial and error, lots more mouldy flats and lots and LOTS of learning.
Now, I work for Landsec, working with the local community and London Heritage Quarter to redesign Victoria bit by bit. We recently reopened Cardinal Place which is now filled with plants and colour and art. If you haven’t been there yet, it’s a good place to go and sit and eat your meal deal before you get on your coach (although I think they’ve gone up in price a bit since then!).
It’s so easy to walk past a place lost in other thoughts. That’s what they’re there for – for people to live life in. But I do often wonder how many people think about how these places are made and who by, and how completely different they could be if different decisions were made by different people. So, every time I look at a project I’ve worked on with the most wonderful teams I am so grateful to my former self for persevering.