The Means' Peter Williams addressed a major London conference on 3rd December looking at making existing places 'fit for purpose' in light of modern economic, social and environmental challenges. Peter spoke in the second morning session alongside Yolande Barnes from Savill's and Richard Coppell from Lend Lease. His title was: 'Funding opportunities: the Bankside story'. You can download the conference brochure here.

The premise of this, the second annual Remaking Places event, was that - in many development situations - we do not have the luxury of starting again from scratch. Particularly in an economic downturn, we need to consider a range of solutions and techniques for the re-modelling and re-connection of ineffective areas.

The event considered methods for unlocking the hidden potential of sites and assets, in order to create vibrant places for people to live, work and spend their leisure time. A key to success is multi-disciplinary team working and a willingness by professionals to accept new ways of looking at the possibilities.

The conference was produced by RUDI , with support from The Means, The Academy of Urbanism, Urban Design Jobs, the Institute of Place Management, the Urban Design Group and Communityplanning.net.