Open letter to the Greater London Assembly from eighteen London architects: Reporting oversight on the Thames Garden Bridge, London

A letter from eighteen London architects on how design propositions that benefit the public estate can be brought forward by London’s design community in future, to release potential to identify opportunities and deliver growth.
UK design professionals skills and capacity to support a project from inception are often ignored, as any scheme adopted for public implementation will then be put out to competitive tender. This arises wherever a project is undertaken by ‘a body covered by public law’ which for example also includes all in receipt of more than 50% public funding. As almost inevitably the original designers will be preclude, as the established competitive processes are highly restrictive, there is now therefore little motivation for design professionals to initiate and nurture projects from inception.
The letter proposes the regulations be clarified to permit better public engagement and better security for designers IP (intellectual property) and does so by advocating that more flexible procurement practices be adopted allowing peer reviewing as a validation methodology, to provide the required legal clarification.