I get so bored when I’m ill. All of us internet users fall down terrible rabbit holes from time to time, and yesterday evening I found myself looking at terrible restaurants in rural Pakistan via google customer photographs.

What’s the opposite of a roadside eaterie near the Kashmiri border? Land Securities Properties Ltd would like you to believe it’s Gunwarf Quay, an exciting development of retail, leisure, and residential units on the edge of Portsmouth Harbour, on land originally reclaimed from the sea for the purpose of storing cannonballs in neat pyramids.

Leaving the house for the first time in some days, shufffling like a snot-zombie into unexpected autumn sun, I found myself drawn to the place out of a jigsaw-puzzle sense of completion to my mental map of downtown Portsmouth. Plus, how bad could it be? Maybe I could engage in some light capitalism of my own. Buy a cardigan.

There isn’t a direct entrance from Portsmouth and Southsea Harbour station, which feels a mistake. It wouldn’t have cost much to extend the footbridge over the water.

I suppose the architects of this masterwork felt that most of their customers would be driving, and the two-lane, gridlocked queue of idling traffic seeking entrance to the cavernous underground car park would seem to support this theory.

The owners Landsec are a huge real estate company with a very funny corporate website.

Particularly incredible is their marketing video, in which young corporate drones look sad and warn that “inequality still exists” next to images of food banks, but that everything is going to be ok because the company will “create spaces that support the wellbeing of the people who use them”.

Their six word mission statement is “sustainable places, connecting communities, and realising potential”.

I shall be reviewing Gunwarf Quays by comparing how this matches up with the reality of the landscape that they have created.

“Sustainable Places”

This is an edge-of-town mall that everyone is encouraged to drive to. There are 1508 car parking spaces underneath the shops – that’s a lot of car parking spaces – and the car park is open 24 hours a day. [1]

Landsec’s business model, according to their own website, is based around “developing… edge-of-town and out-of-town assets in response to growing demands for convenience from shoppers”.

This is the exact opposite of building sustainable places.

Connecting Communities

This is private land and so what they say goes. Pretty standard for these kind of non-places, but worth pointing out anyway: this means no protesting, no assembly, no community meetings, no canvassing, no not-shopping. The last one sounds silly, but under their guest conduct policy, they warn that guests “without the intention to shop” may be removed from the area. [2]

If you’re not here to consume, you’d best go elsewhere.

Next to the chain shops and restaurants is a development of luxury flats. Though a cunning combination of subtle place-making, and absolutely fuck-off signs backed up by fucktons of CCTV, Costa Coffee and Nandos customers are dissuaded from heading to this area of the development. Punters are instead gently guided to the dockside path, which ends, unceremoniously, by the Wight ferryport.

I ignored this and explored the flats, some of which are in beautiful old warehouses that used to hold very different types of weapons. The area is gated, policed, and extremely unwelcoming. I didn’t see a single fellow pedestrian, just home delivery vans and expensive cars disappearing into underground car parks.

The signs were amusing, and of course the “residents’ company” must be charging a pretty penny for their cameras, signs, and vans full of security goons.

This isn’t a community, though.

Realising potential

See what’s annoying here is this could have been nice or at least as nice as a shopping mall can be. Unlike a lot of sites these kind of companies exploit, it is near the centre of town. It has plenty of transport links. It’s by the harbour, and boats are nice to look at. The big New Labour sail tower thing is fine I guess.

Guys I’m sorry, but your business model is one of low wage immiseration and unsustainable shopping, transport and land valuation practices. It is with a heavy heart that I require you to update your corporate slogan to something more… sustainable.

[1] Air pollution in Portsmouth is well above the legal limits, hence the introduction of the city’s Clean Air Zone. The council is trying, in fairness, but Portsmouth is still a very unfriendly place for anyone not in a car.

[2] The multitudinous security goons on site did glare at me and my wanderings, but I did occasionally take my purse out, look in a window, and sigh, so they got nothing on me. Thought crime!!!