I came back from a bank holiday away to watch the Park Hill BBC2 “Romancing the Stone” documentary on iPlayer (I can’t believe I’ve started using the iPlayer, blogging and joining Twitter all in the same week – the 21st Century has finally has caught up with me!).

So what did I think..? No doubt it was good television. It certainly got a few laughs and raised the profile of Park Hill, giving the public a greater insight into what these projects involve!  I’m not sure any of the protagonists came out particularly well – either from English Heritage or Urban Splash.  And there was no mention of the people who really made this scheme happen, the HCA (maybe lucky for them!)

It’s disappointing that the programme stopped filming some weeks ago, before we finalised HCA funding and our development agreement, both of which have helped things really progress at Park Hill. It did, however, clearly illustrate the challenges and problems that beset a massive project like this. They’re never easy to deliver, even harder in today’s economic environment, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try!

Someone once told me that the definition of success is the difference between expectation and delivery… This Park Hill programme has undoubtedly done an excellent job for us in managing people’s expectations! More importantly though, it’s made me even more committed to ensuring that we deliver our vision for Park Hill.

There are plenty of sceptics about and although I’ve never made a TV programme, I think it’s probably easier to make a documentary than deliver a project like Park Hill.  But we have already successfully completed several challenging schemes: Fort Dunlop in Birmingham, Royal William Yard in Plymouth, Lister Mills in Bradford, Chimney Pot Park in Salford, The Midland Hotel in Morecambe… given our track record I hope that the next Park hill documentary will be more positive.

Other reviews of the Park Hill programme can be found here: The Sheffield Star, BBC Look North, The Independent, The Sunday Times, The Guardian