Rogers hails architectural historian's 'wonderful' election victory

Richard Rogers led architects in welcoming the knife-edge election victory of architectural historian and Labour politician Emma Dent Coad in Kensington.

Dent Coad, who sometimes writes for BD, was declared the winner by a wafer-thin 20 votes on Friday night after a third recount.

Rogers described it as a “wonderful win” and applauded Dent Coad’s campaign focus on housing and equality through the planning system, saying housing needed a “radical shakeup” and should be viewed as a social service.

The architect and Labour peer lives just outside the constituency but in the borough of Kensington & Chelsea where Dent Coad served as Labour leader and a planning committee member until the election.

She has vowed to tackle inequality in the constituency which is one of the wealthiest in the country yet also contains one of the poorest wards; Golborne, where the Trellick Tower stands. Child poverty on one estate is 58%, she said.

作为一名议员，她花了大量的时间与居民打交道，这些居民的地产即将被拆除，取而代之的是私人出售的房屋。她还发起了反对劣质住房建设的运动，曾带领BD参观戈尔本的全新公寓，那里的居民显然很了解她，并指出了建筑中的缺陷。

She is also a vocal opponent of allowing the super rich to buy up property only to leave it empty.

She told theGuardianher campaign was “about where planning and people meet and the bad outcomes. Planning has been really skewed towards developing and improving areas and nothing to do with the people.”

Dent Coad, who has put her PhD on the architecture of Franco-era Spain on hold, said the result had left her “in shock”.

As Britain waited for the final recount, Walter Menteth tweeted Dent Coad: “Architecture is with you.”

今天，BD专栏作家兼建筑历史学家吉莉安·达利为她的胜利欢呼。她说:“她能站在一个对当地有深入了解的立场，就关键的住房和规划问题发表意见，这太好了。”