Burnley Peer Plaques

Peer Plaques is the outcome of a two year residency in which we researched the present and future effects of regeneration within the Housing Market Renewal (HMR) intervention areas of Burnley, East Lancashire.

The project reflects local residents’ experiences of HMR including perspectives on how the neighbourhoods have changed and might possibly change in the future as a direct consequence of the regeneration programme starting. A series of 50 heritage style plaques were installed onto abandoned terraced houses in three of Burnley’s HMR areas during February 2008. The work is based on the question asked of many residents: “What is your fi rst thought when you
think about your neighbourhood?”

Peer Plaques was a direct response to a growing sense that residents’ voices were not being heard as part of ongoing formal consultation processes – and as such expressed their ambitions and fears directly through the public artworks.