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Issue 101 April-June 2017
PLANNING IN LONDON
PLANNING IN LONDON | Issue 100 January-March 2017
MAGAZINE OF THE YEAR FINALIST International Building Press Awards 2016 TEN PROPOSITIONS FOR PLANNING IN LONDON – Max Farrell pages 47-62 THE NEW LONDON AIR AND SPACEPORT Bryan Avery page 68 Issue 101 April-June 2017
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CROYDON BUILDS ‘BRICK BY BRICK’ Colm Lacey page 73
We are a few days later than usual owing to pressure of holidays (late Easter!) and, more seriously, our decision to include a full report on the National Planning Forum event on ‘Fixing our broken housing market’. Sorry
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FIXING OUR BROKEN HOUSING MARKET The Housing White Paper: National Planning Forum +London Planning & Development Forum +Cambridge University Land Society +ACA report, summaries and commentary. Modular homes for London’s key workers. Five myths underlying current planning policies for housing THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO DEVELOPMENT IN THE CAPITAL
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CONTENTS
page 5 LEADERS Don’t blame the shortage of truly affordable housing on the private investor sector; The corruption of preapplication consultations 8 LONDON PLANNING AWARDS 2017 10 PARK LANE BOULEVARD – A VISION WITHOUT TUNNELS Liam Hennessy proposes a transformation of Park Lane, Saul Collyns reports OPINIONS 11 LONDON, VICTIM OR VICTOR? Now is the time to collaborate across the public and private sectors says Melanie Leech 12 BEST CONSIDERATION Major change in how local authorities will look at future disposals and development could be on the horizon explains Sara Bailey TEN PROPOSITIONS FOR PLANNING IN LONDON Max Farrell – pages 47-62
13 LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE RETURN OF COUNCIL HOUSING Paul Finch 14 THE HOUSING WHITE PAPER Some summaries and commentary; Modular homes for London’s key workers 20 LEGO. SERIOUSLY William Murray describes how Lego is aiding the strategic process at Wordsearch
LEGO. SERIOUSLY William Murray on page 20
22 PLANNING ENFORCEMENT IN THE AGE OF AIRBNB Enabling short-term accommodation needs adequately-resourced enforcement says Francesco Mellino 24 FIVE MYTHS UNDERLYING CURRENT PLANNING POLICIES FOR HOUSING Alan Wenban-Smith 25 ANDY ROGERS Like a wheel within a wheel 26 PLANNING PERFORMANCE Speed of decisions show increases but vary widely between authorities
THE NEW LONDON AIR AND SPACEPORT Bryan Avery page 68
30 NEIL PARKYN Public Art: a private view
Issue 101 April-June 2017
Continues next page >>> 3
CONTENTS CONTINUED
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LEADERS
32 LETTERS Public art has planning impacts says Peter Heath
Don’t blame the shortage of truly affordable housing on the private investor sector
76 PLANNING IN WONDERLAND? Sue Chadwick considers the meaning of the term ‘sustainable development’
33 CLIPBOARD 78 IS THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF LONDON'S HIGH STREETS NIGH? Lars Christian
35 ¡PILLO! 36 NATIONAL PLANNING FORUM-LONDON PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT FORUM-CULS-ACA Fixing our broken housing market 47 TEN PROPOSITIONS FOR PLANNING IN LONDON Max Farrell 63 DO ALMHOUSES HOLD THE ANSWER TO LONDON’S HOUSING CRISIS? Roland Karthaus 65 WORKSPACE THAT WORKS Alexei Schwab 68 THE NEW LONDON AIR AND SPACEPORT Bryan Avery 72 WE ARE ALL PLANNERS NOW Adam Cook 73 CROYDON BUILDS ‘BRICK BY BRICK’ Colm Lacey
ISSN 1366-9672 (PRINT) ISSN 2053-4124 (DIGITAL) Issue 101 April-June 2017
Publishing Editors: Brian Waters, Paul Finch and Lee Mallett editor@planninginlondon.com, planninginlondon@mac.com Editorial, subscriptions and advertising: Tel: 020 8948 2387/ 07957871477 Email: planninginlondon@mac.com Contents ©Land Research Unit Ltd or as stated Available only on subscription: £99 pa
81 THE RAILWAY NETWORK – THE BEATING HEART OF LONDON Tony Duckenfield 83 BOOKS One hundred years of housing space standards: What now? Julia Park introduces her new e-book; Mobilising Housing Histories, edited by Peter Guillery and David Kroll, Julia Park reviews; Classic Columns: 40 Years of Writing on Architecture by Robert Adam, Reviewed by Riette Oosthuizen 89 PLANNING AND ENVIRONMENT REFERENCE GUIDE Contacts in all London boroughs – sponsored by Colliers International 92 SUBSCRIPTION FORM 93 SHAPING LONDON – Sir Terry Farrell with Giuseppe Parita Post-Modernism post-Brexit
We need to find a mechanism to stop owners from leaving homes permanently empty without discouraging the investment in new homes in the first place
97 ADVICE Consultants and services Provides a licence for five copies by email See subscription form or buy online at www.planninginlondon.com. Planning in London is published quarterly in association with The London Planning & Development Forum by Land Research Unit Ltd Studio Petersham, Gorshott, 181 Petersham Road TW10 7AW Contributors write in a personal capacity. Their
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www.planninginlondon.com The London Planning and Development Forum (LPDF) The LPDF was formed in 1980 following an all-party inquiry into the development control system. It selects topics to debate at its quarterly meetings and these views are reported to constituent bodies. It is a sounding board for the development of planning policy in the capital, used by both the public and private sector. Agendas and minutes are at planninginlondon.com. To attend please advise hon. secretary Drummond Robson: robplan@btconnect.com The LPDF is administered by: Honorary Secretary: Drummond Robson MRTPI,
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Planning in London
41 Fitzjohn Avenue, Barnet, Herts EN5 2HN Tel: 0208 449 3113 Fax: 0208 440 2015: robplan@btconnect.com Chairman: Brian Waters MA DipArch (Cantab) DipTP RIBA MRTPI ACArch P.ACA FRSA Principal: The Boisot Waters Cohen Partnership brian@bwcp.co.uk Honorary Treasurer: Alastair Gaskin alastair.gaskin@btinternet.com Member bodies Association of Consultant Architects Association of London Borough Planning Officers/Planning Officers’ Society London Councils British Property Federation
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Planning in London has been published and edited by Brian Waters, Lee Mallett and Paul Finch since 1992
Mayor Sadiq Khan has lamented the use of buy-to-leave flats as “golden bricks”. The Times reports that "mainly middle-class Asian investors are piling into a market that offers high returns in an age of low interest rates, with none of the obstacles used to deter foreign buyers in other countries." Their leader says: "Britain must be careful not to appear unwelcoming to foreign investment, especially from beyond Europe. That does not mean that councils are powerless to rein in buy-toleave. There are practical steps that could be taken without diluting the message that the country remains open for business. These include compiling a register of foreign property ownership as in the United States; insisting on reciprocity from countries that levy property taxes on overseas buyers where Britain does not; and finding a mechanism that stops buyers from leaving much-needed homes empty. Investment in empty housing developments does not build the prosperous communities that underpin Britain’s long-term attractiveness to business. It only builds resentment and empties districts of character and shops." Our housing market is cyclical. In the early 1990s homes didn't sell and lost value. House builders haven't forgotten and still prefer to build a few, wait to sell them and then build a few more. The government is rightly looking for ways to encourage smaller house builders and smaller planning permissions so as to speed delivery. But for the larger schemes the fact is that the banks will not fund their construction so they have to be sold off-plan mainly to foreign investors, as The Times points out. The truth is that these foreign investors are seeking a reliable and attractive return on their investment through income. That is to say they have to rent the property to justify their investment. Apart from the very top end of the market which includes a relatively small number of expensive second homes, the buy to leave phenomenon is the exception rather than the rule. Trying to blame the shortage of truly affordable housing on the frothy end of the private investor sector is ludicrous. The two sectors have very little to do with each other, and the sooner we acknowledge the folly of failing to build homes for the less well-off over the past 30 years, thsooner we will start dealing with reality rather than fantasy villains. Where The Times is right is in the need to find a mechanism to stop owners from leaving homes permanently empty. This will take some imagination but should not extend to discouraging the investment in new homes in the first place. The implied disparagement of renting over ownership is also misguided and there we might at last be seeing a generous new source of finance and management coming from pension funds, who have >>> tasted success with student housing. n
Issue 101 April-June 2017
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LEADERS
The corruption of preapplication consultations
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Amongst a large number of aspirational objectives in the recent housing White Paper it says that the government will change the NPPF to "strengthen the importance of early pre-application discussions between applicants, authorities and the local community about design and the types of homes to be provided". Whilst this might sound terribly sensible to ministers, the reality is that the pre-application process has gone badly wrong in some local planning authorities. Firstly they fail to recognise that a paid for pre-application meeting or report means that they are entering into a contract. Their key obligations are both to provide comprehensive cross-departmental advice which is relevant to the ultimate making of a planning decision and they have to meet the contractual deadlines they offer. Far too often neither happens. Applicants find a whole new issue thrown up as a reason for refusal at the last minute which should have been addressed at the beginning. They also find that the authority fails to offer to return the fee when they miss the promised timetable. Given the stretched resources of planning departments, burdened also by constant new demands and legislative changes, there is room for some sympathy. However, milking the preapp process for disproportionate income, as is increasingly the case, should be prevented rather than encouraged. It gets worse. In authorities where the pre-app report or advice consists mainly of trotting out a précis of related policies, which a competent agent can do perfectly well for herself, it makes perfect sense for the applicant not to bother, knowing that on an appeal the authority will say to the inspector "we told them so". Avoiding this kind of pre-application trap does not always solve the problem however because amongst the reasons for refusal there will often be the statement that the applicant had failed to seek out pre-application advice! The entire principle of paid-for pre-application meetings, like planning fees themselves, is predicated on the proposition that development is inherently bad; planning fees are there to expunge the original sin of wishing to build. Everything is in reverse: it would be a better idea to charge fees to people with no intention of conforming to the local plan, or who fail to build having obtained planning permission. Currently the good guys get penalised. Before endorsing the system further the Government should examine how it is working and come up with some safeguards to ensure that it does what it says on the tin. n
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Winner – New Civil Engineer Runners-up: The Architects’ Journal, Planning in London: “A must-read for all its specialist market” Issue 101 April-June 2017
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LONDON PLANNING AWARDS
London Planning Awards 2017 London’s most ambitious and innovative development projects werecelebrated at the 2017 London Planning Awards. Winners include the Peckham Coal Line, a grassroots project creating a new community park from a disused coal line; the Deptford Project, which has transformed a railway goods yard into a vibrant space for local businesses, cafes and homes; and the Francis Crick Institute, a pioneering partnership that brings six of the world’s leading biomedical research organisations – the Medial Research Council, Cancer Research UK, the Wellcome Trust, UCL, Imperial College London and King’s College London - under one roof. Now in its 14th year, the London Planning Awards are organised by London First in partnership with the Mayor of London, London Councils, the Planning Officers Society and the Royal Town Planning Institute.
C W
Community - Peckham Coal Line - 8
Work - The Francis Crick Institute Internal - CBRE
The winners of the 2017 London Planning Awards • Best Community Led Project, sponsored by Land Securities Peckham Coal Line, presented by 927 crowdfunders - a group of pioneering supporters, local residents, business and London wide organisations including Southwark Council, GLA, Sustrans and Network Rail. A fantastic example of a locally driven project that is bringing a coal line back into use as a new space for community and cultural activity. • Best Conceptual Project, sponsored by Berwin Leighton Paisner Wind modelling of the Eastern Cluster, presented by City of London Demonstrating how 3D technology can transform the understanding of London’s urban environment and deliver better outcomes for planning, designing and building in the city. • Best Heritage Led Project, sponsored by Historic England The Deptford Project, presented by London Borough of Lewisham and U+I Group PLC 14 truly local businesses have taken space in the historic railway arches. With Deptford’s heritage at its heart, this scheme has regenerated the town centre and delivered 132 new homes and new com-
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Planning in London
mercial and retail spaces. • Best New Place to Live London City Island, presented by EcoWorld Ballymore A new neighbourhood providing 1700 homes, new public spaces and public art exhibits and a new home for both the London Film School and English National Ballet. Highly commended, Place/Ladywell, presented by London Borough of Lewisham, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, Aecom and SIG For its cutting edge and cost effective approach to addressing the housing crisis for homeless families, high residential and overall design quality. • Best New Place to Work, sponsored by Anthology The Francis Crick Institute (‘the Crick’), presented by The Francis Crick Institute and CBRE Ltd A pioneering partnership between six of the world's leading biomedical research organisations the Medical Research Council, Cancer Research UK, the Wellcome Trust, University College London, Imperial College London and King's College London – all brought together in one building. The institute aims to respond to fast-moving changes in the medical sciences by facilitating collaboration and accelerating the translation of scientific research from the laboratory to hospitals and pharmacies.
Highly commended, Make HQ, 32 Cleveland Street, presented by Make Architects, Derwent London, Exigere, GDMP, Akera Engineers and Rougemont For its innovative reuse of a former basement carpark to provide accessible and high quality workC space. W • Best New Public Space, sponsored by Hogan
Lovells Pearson Square, Fitzroy Place, presented by Exemplar, Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands, Sheppard Robson, Gross Max and Sir Robert McAlpine A new area of high quality landscaped public space in London’s West End. It provides a haven for local residents, visitors and workers to sit, dwell and take time out from the bustling streets around. A real hidden gem. • Best Project Five Years On, sponsored by Ballymore Group Quadrant 3, presented by The Crown Estate, Dixon Jones and CBRE A landmark project that forms part of the Crown Estate’s vision to transform Regent Street.
Quadrant 3 delivered high quality public realm, with sensitive restoration of listed building facades, high quality offices and vibrant retail and food and drink spaces. Highly commended, Regent Quarter, presented by Aedas and P&O Developments For its strong heritage-led approach, transformational effect it has had on this long neglected piece of London and catalysing influence on the wider regeneration works to King Cross. • Best Town Centre Project, sponsored by Turley The Scene, presented by Hill Partnerships, Islington and Shoreditch Housing Association, Pollard Thomas Edwards and London Borough Waltham Forest This project transformed Walthamstow Town
centre. It introduced a new cinema to Walthamstow alongside new food and drink spaces, creating a thriving daytime and new night-time destination. A truly successful mixed use scheme with housing and landscaped amenity space. • Best Planning Authority, sponsored by GL Hearn London Borough of Southwark Southwark has demonstrated innovative approaches to both plan making and decision taking, particularly in the delivery of 11,000 new council homes for the borough. • Mayor’s Award for Planning Excellence, sponsored by Mount Anvil Wind modelling of the Easter Cluster, presented by City of London. n Conceptual - Wind Modelling - City of London Wind modelling Photo:Gwyn Richards: RWDI / City of London
Issue 101 April-June 2017
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PARK LANE BOULEVARD | SAUL COLLYNS
BREXIT LONDON | MELANIE LEECH
Park Lane Boulevard – a vision without tunnels Liam Hennessy proposes a transformation of Park Lane from a highway to a fine boulevard, humanising what is currently a noisy, polluted urban motorway. Saul Collyns reports Architect Liam Hennessy presented this vision to the London Society last month TOP RIGHT: Two-way
traffic along ‘East Carriage Drive’ in the 1930s BELOW: Liam’s image
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Planning in London
Spurred by a desire to improve Park Lane’s environment without placing the road into a tunnel, Liam Hennessy proposes to transform Park Lane into a boulevard, and explained that it was conceptualised according to three principal objectives: That an altered Park Lane would not have reduced traffic capacity, that most if not all mature London Plane trees would be kept, and that there would be no tunnels. Hennessy shared images of Park Lane that demonstrate how the heavy traffic volumes and narrow pavements create an unpleasant environment for pedestrians. There are only two pedestrian crossings across the entire road (in an equivalent stretch of road adjacent to Central Park there are seven), and the coach parking spaces lining the road further sever connections between Hyde Park and Mayfair. During his planning, Hennessy conducted a meticulous six-P month study, surveying the individual trees in Park Lane to better understand the landscape, and he worked out that the 40 metres of road space between the trees on either side is vastly greater than that of comparable roads: for example, there are 22 metres of road space on The Mall, and only 34 metres on the Champs Elysées in Paris, (which has 10 lanes of traffic, even more than Park Lane). From this Hennessy demonstrated that there was sufficient capacity to pedestrianise the eastern carriageway, creating a vastly improved environment, whilst maintaining space for 8 lanes of two-way traffic on the remaining carriageway (without reducing traffic capacity). He noted that a single carriageway catered to twoway traffic until the 1960s.
TUNNELS The proposalVISION thusWITHOUT follows a belief that the volume of traffic is not what creates an unpleasant environment, but rather where it is placed (for example more traffic uses the Champs Elysées, but it is alleviated by large 25-metre-wide pavements). The proposal also strengthens a sense of place by reinforcing sightlines between Hyde Park and Grosvenor Chapel in Mayfair, and by proposing a large public space in front of the Dorchester and Hilton hotels. Although traffic would still run alongside Hyde Park, Hennessy pointed out that a raised bank of earth that runs alongside Park Lane (which was originally built as a defence during the civil war) shelters the park somewhat. The proposal has been well received, including by the Grosvenor Estate, which asked Hennessy to cost the proposal (estimates range between £30-65 million). The plan was also greeted with enthusiasm by the audience. One person asked whether Hennessy envisages that retail units on Park Lane would change if the eastern carriageway was pedestrianised (car showrooms currently predominate), and he said that he had been assured that this would be the case. A transport planner present stressed the importance of engaging with the mayor and TfL, who will be key allies if the proposal is to be progressed: they must be engaged with now if the proposal is to find its way into manifestos for the next mayoral cycle, following the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street (Hennessy joked that TfL could always deliver the Park Lane project whilst working out what to do with Oxford Street). The evening offered a fantastic opportunity to hear more about this transformative scheme, which is symptomatic of the growing recognition of the need to balance the ‘place function’ of London’s streets, by which they provide pleasant spaces for pedestrians and dwellers, with ‘movement function’, to ensure that the city’s traffic keeps moving. Hennessy’s proposal demonstrates that both are possible, without needing to place roads into tunnels. n
CARRIAGE DRIVE - HYDE PARK AND DORCHESTER HOTEL, 1930s
London, victim or victor? Now is the time to collaborate across the public and private sectors to ensure London’s attractiveness remains compelling says Melanie Leech
Melanie Leech is chief executive of the British Property Federation
Brexit came as a shock to many, nowhere more so than in London where the outcome had perhaps been least contemplated and had an immediate impact on the markets. Relative calm was quickly restored however, although opinion on whether post-Brexit London can retain its pre-eminent place amongst global cities continues to be divided, focusing above all else on whether or not the capital will maintain its role as a magnet for world-class talent. Whether you feel optimistic or gloomy about the Prime Minister’s chances in the negotiating chamber, I would argue that many of the fundamentals that have ensured London’s success up until this point are still cemented into the city’s foundations. As businesses, what we need now, as Article 50 negotiations unfold, is to work in partnership with government to ensure Brexit means a successful future for the UK in the long term and that London’s position on the global stage is protected. The real estate industry is pivotal to our future prosperity, providing the UK with the right physical environments to support most, if not all, economic activity. The health of our industry and the broader economy are inextricably linked – we contribute around £95bn to the economy each year and nearly six per cent of GDP. Encompassing a vast range of essential economic and social infrastructure, we provide the professionally-managed rented homes in which many people live, the commercial space in which virtually all types of businesses operate and the shopping centres, restaurants, cinemas and more in which people spend leisure time. We are a key driver of growth and productivity, attracting long-term, domestic and overseas capital into much needed regeneration and building the fabric of the UK of the future. As the Prime Minister, therefore, embarks on the unprecedented task of negotiating an exit from the EU, it’s vital that she and the government both understand the real estate industry’s contribution to the UK and London’s success, and what it will take to maintain and increase our attractiveness as an asset class to investors from around the globe. We recently published our manifesto for a successful future for the UK and real estate. We have five key messages for government: work with us to maintain investor confidence in the UK and to drive growth; provide fair, competitive and stable tax, regulatory and planning systems; invest in infrastructure and free up public sector land; help us to address the skills shortage in our industry; and support more housing supply across all tenures. Of course, we have been arguing for many of these issues for some time. The good news for government and for all of us is that they are not therefore issues that need to be on hold for two years, or that need to be de-railed by a sub-optimal outcome to the Brexit negotiations. Indeed, if the government really
works with our industry to create the right conditions for investment in regeneration and development activity, it will also put in place the physical environment to deliver the increased productivity and growth which it wants a post-Brexit UK to achieve. Maintaining investor confidence in London as a great place to do business and invest is hugely important. We believe that public-private partnerships are an increasingly important part of the mix, and a great way of ensuring that different interests are aligned throughout the development process. Our members are finding new and innovative ways to work with progressive London borough councils to deliver the places that meet local needs. Equally important is the need to continue attracting the best talent to come and work in London, and for them to feel welcome here. Access to talent grows businesses, stimulates demand for real estate and ultimately drives the economy. It is also essential that our industry can access skilled construction workers from overseas, whilst continuing its efforts to develop more home-grown talent and resources. Now is the time to collaborate across the public and private sectors to ensure London’s attractiveness remains compelling. London is a unique and vibrant place and working together we can maintain the essential characteristics that set it apart, whilst continuously innovating to keep it at the forefront of relevance in the modern and future worlds – inside or outside the EU. n
Issue 101 April-June 2017
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BEST CONSIDERATION | SARA BAILEY
COUNCIL HOUSING | PAUL FINCH
Let’s hear it for the return of council housing
Best Consideration From a small paragraph in the White Paper, major change in how local authorities will look at future disposals and development could be on the horizon explains Sara Bailey
Sara Bailey is a partner with Trowers & Hamlins LLP
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Planning in London
The Government's White Paper has had a mixed response, but hidden amongst the detail is the reference to the possible review of a Local Authority's ability to sell land at less than 'best consideration' or 'undervalue'. This is a significant step forward in allowing local authorities more flexibility in selling their land, but accepting that they may choose to trade part of the capital receipt for alternative benefits. As the law currently stands Local Authorities have to achieve 'best consideration' when disposing of any land. If the land is housing land there is no leeway and a Council would have to get specific Secretary of State consent to dispose for less. If it is non housing land and part of the general fund there is a leeway of £3 million. This places serious constraints on the authority's ability to look at different options than simply taking the highest capital receipt. The difficulty for both the public sector and the private sector with the current ruling is the lack of flexibility. Central government is pushing local authorities to release land for the development of more housing and is looking to them to become true generators of place. Currently this is extremely difficult as there are broader aspects that a local authority may wish to take into account in a bid including jobs, open space, leisure which can not be included in the best consideration valuation. The ability for a Local Authority to have more discretion in this area without having to apply to the Secretary of State will be greatly welcomed. The industry needs to develop housing more rapidly and the release of land is one of the most fundamental barriers to this. It is not just enough though to However, generating homes in order to build sustainable communities requires careful consideration of the place and the ability to generate economic prosperity .This is particularly relevant in cities such as London where land value is high but the need for true regeneration is para-
mount. This means that thought needs to be given to open spaces, infrastructure, different types of employment uses and different types of housing rather than just looking at the best covenant. To do this it requires the parties to have a longer term view and focus on patient capital. All of this proves extremely difficult under the current rules as this will not necessarily deliver the best consideration. In an era of garden cities and large development schemes it is important that we don’t repeat mistakes of the past and look at examples of good schemes which have longevity. Councils have the ability to get a higher value by being more flexible. Looking at schemes such as Kings Cross or Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park (illustrated), these are examples of a genuine commitment to deliver place. Schemes of this scale require the ability to evolve and change over the years, but what is clear is that this 'best value' approach to development requires true partnership and an ability to allow the equity invested to be left in for a longer term to help generate both the real place and a higher ultimate return on investment. There are many large sites held by either the GLA or the Local Authorities in London which are ideal for joint ventures between the public and private sector. The relaxation of the best consideration rules will potentially help the public sector take an active investment in the property and have an ability to take a higher ultimate return. The land can be the equity investment but instead of all the capital being covered by an arms-length loan it could use some to leverage funding for say, infrastructure as long as this does not fall foul of the State Aid rules. We are some way from the legislation being enacted but consultation is about to begin. Potentially from a small paragraph in the White Paper, major change in how local authorities will look at future disposals and development could be on the horizon. n
Smart design is not the province of a particular procurement ideology, but a matter dependent on skill and commitment to the desired outcomes says Paul Finch writing in the AJ With kind consent of the AJ
Paul Finch is editorial director of the Architects’ Journal and joint publishing editor of Planning in London
Later this month, RIBA Publications will launch a book on social housing which is proof positive that, after decades of being squashed by government, local authorities are reasserting their responsibilities to house their populations in a civilised manner. Watch out for the reaction. There are those who will claim that it is only the private sector that can provide the housing we really need (pause for laughter); that ‘council estates’ are a failed model (as though they cannot be redefined); and that the entire idea of a dirigiste public sector is an offence against the immaculate conception of the ‘free market’. Being of a pragmatic disposition, I warmly welcome the new intelligence that is pervading local authorities in respect of public housing. Having been brought up on council estates built by Westminster City Council in an era when Conservatives had a commitment to social equity, I have never believed that local authorities are incapable of providing homes for those unable to meet the financial hurdles of the private housebuilding market. Frankly, the idea that London is incapable of providing necessary housing within its own boundaries for anticipated population increases over the next 20 years is nonsense. A cursory glance at, for example, the Lower Lea Valley tells us that we do not need to start splattering low-density estates over Home Counties green belt in order to meet anticipated demand. That policy is about meeting the desires of the housebuilding industry, which is incapable (I do not blame it for this) of meeting overall demand for decent housing for all. The refreshing thing about current London housing initiatives is the extent to which the boroughs are starting to take a lead, rather than simply reacting to what the private sector is up to. A good example is the proposal for Stephenson Street in Newham, where Patel Taylor architects are masterplanning a 3,700-home project on Greater London Authority land. The mix
of units is being determined by the GLA, even though the private sector partner on the project is Berkeley Homes. That is to say, the question is not the proportion of affordable homes, but the proportion that might be sold to make the entire project tick. Of even greater significance, however, is a huge project being masterplanned by Karakusevic Carson architects for Enfield Council called Meridian Water. This will produce 10,000 homes on a regeneration site on the edge of Edmonton, and will include an admirable range of mixed uses in terms both of conventional employment and cultural initiatives. This is a longterm project, partly dependent on infrastructure improvements. However, the first phase is about to start, with Barratt London as a housing partner. Critically, Enfield is raising the funding itself via the European Investment Bank and our very own Public Works Loan Board (remember them?). Like other London local authorities referenced in the book mentioned above, Enfield is part of a movement, minded to determine its own future, rather than remain a combination of punch-bag and/or supplicant, endlessly bemoaning an inability to produce the housing it knows is necessary. A strong, committed and devolved public sector will be essential to meeting future housing demand in London and elsewhere. The Karakusevic Carson client list is ample evidence that there is the political appetite to re-assume responsibilities shuffled off for all the wrong reasons in recent decades. What is particularly encouraging about current initiatives is the understanding on the part of public authorities that smart design, from masterplanning to individual building proposals, is not the province of a particular procurement ideology, but a matter dependent on skill and commitment to the desired outcomes. Let’s hope the message reaches Whitehall. n
Dr Janice Morphet explains that a change in Treasury rules on local authority borrowing in 2011 has encouraged them to take development initiatives of many kinds – see the report on the National Planning Forum/LP&DF/CULS event in this issue. She wrote about her NPF-supported research at UCL in the last issue of PiL. A prominent example is Croydon’s new development company ‘Brick by Brick, explained by their managing director Colm Lacey in this issue. A well researched article in a recent Sunday Times explained how authorities were supplementing Council Tax income by going into commercial development but warned of the possible dangers when the next property collapse comes about. –Ed
Issue 101 April-June 2017
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BRIEFING: THE HOUSING WHITE PAPER
The housing White Paper Some summaries and commentary
Last month the Secretary of State set out the details of the housing White Paper in a statement to parliament, with measures including: • Forcing councils to produce an up-to-date plan for housing demand • Expecting developers to avoid "low-density" housing where land availability is short • Reducing the time allowed between planning permission and the start of building from three to two years • Using a £3bn fund to help smaller building firms challenge major developers, including support for off-site construction, where parts of buildings are assembled in a factory • A "lifetime ISA" to help first-time buyers save for a deposit • Maintaining protection for the green belt, which can only be built on "in exceptional circumstances" • Introducing banning orders "to remove the worst landlords or agents from operating" • Banning letting agents' fees
We start with a light hearted runthrough from Rebekah Paczek at Snapdragon Consulting
istic. However, never let that get in the way of a sarcastic canter through policy:
Bob The Builder at No.10 The big headline is the shift away from homeownership being the be-all and end-all to an equal focus on renters and build to rent. This is a welcome move from the government and marks the success of the long-term lobbying campaign by the property industry. It is also a significant break from the Cameron/Osborne era and we may be able to expect the Budget to reflect this in March. The Paper pushed the regional devolution agenda as key to addressing local housing shortfalls and dynamics. This is a positive move for those areas going down the devolution route but more problematic for those not on that railroad yet. It also, conveniently, helps the government devolve any blame for non-delivery whilst still being able to claim credit for success (or perhaps I’m being too cynical). There is actually much that will be welcomed in the paper, if not quite a few details which need to be ironed out and a few aspects which seem unreal-
The People Are Revolting! The paper identifies that over 40% of local authorities do not have an up to date local plan. This is not news, but the Paper does also focus on the fact that the prime reason for this is the way in which local politicians respond to local attitudes towards housing – not that the Paper mentions the word NIMBY or the BANANA phenomenon, but, reading between the lines, that is what it means. The Fatcats Are Getting Fatter Landbanking rears its head again as a cause for concern. Despite successive governments having failed to find genuine evidence of landbanking, it is still regarded as one of the primary reasons for development being slow. And this government is going to stop it… Just so long as they don’t launch yet another enquiry into landbanking, throwing academics rather than solutions at the problem has never really seemed to work longterm. In this instance it is really more focused on
ensuring developers implement permissions more quickly and therefore land use is made more efficient, so it is a mild accusation at this stage. It’s Just Not Fair… Too few firms, building too many of the homes means competition and diversification of construction methods just isn’t happening. Everyone has known this for years, no one has succeeded in doing anything about it so good luck with that one. Local Authorities Aren’t Cutting It Local authorities come in for criticism regarding their approach to consenting schemes, assessing land supply, interpreting the planning system, working with developers and other local authorities – and a whole host of other things really. And This Is What We’re Going To Do About It… So, some interesting measures being proposed: • A new standard methodology will be produced to calculate ‘objectively assessed need’ which means local authorities can no longer use their >>>
Modular homes for London’s key workers Kieran White explains how modular construction is starting to meet the needs of first-time buyers in London
modular construction. “For modular to really take off as a viable construction method, the Government and lenders should look at making it easier for SMEs to access the working capital needed to take advantage of its benefits,” he comments. n
In last year’s autumn statement, the government pledged £285 million for accelerated construction techniques through the National Productivity Investment Fund. Modular construction also featured in the recent housing housing White Paper as a way of speeding up the delivery of homes and diversifying the housing market. Partnering with Pocket Living on several projects has allowed Vision Modular Systems to deliver new housing for first time buyers and key workers. Their most recent project is located on the China Walk Estate, just a few minutes walk from Lambeth North and Westminster tube stations. Each apartment has been built according to Pocket’s award-winning design specification. The two blocks on Sail Street and nearby Juxon Street in Lambeth will offer 70 apartments and were designed by HKR Architects. All of Pocket Living's buildings are community focused, with shared spaces, such as roof terraces, where residents can meet and relax. Residents will
Kieran White is managing director at Vision Modular Systems
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* See Marc’s contribution to the London Planning & Development Forum meeting in the last issue of PiL.
Sail Street SE11, Lambeth
Juxon Street SE11, Lambeth
also have access to a walled courtyard with benches and trees. They move in later this month. A development of this scale built using traditional construction methods would have taken around 24 months to complete, but using modular construction greatly reduced total build time.
Vision Modular Systems also partnered with Pocket Living on Mountearl Gardens in Streatham. Pocket Living and Vision Modular Systems are currently working on Europe’s tallest modular residential tower in Wandsworth, at Mapleton Crescent. The 89-unit development will be spread
over 26 storeys and is expected to be finished by early 2018. Marc Vlessing, chief executive of Pocket Living, says that getting high-quality homes built quickly is key to solving the housing crisis*. Modular techniques will play an increasingly important role in meeting this challenge and, through our partnership with Donban and Vision Modular, over a quarter of Pocket’s future pipeline will be built through
Issue 101 April-June 2017
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BRIEFING: THE HOUSING WHITE PAPER
>>> own approach and effectively abdicate responsibility for housing numbers. • Increasing transparency around land ownership – apparently this will put communities back in control and reduce speculative development. Personally, I have no idea how it will achieve this, but that’s what it says in the Paper… • Local authorities will be enabled to take action against developers who secure permission but don’t use it. In part, this will come from the introduction of higher fees and capacity funding from the government to develop planning departments and plan making. The Paper also makes it clear that Government will intervene if plans are not up to date or housing numbers are not being delivered. Plans are to be reviewed at least once every five years – which will have some planning officers weeping into their wilted sandwiches as they celebrate getting a Plan to issues and options stage after four years… • The development of a planning framework more supportive of higher levels of development with a quicker determination process, tackling delays caused by planning conditions and an improved approach to developer contributions. At the same time as making it easier for local communities to get involved and shape plans for their area and have a say in the design of new housing. Of course, that works! • Enabling local authorities to take into account the track record of delivery of an applicant when determining whether to grant consent. Possibly controversial, but an understandable measure and one which is probably unofficially used anyway. • Introduction of local accountable New Town Development Corporations – although refreshingly this government doesn’t seem to think that New Towns will save us and solve all of our problems. • Amendments to the NPPF to give local authorities the opportunity to have their housing land supply agreed on an annual basis and fixed for a one-year period. Added to this, holding up the recent test case, NPs will not be deemed out of date unless there is a significant lack of land supply. This is a significant shift and could have a huge impact on development proposals and long-term plans in some areas which choose the annual rather than the five year route. • Diversification of the market: • Encouraging smaller builders through better access to loan finance. • Supporting housing associations to build through additional funding and clarity on future rent levels in return for them building significantly more affordable homes. • Exploring options for local authorities to build again (whisper it, could this be the return of
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some form of state-funded building programmes??!). • Boost BTR through a clear long-term framework in return for support to build more homes across tenures. • Make it easier to self-build. • Encourage higher densities in urban locations and review space standards. • Amending the NPPF to give stronger support for sites providing affordable homes to local people. In return for all of the marvellous things which the government is intending to do, Government expects developers to build more homes, engage with communities and promote the benefits of development. As the MD of a company which specialises in helping developers engage with communities to promote the benefits of development this is all, of course, rather wonderful. However, it still doesn’t answer the question of how you square the circle when a community is utterly hostile (despite all of those benefits being promoted) and the decision-makers want to stay elected. Answers on a postcard if anyone has a solution to that conundrum please. On the other hand, in return for all of the wonderful things which will be delivered to communities through more simplistic plan-making, the government “asks communities to accept that more housing is needed if future generations are to have the homes they need at a price they can afford.” So, that’s that then, problem solved… Local authorities also get a heap of obligations placed on them, not least the need to produce a Statement of Common Ground with neighbouring authorities, enforcing the duty to co-operate. Not only that, but there is going to be a system of Strategic Plans which set out priorities for areas crossing local authority boundaries as well as Spatial Development Strategies to cover the new combined authorities. All that sounds dangerously like regional planning to me, next we will be having the return of Regional Offices… The Paper also expects infrastructure providers to step up to the plate to ensure that development is not delayed. This is to be achieved, at least in part, through the improved approach to developer contributions, whatever that actually means. Basically, we all need to sing in harmony and work together – which really reflects the general global trend at the moment, everyone working in collaboration and understanding. Still, it’s good to have a vision of peace. The Greenbelt Possibly in the face of a Tory Shires revolt, the greenbelt remains sacrosanct – except for when it isn’t. As per usual, no clarification is given on the fact that there is much brownfield land with-
in the greenbelt so the mistaken and deliberate confusion over this by opponents to general or specific development will be able to continue unfettered. There is to be a strengthened presumption in the NPPF that brownfield land is suitable for development, unless there are clear reasons to the contrary (again, no mention of all that brownfield land which is in the greenbelt and how that contradiction is dealt with). The Rest In recognition that all of this takes time to achieve, the Government has announced that it will help people now through a range of measures aimed at reducing costs for renters and owners. Measures include: • Making renting fairer by improving tenancy terms. • Cracking down on empty homes and supporting areas affected by second-homes. • Helping the most vulnerable. • Supporting households at risk of homelessness. • Introducing Lifetime ISAs • Relaxing funding to provide a range of homes including those for affordable rents Obviously, Government doesn’t want BREXIT to influence everything. However, the White Paper highlights the skills shortage and the need to grow the construction workforce. This situation can only get worse if free movement of labour is restricted post-BREXIT and a mass exodus of East European workers takes place. Under these circumstances, the existing construction industry would pretty much stop let alone future growth. Government is keen to hold everyone involved to account, which is fine in principle but less easy in practice. This will be something to watch in terms of how it actually plays out, whether there is a truly objective measurement and how easy it is to challenge it with independent assessments. All the rest involves the use of windfall sites, release of public sector land, encouraging estate regeneration etc etc. All the usual which comes in every housing policy. The AJ summarised the measures of particular interest to architects: 1. A new focus on design? The white paper says local communities should have a ‘greater say’ and choice in the design of new homes. It says the government will make further funding available to neighbourhood planning groups from 2018-2020, which could be used to allocate sites for housing and to improve design. Under the heading Strengthening neighbourhood planning and design, the paper argues that ‘using a widely accepted design standard, such as
Building for Life’ could help ‘shape and assess basic design principles’. The government also says it will support the creation of ‘digital platforms on design, to create pattern-books or 3D models that can be implemented through the planning process and used to consult local people on potential designs for their area’. Speaking about these proposals, Alex Ely of mae said: ‘While this could be a promising way to support innovative design, we have seen from the risible Starter Homes Design Guide, launched by former housing minister Brandon Lewis in 2015, that if poorly written it could spell disaster for the quality of our housing.’ Worryingly, the government adds that it plans to review the Nationally Described Space Standard, which was only recently introduced. Ben Derbyshire, president-elect of the RIBA, said: ‘While I understand that the government wants to help those struggling to get on the housing ladder, we have seen a number examples already of some developers proposing tiny two-person homes of less than 15m² in converted office buildings. This cannot be a long-term solution to the housing crisis.’
2. Local councils and housing associations to build more homes According to the paper, the government will ‘explore options to encourage local authorities to build again’, including through a new £45 million Land Release Fund and a new Accelerated Construction programme, which involves building on public sector land. The government will release £25 million ‘to help ambitious [local] authorities in areas of high housing need to plan for new homes and infrastructure’. Local authorities will also be held to account through a ‘new, standardised way of calculating housing demand’, and review it at least every five years. The paper adds that, on the provision that they reinvest the profits into their planning department, local authorities will be able to increase planning fees by 20 per cent from this July. Councils and developers will also be expected to build homes at a higher density and in taller buildings where there is a shortage of land, as well as in locations well-served by public transport. In addition, the paper sets out how the government plans to support housing associations to build more homes, through measures including setting up an independent social housing regulator and reiterating the position of housing associations as private sector bodies, with a commitment to implementing the necessary deregulatory measures to allow them to be classified as such. 3. Cut! Planning permissions to last just two years The white paper outlines plans to speed up
house-building by shortening the timescale required for developers to start building once planning permission has been granted, from three years to two. But Hari Phillips of Bell Phillips Architects questioned a condition of this proposal, where it is stated that this two-year timescale would be applied ‘except where a shorter timescale could hinder the viability or deliverability of a scheme’. This ‘get out’ clause, he said, would ‘surely just see housebuilders’ viability consultants running rings around the system’. The paper also says the government will ‘increase transparency around land ownership’ in order show where land is available for housing and when organisations are sitting on land suitable for housing and not building on it. 4. Mixing it up – more competition for the big housebuilders The white paper proposes an Accelerated Construction programme, which will involve partnering with small and medium sized builders in order to build on public sector sites ‘faster than traditional disposal routes’. The paper says this move will see up to 15,000 housing starts over the course of parliament. It also reiterates the government’s support for the £3 billion Home Building Fund, which supports small and medium sized builders and was introduced in October last year. Speaking to the House of Commons, communities secretary Sajid Javid said: ‘At present around 60 per cent of new homes are built by just 10 companies. Small, independent builders can find it almost impossible to enter the market. This lack of competition means a lack of innovation, which in turn leads to sluggish productivity growth.’ 5. Green belt stays – building taller and denser in the cities On the whole, the white paper continues the government’s commitment to protecting the green belt, and Javid said that his plans would not entail ‘recklessly ripping up our countryside’. The white paper concedes that greenbelt boundaries can be amended, but ‘only in exceptional circumstances when local authorities can demonstrate that they have fully examined all other reasonable options for meeting their identified housing requirements’. 6. More support for build-to-rent’ over home ownership The white paper proposes further measures to support build-to-rent developments, including changing the National Planning Policy Framework to allow authorities to ‘plan proactively’ for these schemes. The paper also proposes making it easier for build-to-rent developers to offer affordable pri-
vate rental homes, and will introduce a definition for these homes, alongside other types of affordable housing. The paper adds that the government is working with the British Property Federation and National Housing Federation to create ensure ‘family-friendly’ tenancies of three or more years on certain schemes.
Andrew Jones, Practice Leader – Design, Planning & Economics, AECOM “After endless attempts by successive governments to address the UK’s housing crisis, there is now universal acceptance of the desperate need to build more homes. The measures outlined in today’s much-anticipated white paper should go some way towards delivering housing growth. The government’s support for off-site construction is particularly encouraging. Self-build, custom-build and manufactured homes have been effective components of housing strategies in other countries for many years, but success in the UK will be dependent on building a robust supply chain and effectively tackling the challenge of delivering at volume in complex urban settings. The promise to free up more public sector sites for development is nothing new, but providing local authorities with more Compulsory Purchase Order powers could lead to a welcome gear shift if there is support for local authorities to use those powers. Reducing the timescales for developers to implement a permission for housing development from three to two years is also encouraging. Improving speed of delivery will be crucial to enable a meaningful influx of new homes. The absence of a comprehensive review of the green belt is a missed opportunity and central government should have been bolder on this issue. Selected green belt sites can play a valuable contribution to the additional supply of new homes. Leaving responsibility for decisions that affect the green belt wholly with local authorities plays well to local decision-making, but is unlikely to bring forward new schemes quickly. While the original purpose of the green belt is still valid and protection of the most important land must be maintained or enhanced, there are significant portions of brownfield and other low-environmental value land close to transport links within the green belt that are ripe for development. Strengthening the requirement for local authorities to have up-to-date local plans is a step in the right direction, but building a stable supply of homes requires greater emphasis on sustainable, long-term strategic planning. The private sector has a role to play alongside government in boosting the lack of skilled resources within local areas to accelerate plan production. Looking beyond small, incremental increases requires local authorities to plan >>>
Issue 101 April-June 2017
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BRIEFING: THE HOUSING WHITE PAPER
>>> for up to 25-years in advance, creating well-connected new communities close to transport links in areas where people want to live.” Mark Farmer, CEO of Cast and author of government-commissioned review into the construction sector: “Today’s housing white paper includes many of the recommendations that I set out in my review into the construction industry. From a capacity building perspective there is a welcome recognition of the challenge of transforming skills development and training as well as strong support for modern, more efficient construction techniques. On a broader front, the central measures to better diversify tenure, especially through affordable housing and build to rent will drive a more resilient acyclical demand profile for the construction industry which in turn will enable longer term thinking and investment in higher productivity capacity building. It is critically important in my opinion that government has not only looked at increasing supply but is considering the physical means by which that will be delivered ensuring high quality construction." Martin Bellinger, CEO at Essential Living, the first UK build to rent company: “There’s been growing support for build to rent largely because ministers have realised there is nearly £90bn of new money to be harvested from pension funds and institutions. Whatever ownership ambitions people have, the reality is that more people than ever are renting. Encouraging companies to build professionally managed rental communities will reduce the problem of rogue landlords and allow more homes to be built more quickly." Johnny Caddick, joint managing director of Moda Living, a build to rent developer and operator, said: "These measure will mean there’s far more scope for brownfield regeneration across our cities, catering to the very needs of urban dwellers. This is not about switching everyone from ownership – it’s about providing choice and real customer service for people across the UK who want to live centrally.” Julian Goddard, head of residential at property consultancy Daniel Watney LLP: "The growing political support for build to rent will prove good news for renters over the long run but there is a pressing need for a rethink on how the government treats buy to let landlords, who continue to provide the overwhelming
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majority of rental homes. "A lethal cocktail of tax changes and increased regulation is threatening to limit investment and squeeze supply. With renting only set to rise, this will put extra pressure on the sector, with renters losing out most." Charles Mills, head of planning at property consultancy Daniel Watney LLP: “A fresh look at rules around density and height is welcome but ultimately the government is trapped between its desire to devolve more power to local communities while simultaneously trying to deliver more housing at a far greater speed and scale than has been achieved in recent history. Combined with steep cuts to funding and staff, this has placed huge pressure on the planning system. "If Sajid Javid genuinely wants to stimulate house-building, he needs to rethink how much decision-making happens at a micro-level while also injecting more cash into local planning departments. Punishing councils for failing to deliver new homes, as is being suggested, will only prove counter-productive over the long run." Lee Sheldon, co-head of the real estate sector for law firm Addleshaw Goddard: “We believe there’s now around £90bn of institutional finance ready to build homes for rent across the UK. Unlocking this will mean offering developers more certainty and less red tape, while also ensuring the government's Homes and Communities Agency continues to provide affordable loans to address the funding gap for rental developments. “What investors require is certainty and what ministers can look to do is offer this by ensuring we have a consistent approach to development across the country. The government is prioritizing brownfield development and wants a rental sector that offers longer tenancies and better service. North America and Europe have offered a professional rented sector for years, and we see build to rent as being very much a key component of the future of Britain’s housing market.” Jean-Marc Vandevivere, chief executive at PLATFORM_, a private rented housing provider: "There's a lot to be welcomed in today's housing white paper, from increased density around transport links and commuter hubs to using housing to regenerate high streets. For a build to rent model like ours, proximity to local amenities is key. "From Bracknell to Bedford we've taken advantage of relaxed rules to deliver high quality rental housing in central locations where people actually want to live. A more flexible approach to planning
will help more schemes like this be delivered up and down the country. "Yet the additional stamp duty levy on institutional investors acts as a key barrier to investment in the rental market. With private rent the fastest growing tenure, the government can ill afford any measures that restrict future supply."
Naomi Luhde-Thompson, senior planner and policy advisor for Friends of the Earth: Developers win again “Housing Minister Gavin Barwell had been expected to set out a range of radical plans to boost the housing supply with the release of the government’s much-anticipated and delayed Housing White Paper today. However, there was little to indicate that the government are prepared to take the measures needed to properly address the housing crisis. There’s never been a better moment to admit that the de-regulation of the planning system in England has only benefited one group: large-scale, or volume, housebuilders, and not people or the environment. We need homes built to zero carbon standards that are affordable but the changes made to the planning system in the last few years have clearly failed to deliver on building more homes - let alone affordable or zero-carbon ones. What we need is to scrap the most damaging policies, and the changes to permitted development, and give local government a much bigger role. For any hope of progress, it should also not be beyond the pale to make sustainable development a legal requirement, which would give more protection to our most precious places.” Martin Goodall's Planning Law Blog The plain fact is that this was only a White Paper – a statement of various aspirations on the part of government, some of which may be realised in due course while others are quietly forgotten. I really see no point in wasting time on the White Paper itself, preferring to comment on particular changes in planning law and procedure when they come forward in due course. Meanwhile, I remain sceptical of the government’s stated aim of building a million new homes by 2020. This would require an annual completion rate as high as, if not higher than, the building rate achieved under the dynamic leadership of Harold Macmillan as Minister of Housing and Local Government in the early 1950s, which included a substantial proportion of publicly funded social housing [“council houses” – remember them?]. Does the government seriously expect the private sector now to match that building rate without such a significant public sector input? Let’s be realistic – it simply won’t happen. n
Issue 101 April-June 2017
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LEGO AS A TOOL | WILLIAM MURRAY
Lego. Seriously William Murray describes how the world’s most famous toy is aiding the strategic process at Wordsearch Last year, I spent four 12-hour days in a windowless room in Bloomsbury learning to use LEGO® as a facilitation tool. That’s right. LEGO®. As a tool. An increasing amount of our work starts with an extensive strategic process, so it made sense to me that I needed to draw upon as many tools as possible. I experienced LEGO® in a strategy session a while ago and was not entirely convinced as to its effectiveness. It wasn’t until a friend told me about LEGO® Serious Play, a method developed by LEGO® in the 1970s and 80s, that I thought it might be a viable tool for us to use. The programme was devised by professors Johan Roos and Bart Victor, and the then LEGO® Group CEO and owner, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, as a way of helping the company to develop strategies to maintain competitiveness in an increasingly complex toy and games market. Over the next 30 years, Kristiansen and his team defined an official process for the use of LEGO® to improve communication and strategic thinking, and to develop loyalty and consensus to new ideas. Having now done the course – it bloody works! The concept The first idea is based on the concepts of constructionism and constructivism. Broadly speaking, it describes how humans have built their understanding of the world through experience, facilitated by the hand-brain connection that developed over millions of years of evolution. As a result, what humans build with their hands they also build in their brains. Once you combine this visceral connection between building and memory with our natural ability to play, you can create a powerful tool for thinking. By moving the focus of your meetings and workshops from individuals to collective model making, you can ensure that opinions are more easily shared, knowledge is more easily accessed and everyone is heard. The course itself was surprisingly exhausting, occasionally difficult, but also a lot of fun. By the end of the week, I was stuffed full of learning, sick to death of LEGO® and very embarrassed that I’d spent more time in the preceding four days playing LEGO® with strangers than I had with my children
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in the preceding two years. Bad Dad. I was now fully convinced that this was something I could use to aid our strategy workshops with clients, and, when a client unexpectedly brought forward an upcoming workshop, I decided to jump in at the deep-end and to try and use what I had learned.
Putting it into practice I planned a workshop around creating a brand strategy for the client’s new high-end residential building in London’s West End. I was under no illusion that it would be easy, and with the assistance of the members of the training group, Robert Rasmussen (one of the creators of LEGO® Serious Play) and our trainer, I spent the rest of the week honing, re-writing and testing. I spent £1,000 on LEGO Serious Play sets, booked a room in a smart London hotel, and hatched my escape plans – that didn’t mean running away – but an alternative workshop if it all went wrong. The start time of 10am came and went with only one attendee. The rest of the group arrived at
William Murray is Wordsearch group director of strategy
10.30am, and the boss immediately announced that he had to step out for 30 mins. Impending disaster meant that ‘Plan B’ was immediately deployed, and we began with a competitor audit out of sequence. It proved to be really useful and we got plenty of value out of the discussion. The boss returned 45 minutes later, and I was finally able to begin the LEGO® introduction. However, I soon noticed that he wasn’t paying attention, and was struggling with the first exercise. “I’m losing him”, I thought. We persevered and we got past the first exercise, but his frustration began to show to the rest of the group. We completed the second exercise – discussing the benefits of the project – and at the end of a fun and animated discussion, I breathed a huge sigh of relief when the group had discovered and shared
some genuinely unique insights that I’m certain we wouldn’t have captured without the LEGO®. By the end of the workshop, we had captured everyone’s views accurately and they’d all talked openly. It proved a success, with everyone agreeing that the whole process was engaging and enjoyable, particularly the boss. So, was it worth using LEGO® in the workshop? Yes, definitely. 100 per cent. Could I use it for every workshop? Absolutely not. Firstly, it is very time consuming, and you have to begin with a skills building workshop that takes at least 90 minutes. Secondly, it doesn’t cater for every question you want to answer, especially if the discussion centers on our areas of expertise. However, the big plus points are that you do get to hear from everybody in the room, and it is great for building consensus. Was it worth doing the training? LEGO® Serious Play requires serious commitment, and it commands a desire to deploy it with reasonable regularity. I’m really pleased that I did the training, as a lot of the thinking focuses on people’s comfort level in meetings and workshops. It also touched on the way some characters can dominate an entire meeting, and the approach for how to mitigate that was
incredibly insightful. Finally, to have another tool in the arsenal when leading these types of sessions is a huge relief.
What next?
The next time I use it will be for internal strategy sessions, where I can see it being invaluable for the client services and creative teams, and I look forward to the next opportunity to unbox the LEGO® Serious Play for a client.
William and Robert Rasmussen enjoying themselves (strategically)
Issue 101 April-June 2017
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SHORT-TERM LETTING | FRANCESCO MELLINO
Planning enforcement in the age of Airbnb Enabling the short-term accommodation sector to grow should be accompanied by adequately-resourced enforcement of its regulation says Francesco Mellino
Francesco Mellino is a research consultant at Lichfields
Figure 1: Number of Airbnb listings and average price per night in London (selected dates, Dec 13 – Jan 2017) Source: Lichfields analysis of tomslee.net data
Airbnb, a business that enables people to rent out their homes (or a room within them), has enjoyed global success since it was founded in San Francisco in 2008. With over three million listings worldwide across more than 65,000 cities, the company is among the giants of the sharing economy and one of the fastest-growing actors in the hospitality sector. The legal background for short-term accommodation in London is, briefly, as follows. Until 25 May 2015, the use of property for temporary sleeping accommodation for fewer than 90 days per year without planning permission was prohibited1. From May 26 2015, the restrictions on short-term accommodation in London were relaxed2, allowing Londoners to rent out their properties, which must be liable to pay Council Tax, for temporary sleeping accommodation for fewer than 90 nights per calendar year without requiring planning permission. The criticism that Airbnb has received, mostly in larger cities in Europe and the US, focuses on whether allowing dwellings to be rented out for short-term accommodation encourages an efficient use of the housing stock or has an unsustainable impact on the availability of properties for long-term rent. This tension is clear in how new policy was designed to regulate, not prohibit, this activity. However, no details were set out regarding how local authorities were expected to enforce the
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Planning in London
90-nights-limit. Analysis of data of Airbnb listings3 suggests that the change in legislation in May 2015 had a negligible impact on existing trends in London. There were just almost 54,000 listings in London in January 2017, up from 13,000 as of December 2013, but the rate of this increase has been constant since May 2014 (Figure 1). Interestingly, the average nominal price per night of a listing in London has decreased from £190 in May 2014 to £121 in January 2017, hinting
that the growth in the number of listings has increased competition and driven down prices rather than meeting pent-up demand for shortterm accommodation. The most controversial type of Airbnb listings are those for entire homes, as they involve properties that critics argue should be available for longterm rent. The analysis shows that, as the number of listings increased over time, the proportion of entire homes being rented out has remained largely stable at around 51 per cent of all listings, once again apparently unfettered by the change in legislation in May 2015 (Figure 2). The proportion of shared rooms available for rent on Airbnb stood at 1 per cent across the period of analysis.
Are times a-changing? Enabling emerging sectors, such as short-term accommodation, to grow sustainably within the urban fabric is a crucial aspect of city planning. When this requires a regulatory framework, its
Figure 2: Proportion of Airbnb listings by type (selected dates, Dec 13 – Jan 2017) Source: Lichfields analysis of tomslee.net data
introduction should be accompanied by the capacity of adequately-resourced local authorities to enforce it. The fact that trends in the analysis have remained unchanged following changes to legislation suggests that enforcement may not have been as timely. From January 2017, Airbnb has announced that it would only allow its hosts in Greater London to rent out their homes for up to 90 days (unless they confirm that they have planning permission to do otherwise and agree that some of their data would be shared with the relevant local authority). This proactive move would partially ease the enforcement process for local authorities, but may not enough – a host could simply list a property on a different short-term accommodation platform once the 90-night limit on Airbnb has been reached. A sector-wide approach is needed to avoid this possibility. Ultimately, it will be necessary to monitor whether Airbnb’s co-operation and the reduction in
price over time will have an impact on listing numbers as well as on the proportion of entire homes being rented out in London before assessing whether this solution could be rolled out to the entire sector. n
1 Section 25 of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1973 (as amended) deems the change of use from residential premises to temporary sleeping accommodation as a material change of use, therefore requiring planning permission. 2 Deregulation Act 2015: Sections 44 and 45: Short-term use of London accommodation: relaxation of restrictions and power to relax restrictions. 3 Data publicly available at tomslee.net
Priorities for the London Plan - land use, infrastructure and 'good growth'
Thursday, 27th April 2017 at Glaziers Hall, 9 Montague Close, London SE1 9DD Gavin Barwell MP, Minister of State for Housing and Planning and Minister for London (pre-recorded presentation) Colin Wilson, Senior Manager, Planning, Greater London Authority Councillor Darren Rodwell, Executive Portfolio Holder for City Development, London Councils and Leader, London Borough of Barking and Dagenham This seminar will consider the future for policy affecting planning and development in the Capital. It is timed to facilitate engagement on the development of a new London Plan, which will set out the Mayor's strategic spatial plan for areas such as housing, transport, environment and economic development, and provide an overarching framework for local planning at
borough level. Sessions focus on challenges and opportunities presented by the Mayor's stated priorities for the London Plan, looking in particular at the future of land use and its relation to employment; intensifying housing near transport hubs; supporting heritage and the night-time economy; and delivering the Mayor's aims for "good growth" - including the promotion of green spaces, affordability and social integration. Discussion is also expected on the possible implications of Brexit for planning - for example, on environmental impact assessments. The agenda will also bring out discussion relating to national planning policy - in the context of the recent publication of the Housing White Paper, which puts forward proposed changes to the National Planning Policy
Framework, and sets out measures to speed up development and intensify housing. Discussion will also be informed by the current Neighbourhood Planning Bill, which aims to simplify the neighbourhood planning and compulsory purchase order processes - as well as the ongoing delivery of nationally significant infrastructure in the Capital. The seminar will bring together policymakers with frontline stakeholders from housing, planning and architecture, investors, transport providers, businesses and their legal advisors, local authorities, consumer and tenant groups, environment and sustainability campaigners, charities, consultants, regulators, and reporters from the national and trade press. THIS EVENT IS CPD CERTIFIED
Issue 101 April-June 2017
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FIVE MYTHS ABOUT PLANNING FOR HOUSING | ALAN WENBAN-SMITH
ANDY ROGERS
Five myths underlying current planning policies for housing
Like a wheel within a wheel…
Alan Wenban-Smith runs economic, transport and planning consultancy Urban & Regional Policy LEFT: Figure 1: Housebuilding since 1946 compared with current projection
Myth 1: Lack of land is preventing building to meet needs • Increasing housing land supply has been a priority since Barker Report (2004) • Since 2007 (at least) new permissions have exceeded starts by ~50,000 pa • 9 big builders have ~900,000 consents in hand • The development plan pipeline will provide sites for at least 2 million homes • Output under ‘brownfield first’ policy (1999~2007) reached highest level for 20 years • Supply of brownfield land higher after than before (brownfield is a flow, not a stock) Myth 2: New housing will meet the needs of new households • Most (87%) of the annual flow of new households are young • They lack resources to exercise effective demand (low, insecure incomes, rising costs) • Builders target existing home owners (£369k average price*), not First Time Buyers (£226k*) * Average prices, England, 2016 Q3, ONS • 80% mkt price means ‘affordable housing’ meets only a small niche of needs • ‘Starter homes’ require income of at least £50k, and public support only £20k/unit • ‘Help to Buy’ increases demand in under-supplied market sector, pricing more out than in Myth 3: more output will lead to lower prices • New houses are only 10% of the housing market • Therefore house prices are very insensitive to increases in output (+70,000 pa to price in 5,000 pa – Barker)
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• If higher output did stop prices rising, builders would stop building • If prices continue to rise, more new households will be priced out. • Eventual ‘market correction’ (aka price collapse) Myth 4: Jobs growth depends on new houses • Lower paid workers depend on cheaper existing homes • Higher paid workers can choose from the whole stock (existing and new) • Environment, schools and social cohesion more important than number of new homes • Jobs growth depends on attractiveness of
existing stock and more subsidised homes Myth 5: Balance of new jobs and homes means less traffic • ‘Balance’ will reduce net commuting (difference between in-flow and out-flow) • But volume of traffic depends on sum of inflow and out-flow of commuters • In-flow and out-flow each depend on matching workers’ needs across the whole stock • New homes are a small proportion of stock, and aimed mainly at better-paid and retirees. n Background to all myths • Policy assumption: meeting needs requires that New housing = net increase in households • BUT: ‘net increase’ = new households forming minus old ones dissolving. • Net household increase, England 2011-31 = 211,000 pa (DCLG 2014-based). Annual flows by age group (see Figure below) Newly forming households: 363,000 pa <25 in 2011, becoming <45 in 2031 Plus 53,000 pa 25-65 in 2011, becoming 45-85 in 2031 Minus dissolving households: -206,000 pa (>65 in 2011, becoming >85 in 2031)
There is a well-known English proverb that suggests “what goes around comes around”. Following the anniversary issue (100 and counting), which showed the repetitive nature of difficulties with the planning system (see my last column), I am reflecting here on the circular nature of roads in London, going back as far as Colin Buchanan’s 1963 Traffic in Towns report for the Minister of Transport at the time, one Ernest Marples. This was charged with examining “the rapid growth of motor traffic” - highlighted as one of “the most baffling [problems] which face modern society”. Buchanan was concerned about the fundamental dilemma that car ownership presents: being of great and valuable convenience but a real threat to the people living in towns and cities, both through how to accommodate motor traffic safely without destroying the local environment and, as currently being highlighted today, in terms of pollution. In common with many larger UK towns, planners produced proposals for road systems that would encircle London, with inner, intermediate and outer ring roads as suggested by Buchanan. But unlike many other urban areas, the outermost of these was eventually completed, as the M25, while the rest were abandoned or only partially implemented. The North and South Circular Roads are the most obvious - today a hotchpotch
of dual carriageways, meandering cross roads, etc, leading in and out of congestion and bottleneck pinch points, the most infamous of which is the Hangar Lane Gyratory many years in the construction and to this day arguably the slowest section of the North Circular Road in both directions. But it’s the M25 that has always captured the most criticism. From the County of London Plan (1943), which proposed a series of ring roads labelled A to E, to the 1960s Ringway Scheme, which had four circular roads (the innermost having been abandoned), planners have attempted to tackle the rapidly increasing number of private cars and commercial vehicles on London’s roads. Apart from the outer road (Ringways 3 and 4, adapted to the final route of the M25), these were never taken further except in small sections, such as the Westway (Ringway 1), due to the enormous costs of upgrading or building new roads to dual carriageway or motorway standards and the impracticalities involved. Parts of London remained blighted until well into the 1980s. Opposition to the Ringway proposals was immediate and focused on both the social problems (with vast numbers of Londoners potentially living within 200 yards of a motorway) and the prediction that large quantities of additional traffic would be generated purely as a result of the new roads. Ringway planners, the GLC Department of Highways and Transport, admitted that proper studies were not carried out due to limited resources of money and staff. In 1968 the Architectural Review published a detailed critique of The Motorway Box (aka Ringway 1), pointing out that the contemporary London Traffic Survey demonstrated “the volume of traffic trying to use the box will be three or four times greater than its capacity”, especially given the number of radial routes that it would be expected to accommodate. This is essentially the criticism that has persisted in respect of the M25 and its reputation as a giant car park when there is a minor accident or other problem - along with the persistent difficulty of finding sensible radial traffic routes into the centre of the capital. But what is most interesting about
The nature of God is a circle of which the centre is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere Anon
Buchanan’s report is how prescient some of his thinking was. He suggested that there were four possibilities for influencing the burgeoning demand for the optional use of cars in towns. These were (i) a system of permits to control the entry of vehicles [such as larger lorries] to certain zones, (ii) pricing for the use of road space [congestion charge], (iii) stricter parking controls [CPZs as introduced in 19645], and (iv) subsidising public transport so that it offers financial advantages over the use of cars [on-going]. So all of these have, eventually, but over many years and with gradually increasing effectiveness, been implemented in London. The only option missing seems to be the encouragement of cycling! So what are the lessons that can be learnt for London? Has the planning system helped or hindered efforts to improve traffic flow around the metropolis? Is there (or has there ever been) an effective planning system at all? My feeling is the same as for the influence of planning on developments throughout society, whether for traffic and public transport, housing or commerce. Whatever planning system we have had over the years dealing with these issues is dependent on change and market forces. Timescales are usually so long and the system so slow to keep up that we inevitably lurch from crisis to crisis, whether it is the intolerable pressure on housing supply or the inevitable road reconstructions that result in ever slower traffic speeds in and around the capital. When, I ask myself, will we ever learn to plan strategically? n
Round and round the circle Completing the charm So the knot be unknotted The cross be uncrossed The crooked be made straight And the curse be ended. - T S Eliot The Family Reunion
Issue 101 April-June 2017
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BRIEFING | PLANNING PERFORMANCE
Speed of decisions show increases but vary widely between authorities Latest planning performance by English districts and London boroughs: Planning Applications in England: October to December 2016 OVERVIEW Between October and December 2016, district level planning au- thorities in England: received 112,100 applications for planning permission, up one per cent on the corresponding quarter of 2015; granted 93,600 decisions, up one per cent from the same quarter in 2015; this is equivalent to 87 per cent of decisions, unchanged from the same quarter of 2015; decided 86 per cent of major applications within 13 weeks or the agreed time, up from 82 per cent a year earlier; granted 12,700 residential applications, up six per cent on a year earlier; and received 9,200 applications for prior approval for permitted development rights from October to December 2016, down nine per cent from the
same quarter of 2015. 7,500 of these 9,200 applications were approved without hav- ing to go through the full planning process, down ten per cent on a year earlier. 1,600 of these 9,200 applications were for changes to resi- dential use, October to December 2016 being the first quarter for which a residential total is available. 1,100 of these 1,600 residential applications were approved without having to go through the full planning process. In the year ending December 2016, district level planning authori- ties: granted 382,600 decisions, up three per cent from the figure for the year ending December 2015; and granted 49,100 decisions on residential devel-
opments: 6,400 for major developments and 42,700 for minors, up on the year ending December 2015 by seven per cent and five per cent respectively. Planning applications During October to December 2016, authorities undertaking district level planning in England received 112,100 applications for planning permission, up one per cent on the corresponding quarter in 2015. In the year ending December 2016, authorities received 483,000 planning applications, up two per cent from 475,600 in the year ending December 2015. Planning decisions Authorities reported 107,100 decisions on planning applications in October to December 2016,
RIGHT: Number of planning applications received, decided and granted by district level planning authorities
an increase of one per cent on the 106,000 decisions in the same quarter of the previous year. In the year ending December 2016, authorities decided 435,600 planning applications, an increase of three per cent compared to the year ending December 2015. Applications granted During October to December 2016, authorities granted 93,600 decisions, up one per cent from the same quarter in 2015. Authorities granted 87 per cent of all decisions, unchanged from the December quarter 2015 (Tables P120/P133). Overall, 83 per cent of major and minor decisions were granted. The percentage of decisions granted varied widely between local planning authorities, ranging from 17 to 100 per cent for major developments, 52 to 100 per cent for minor developments and 59 to 100 per cent for other develop-
Planning decisions by development type, speed of decision and local planning authority: July to September 2016 Table 131 can be found with all tables and figures here: https://goo.gl/aOl0Ch Source: CLG/ONS >>>
>>>
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Issue 101 April-June 2017
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BRIEFING | PLANNING PERFORMANCE
>>> ments (Tables P120/P131). Over the 12 months to December 2016, 382,600 decisions were granted, up three per cent from the year to December 2015
Speed of decisions In October to December 2016, 86 per cent of major applications were decided within 13 weeks or within the agreed time for Planning Performance Agreements (PPAs), Extensions of Time (EoTs) and Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs), compared with 82 per cent in the December quarter 2015. In the December quarter of 2016, 82 per cent of minor applications and 89 per cent of other applications were decided within eight weeks or the agreed time. These figures show increases, compared with 76 per cent and 85 per cent a year earlier respectively. The percentage of decisions made in time varied widely between local planning authorities, ranging from 17 to 100 per cent for major developments, 32 to 100 per cent for minor developments and 33 to 100 per cent for other developments. Because deciding an application on time can include the use of a performance agreement, the calculation of the proportion of decisions made within the agreed time was changed to include PPAs from April 2008 for major and some ‘other’
developments, and to also include agreed EoTs and EIAs from April 2013. Applications since April 2014 for minor developments and for changes of use, householder developments and advertisements can now also be recorded as having included a performance agreement. Because the most consistent reporting of agreements is for major applications, Figure 2 and Table 2 show, from 2008, numbers of decisions on major developments made involving a performance agreement, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of all decisions on major developments. Notwithstanding these definitional changes, there has been a marked increase in the use of agreements since early 2013, although the increases have slowed down in recent quarters. In reality, this has been driven by both the additional scope for recording them and their additional use. The proportion of major decisions subject to an agreement was 55 per cent during October to December 2016, up from 19 per cent in the October to December quarter of 2014. Householder developments Householder developments are those developments to a house which require planning permission such as extensions, loft conversions and conservatories (more details are in the
Definitions section). The number of decisions on householder developments increased by two per cent, from 50,400 decisions in the December quarter of 2015 to 51,500 decisions in the corresponding quarter in 2016, when they accounted for 50 per cent of all decisions. Authorities granted 90 per cent of these applications and decided 89 per cent within eight weeks or the agreed time. Prior approvals for permitted developments Following the creation in May 2013 of some additional permitted development right categories (see the Definitions section) and consultation with local authorities, the department increased the level of detailed information on prior approvals for permitted developments collected on the PS1 return with effect from 1 April 2014. The results for the eleventh quarter for which they have been collected (October to December) 2016) are included in Tables PDR1 (local authority level figures) and PDR2 (England totals). Of the 9,200 applications reported in the October to December quarter of 2016, prior approval was not required for 5,000, and permission was granted for 2,500 and refused for 1,700. This resulted in an overall acceptance rate5 of 81 per cent. 70 per cent of applications (6,400) related to larger
householder extensions, with eight per cent relating to office to residential changes and seven per cent relating to agricultural to residential changes. Taking i) granted applications and ii) those for which prior approval was not required together, 7,500 applications were approved without having to go through the full planning process, down ten per cent on a year earlier Within an overall decrease of nine per cent in the reported number of applications between October to December 2015 and October to December 2016: larger householder extensions dropped by five per cent office to residential changes dropped by 13 per cent; and agricultural to residential changes dropped by 12 per cent Changes made to the PS1 return from 1 October 2016 have made it possible to identify the total number of permitted development right applications made for changes to residential use 6. Figures for this are given in Table PDR1, which show that a total of 1,600 applications for changes to residential use were reported in October to December 2016, of which 1,100 (70 per cent) were approved without having to go through the full planning process. The overall acceptance rate for the eleven quarters between the collection of detailed data started in April 2014 and the end of December 2016 was 82 per cent. The rate initially dropped from 85 per cent in the first quarter to 79 per cent in the third quarter, but has been broadly stable at
around 82 per cent since then (Table PDR2). Overall during the eleven quarters ending December. 2016, district planning authorities reported 109,500 applications for prior approvals for permitted developments. For 63,000 (57 per cent) of them prior approval was not required, 26,600 (24 per cent) were granted and 20,000 (18 per cent) were refused (Figure 4). To put these recent figures into context, Table P128 and Figure 5 show how the number of determination applications received remained broadly stable at around 5,000 to 8,000 per year from 2004/05 to 2012/13, but approximately doubled to 15,700 in 2013/14, following the creation of the new permitted development right categories in May 2013.
Since then, there have been 36,500 applications in 2014/15 and 41,000 in 2015/16. The quarterly pattern since April 2014 reflects a combination of both: i) the introduction of new permitted development right categories in May 2013 and April 2015; and ii) the seasonal peaks and troughs that have previously been observed for planning applications, as shown in Figure 1 (Table PDR 2 and Figure 5). This significant increase in numbers of applications appears to be consistent with the annual increases in the number of dwellings added to the net housing supply through change of use of 65 per cent and 48 per cent during 2014-15 and 2015-16 respectively n
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Issue 101 April-June 2017
29
NEIL PARKYN
Public Art: a private view Neil Parkyn argues that Public Art should carry a burden of personal relevance, irreversible loss and perhaps a wider purpose Not so very long ago a dear architect chum of mine, Tim Bushe (Walker Bushe Architects) spent a rather chilly afternoon on top of the otherwise vacant Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square at the time when the plinth was open to all comers with something to show and/or tell. Tim was enclosed in a glass drum generously vouchsafed by a contractor, from which he observed – and drew – the buildings around the Square. I have a copy of the result above me as I write. His purpose was to raise money for a favourite charity. Living here in France I am now in the habit of ‘deconstructing’ situations, so Tim’s exploit set me thinking on the theme of Public Art. Was Tim himself, briefly, Public Art ? Was his Public Art norama of buildings likewise? Did the fact that he was clearly visible matter most ? I must leave that pesky problem to local philosophes, but there is much to say, in all seriousness, on the subject of Public Art in our cities and in our lives. After all Public Art enters our field of vision without invitation, you may bump into it or graze your thigh on a constituent piece of exposed Cor-ten. We can hardly claim Public Art as a novel apparition; the stuff has been with us for aeons, gracing a piazza in Umbria, pointing a rifle towards Flanders Fields, glaring down upon skateboarders, even itself being skateboardable. Statues in particular are especially vunerable, not only to graffiti but equally to cruel cartoonists. Why is it always the fate of any selfrespecting despot to be toppled or decapitated, in statue form at least, by the freedom fighters? If matters become over-laical, then off come those saintly heads on the tympanum. Sorry, holy chaps! Or, reeling back (or is it forward..?) Neil Parkyn is a retired architect-planner living in France. A former member of RTPI Council, he was a director of Colin Buchanan and Partners. He also chaired the RSA’s ‘Art for Architecture’ scheme
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what are the apes clustered around Stanley Kubrick’s mysterious monolith in ‘2001 – A Space Odyssey ‘ making of this giant artwork? Would they have awarded the artist an Arts Council grant? (Grunt your answer). Prying a little further one can readily identify the primary categories of Public Art. It’s a useful and timely exercise, leading in a reassuring French way to a set of shiny new pigeonholes. We can name them: ‘costume jewelery’, ‘puzzlein-the-park’, ‘stage set’ a ‘arty installation’ and finally ‘loony literal’. Worth taking a closer look, as follows: Costume jewelery This is one for the devout historians of British Modernism. A far cry from Dr Goebbel’s famous dismissal of applied sculpture as ‘lipstick on a gorilla’, it encompasses all those worthy and well intentioned confections of metal and sometimes ceramics applied to the otherwise blank flank of a building. Look no further than Oxford Street’s John Lewis or the TUC Building just off Tottenham Court Road. Can’t leave a Blank Flank alone, it seems. All too often this condition stems from the basic banality and urban bad manners of the ‘architecture’ itself. A flurry of twisted metal won’t bring it back to life, but it’s a good try. (See also Giant Logos) Puzzle-in-the-park Meaning a free-standing sculpture in an arcadian setting or city square. In its purest form it is encountered across a well mown lawn surrounding a stately home or a proud Polytechnic. Shades of Angus Wilson’s New Town novel ‘Late Call’, a personal favourite. We are talking the seasoned bronzes of a Hepworth or a Moore. I can just see the new, nervous Vice Chancellor stubbing out a quiet fag on one of them. Or the memorable, secret afternoon when we played scratch cricket in our architect professor’s garden, using a conveniently sized Paolozzi as the wicket! Stage set These are not conventional, long stay artworks,
but ephemeral displays that tease the punters – a room full of steam, hence zero visibility, black boxes with myriad sound sources, even an exhibition pavilion made from discarded coffee cups and recycled till rolls. Nothing to hang around for, but reassuring to learn that each pavilion, when recycled, generates over 12KWh of clean electricity. Arty installation These include a set of objects centred on a theme. For ‘Migration’ we substitute, artfully – what else? – piles of old suitcases (don’t forget the steamer labels). Or a giant paperclip to symbolise the Tyranny of the Office….and so on.
they made excellent sense as celebratory beacons – a Great Victory, a Radical Reformer here or a Neglected Group there, they are so often frozen in time, their List of Subscribers becoming illegible with passing traffic. More relevant are those pieces which the Public has somehow taken to heart, appropriated and worked into their daily lives. One thinks of the Great Clock in Grand Central Station NYC, the front steps of Tate Britain or the Steam Clock in Vancouver. All these are functioning objects, meeting places, personal landmarks, therefore taken to heart. No matter how small – and one thinks of the dog ‘Greyfriars Bobby’ in Edinburgh – they effortlessly acquire value and purpose. Few people would think of meeting next to a politician’s statue in parliament Square. This would suggest that the most ‘successful’ breed of Public Art is one which has some functional purpose, humble or noble. We value, regardless of personal taste or prevailing fashion, Lutyens’ Cenotaph in Whitehall, a masterpiece of abstract form that can mean all things to all men and take upon itself the burden of national remembrance. Or Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial in Washington DC. Won in competition when Lin was a 21 year old architecture student, it has become a national focus and place of sanity for so many. The concept is refreshing simple…
a slope slowly descending into the earth, lined by a wall presenting the names of the fallen in the order of their deaths. You can touch the wall, be selfied at the appropriate spot, linger, weep or pass by in silence… the very opposite of bombast and brass bands. At this level we are talking of Public Art being able to carry a burden of personal relevance, irreversible loss and, perhaps, a wider purpose. This can seldom be achieved by the often self indulgent and selfish constructions of the lone artist brought in to liven up the architecture. Perhaps that’s why so much of, say, 1960s British Public Art seems today a quaint curiosity, to be studied at leisure in the parks of Stevenage or the Concrete Cows of Milton Keynes. Enduring Public Art doesn’t need a nickname for taxi drivers. It is actually a very private affair. n
PHOTOS clockwise from top: Prospectors hard at work, Brisbane Art at Work: footbridge counterweights in Bristol Harboursid Battery Park, New York Temporary(floral) art, South of France Spelling it out for the postman
Loony literal Sadly, this is all to often the case, taking a Public Art brief at face value. One salient example provides a salutary warning. A leading landscape architecture practice was commissioned by a client who was Mr Big in Newfoundland. He required a beaver-themed public fountain, an interesting design challenge which was successfully completed on site. BUT the imagery was all wrong. Locals complained that real beavers certainly didn’t beaver around, as per legend. They were in actual fact lazy and skittish. The fountain was never altered, but the nicknames flourished….. So much for the stand-alone items. While
Issue 101 April-June 2017
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LETTERS
LETTERS
CLIPBOARD
Public art has planning impacts, something those commissioning or curating them often fail to understand says Peter Heath Sir, Thank you kindly for letting me have foresight of Mr Parkyn's treatise on 'Public Art: a Private View' before publication, for which I am appreciative. Clearly it has aspirations to be - how shall we say it - scholarly but I must draw to the attention of your journal's editorial board a number of weaknesses in Mr Parkyn's shallow, deconstructed argument. Mr Parkyn does seem to skilfully sidestep the important issue of the impact of public art in our cities and on our lives. It cannot, as he presumes, just be left to local philosophes, Arts Council ideology or, indeed, a contemporary, deconstructed interpretation of French Rationalists in the Age of Reason. Rationalism is a view appealing to intellectual and deductive reason as the source of knowledge or justification. Thus, it holds that some propositions are knowable by us by intuition alone, while others are knowable by being deduced through valid arguments from intuited propositions. It relies on the idea that reality has a rational structure in that all aspects of it can be grasped through mathematical and logical principles, and not simply through sensory experience. Free thinker though he may be, Mr Parkyn's rational analysis is in danger of misleading the readership of your august journal by suggesting that public art can be usefully classified into primary categories. I would discourage such a tendency towards paralysis by analysis and suggest a contrary view - the British view of empiricism - that the origin of all knowledge is sense experience and sensory perception is more relevant. If there is to be any philosophical basis for public art, it surely rests here, not in the detritus left after the nesting season's impact on once shiny new trous de pigeon. Recent experiences in the manor of Blemundsbury have shown this to indeed be the case where 'sensory perception' may be crudely interpreted as that post 70's phenomenon, 'environmental impact', something inner urban 'communities under stress' all too readily understand. Yes,
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public art has planning impacts, something those commissioning or curating them often fail to understand. It is always assumed that the high impact experience is something transitory; you queue to pay your admission fee, bump into it for a few seconds and move on suitably gratified, not something you have to live with and look at every day and every night of your life that soon attracts appropriate but unwelcome nicknames. Who really wants to be looking across the street at a long deceased, dismembered creature in preservative or a multicoloured, off-the-wall flashing light installation from their cosy lounge sofa while watching the next episode of The Great British Bake Off. Some things, as Mr Parkyn surmises, are not just 'somehow taken to heart, appropriated and worked into their daily lives' by the folk next door. They are sometimes places of stress or, as he says, insanity for many. An artwork should stimulate enjoyment or interest. It is intended to be appreciated for its beauty or emotional power; to express an important idea or feeling through the artist's imaginative or technical skill. I accept this must, to a certain degree, be subjective but, at worst, it does none of these things. External lit artwork integrated into the
facade of a commercial building is a case in point. It is not sufficiently vulgar as to shock; its subtleties are evident, but less subtle can be its adverse impact on the amenity of adjoining residential buildings and on the conservation area in which they are located. It can look good in daylight and even in bright sunlight. However, at night it can tend to look like a suspended ceiling displaced into the vertical plane or a seedy Soho nightclub. It is really not quite the same sensory experience as Barbara Hepworth's Winged Figure adorning the flank wall of John Lewis's Oxford Street department store. High impact lit art is quite unlike any of the other categories that Mr Parkyn alludes to in his analysis. Indeed, it is notable for its absence. It brings with it the inevitable risk of obtrusive light, or light pollution, that can cause a number of problems. Westminster's guidance states that these can include light infiltrating bedrooms, causing sleep deprivation and stress with one study even suggesting a link to breast cancer. It can also lead to claims for nuisance and damage to businesses, waste of money and energy, disrupt nature and obscure views. Glare can also cause discomfort and may be
Mayor backs high-density schemes
Preferred route for Lower Thames Crossing
Sadiq Khan has stepped in to take over the applications for development proposals in Haringey and Harrow. Haringey Council had rejected an application last year for up to 505 homes including a 21-storey tower at Hale Wharf in Tottenham, over concerns that it would be too tall and would adversely impact green belt land.
Transport secretary Chris Grayling has announced the preferred route for a new Lower Thames Crossing, which he said could create more than 6,000 jobs and bost the economy by more than £8 billion. The planned route will run from the M25 near North Ockendon, cross the A13 at Orsett before crossing under the Thames east of Tilbury and Gravesend. The government said a new link road would then take traffic to the A2 near Shorne, near to where the route becomes the M2. The crossing will create a new link between the A2 and the M25. It is expected to reduce the burden on the Dartford Crossing and carry 4.5 million heavy goods vehicles in its first year. A consultation saw most of the 47,000 respondents identify this route as the best solution for reducing traffic and congestion on the Dartford Crossing as well as improving links to London and the Channel ports.
An application for 186 homes in Palmerston Road in Wealdstone was also rejected by the London Borough of Harrow, as the 17-storey development was deemed too high. The mayor’s office said that both applications had been given the green light by the mayor. “Both sites sit within designated Opportunity Areas and Housing Zones – areas of land that are considered appropriate for development. The Hale Wharf scheme would include at least 35 per cent affordable homes - "increased since the mayor first saw the scheme from nine per cent".
>>> a hazard to road users and pedestrians since it diminishes a view instead of enhancing it. If not properly controlled, obtrusive light can present serious physiological and ecological problems. This is also reflected in Camden's Planning Guidance on Amenity and Development Policy DP6, both of which acknowledge these factors. Furthermore, the Conservation Area Advisory Comittee's position on external lighting is clear: no night-time lighting of any kind is justified on any building, both on grounds of conservation area principles and of energy conservation, unless it can be proved that it is absolutely necessary for some justifiable and noncommercial reason. Things that might, at first sight, appear benign can suddenly have major damaging impacts. I would opine that you can't have high impact art without equally ranked planning impact. What is clear is that planning law has not yet caught up with technology and with all the various uses to which external lighting can be put. I would not suggest that because it has some purpose, it is an any way more successful, more the contrary. The
need for controls on light levels, colour, static or dynamic change and hours of operation all need to be considered. This is a fast moving area that embraces architecture, advertising, information and art and, at night, it can have far reaching impacts that can conflict with environmental legislation. Indeed, the dividing line between applied light that enhances the urban environment and light pollution constituting a Statutory Nuisance under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 is finely balanced. Equally, it does not help that the courts have determined that light is not development unless it is floodlighting. So, officers would be well advised to proceed with caution to ensure particular care in the wording of conditions and obligations relating to public art, that impacts are properly assessed as a planning obligation moves through to condition discharge, in ensuring that appropriate details are provided by the applicant at the right time, that there is proper and open consultation and that the decision making process is legally sound. Most crucially,
Demolish offices for homes Provisions enabling such a right are included in last year's Housing and Planning Act but it was not mentioned in last month's housing white paper. Planning minister Gavin Barwell speaking at MIPIM confirmed that the government still intends to establish the right, reports Planning. He said that "given the success that the permitted development policy has had, in terms of bringing forward additional supply, that is definitely something I'd want to proceed with as quickly as we can". However, he admitted it was not among his two or three most urgent priorities for secondary legislation. He compared it to his proposals for increasing planning fees for those authorities that guarantee they will spend the extra money on planning, which he said was a "top priority" for legislation. Barwell also revealed that introducing ‘alternative providers’ to local authorities for processing planning applications is still something that it wants to proceed. n
they are urged to require a test installation to be viewed early in the decision making process while there is still time to influence and change things because the consequences could be there for people to live with in perpetuity. So I beg to disagree with our man across the Manche's conclusion that enduring public art is a very private affair. Yes, it can can carry an intense burden of personal relevance, irreversible loss insofar as a much loved view will never be the same again but, most importantly, an impact that needs to be considered in its wider, very public context and not in isolation. The risk of self indulgent, high visual impact constructions of the lone artist left free to liven up the architecture with little consideration of the wider consequence are indeed high. Respectfully yours, Stephen Heath n Stephen Heath is an Architect and Urban Designer and member of the Bloomsbury Association. He is a frequent reader and occasional contributor to Planning in London and The Bloomsbury Bungle and is modestly good at colouring in.
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9th Annual: UK Ports Conference 2017
¡ PILLO!
The future for UK ports: The implications of Brexit, delivering new infrastructure and responding to changing trends and shipping patterns Tue 23rd – Wed 24th May 2017 Cavendish Conference Centre, London
Mayoral CIL smashes target
NEW! Reduced fee for ports
Organised by:
Just some of the industry leading speakers: Frans Calje
Konrad Mech
Incoming CEO; Managing Director – Unitised & Portcentric Logistics PD Ports
Director of Sales and Marketing Kongsberg Mesotech
Department for Transport
John Tuckett Chief Executive Officer Marine Management Organisation
Tim Waggott
‘‘
“Very good. All of the talks were interesting and informative” M. Abbot, DP World London Gateway
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The UK Ports Conference returns for the ninth year to provide the latest insights for the ports, shipping and maritime sectors, reviewing the biggest challenges currently facing ports and the opportunities available for port development to help shape plans for the coming years.
Speaker from
The complexities of the Community Infrastructure Levy are under scrutiny (see Liz Peace in our Planning Forum report) but meanwhile the Mayoral levy for Crossrail has already beaten its £300m target for 2019 by raising £342m. The GLA expects to collect around double the target amount! (see chart BELOW). This would seem to vindicate Liz Peace’s recommendation that CIL should be set broadly at a low level and kept simple. She happily suggests this would wipe out the ‘CIL industry’ which has flourished under the current complex regime.
“Worthwhile attending – good event.”
P. McGrath, PD Ports
Theresa Crossley Executive Director UK Major Ports Group
Richard Ballantyne
Sponsors:
Chief Executive British Ports Association
David Balston
Chief Executive Port of Dover
Director of Policy UK Chamber of Shipping
David Wells
Alistair Chan
CEO Freight Transport Association
Associate Director, Ports & Marine AECOM
Drinking-up time for planning The House of Lords Select Committee on the Licensing Act 2003 has ruled that it was a ‘mistake’ to set up licensing committees when the planning system is well suited to dealing with licensing application and appeals, reports The Planner In its report, The Licensing Act 2003: post-legislative scrutiny, the committee concluded that the act is “fundamentally flawed” and it needs a
“radical overhaul” including the abolition of local authority licensing committees. The report notes that those who devised the policy thought rightly that licensing of persons and premises was not a task for the judiciary but for local government. “If they had looked to see how local authorities regulate the responsible use of land in other situations, they would have seen that the planning system, already well established and usually
working efficiently, was well placed to take on this additional task,” states the report. The planning system has its detractors, according to the report, but it insists that planning committees are well established and have better support from experienced staff to deal with licensing applications. As though planning departments don’t have enough to cope with already!
The beauty of brutalist concrete These images (ABOVE) demonstrate why the mediterranean taste for ‘breton brut’ fails to translate well to London’s light and climate. Photos from wildflowerstairsthenandnow.
Londoners too scared for lunch Wearebottle.com reports some exciting client research. This shows that over one fifth of Londoners are too scared to take lunch because they feel they will be judged negatively for it. This is double the figure for the rest of the nation – and leaves many eating at their desk, which is extremely bad for their health. The research goes on to outline that roughly a quarter of employees nation-wide take lunch at their desk as they feel they don’t have enough time to go out for lunch. This highlights just how stressed our nation of workers is, and alludes to the possibility of us moving towards an overwork culture: something which is killing people in Japan. n
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3 easy ways to book; 020 7067 597 conference@thewaterfront.co.uk www.ukportsconference.co.uk
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Fixing our broken housing market The National Planning Forum held its third annual open meeting in partnership with the Cambridge University Land Society at Denton’s on 4th April 2017 to consider what’s to be done about Fixing our Broken Housing Market, particularly in the light of the recent government Housing White Paper. LP&DF Hon Sec Drummond Robson has compiled this partial record, although not able to be present, aided by CULS APEC scribe Martin Thompson who was there. The Chairman, Brian Waters, thanked Dentons for hosting the meeting which they were doing for the third time. He welcomed the speakers: Steve Quartermain CBE of DCLG and Sarah Richards of PINS and Jim Fennell of Lichfields and Liz Peace CBE chairman of CIL review and Jonathan Manns of Colliers International and Rory Bergin of HTA Design and Dr Janice Morphet of UCL.
Roy Pinnock of Dentons welcomed those present to Dentons, ran through the topics that would be discussed over the afternoon, and looked forward to hearing candid views expressed. Alluding to a crisis in housing provision he wondered whether the solution required more political intervention than the recent White Paper? The keynote speech was given by Steve
Quartermain, government Chief Planner. Steve Quartermain said there were 147 different actions in the recent White Paper – which he emphasised as a “housing white paper” – and that he awaited the feedback in Q&A with interest. The nub was that we are not building enough houses and they are getting more expensive. It was
projected that by 2020 only 25% of 30-year-olds would own their own house. The White Paper response was a 4-point plan: Planning – Land – Delivery – Market Diversity Put simply we are not building enough homes as the statistical graph below seeks to show. The demand expressed in annual household growth is outstripping supply (the blue line) and projected supply in a widening gap, although projected annual household growth is conjectured to be falling over the period 2014-2038, a difficult forecast in the context of a post Brexit world. (See also fuller argument in 2014-based Household Projections: England, 2014-2039). The situation is worse when account is taken of house prices and private rents in England which are increasing. The inference is that this is contributing to slower take up rates and therefore the caution in speed of housebuilding, even though an increase in supply should logically result in lower unit prices. This emphasises the north south divide in house prices to median earnings with inferences shown in the following table. The government responses to the slower rates
RP+BW+MH v.23 March
NPF/CULS/LP&DF/ACA Tuesday 4th April at Dentons, 1 Fleet Place EC4M 7WS 1.30 FOR 2.00pm followed by drinks
Planning for housing: Is it broken? Can we fix it? 2.00 Welcome: Dentons 2.05 Keynote: Steve Quartermain, Government Chief Planner 2.25 Planning for Growth: Perspectives on Local Plans: Sarah Richard, CEO the Planning Inspectorate 2.45 Jim Fennell, Chief Executive of Lichfields 3.00 panel Q&A 3.20 TEA BREAK 3.45 Developer Contributions – Back to a tariff Future? Liz Peace, chairman, CIL review 4.05 Q&A 4.20 Form follows function – (re-)imagining the Green Belt Jonathan Manns, planning partner, Colliers International 4.40 Placemaking & Performance – is there a price for speed? Standards and speed/Modular solutions/Building for Generation Rent Rory Bergin partner, sustainable futures, HTA Design 5.00 Local authority capacities and mechanisms for house building Dr Janice Morphet, visiting professor, UCL 5.20 panel Q&A 5.35 Closing round-up: Roy Pinnock, partner, Dentons Chairman: CULS APEC Forum and NPF, Brian Waters Moderators: Mike Hayes, Secretary NPF and Janice Morphet, UCL
! Host: Roy Pinnock Media partner: BOOK AT: https://www.culandsoc.com/events/planning-and-housing-in-many-
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ATTENDANCE: Alford Scott Planning Portal Head of Business Development, Ball Tom LFDF Architect Planner, Barton Tom Trowers & Hamlins LLP Associate, Bergin Rory HTA Design LLP Partner Sustainable Futures, Bryan Cian Planning Futures, Burrell James Burrell Mistry Architects Managing Director, Bushby Will British Property Federation Senior Policy Officer, Catto Andrew Andrew Catto Architects Hon Secretary ACA, Chambers Joanna Changing Cities Director, Clear Suzanne National Farmers Union Senior Advisor (Planning and Rural Affairs), Cook Alan Alan Cook Consultancy, Critchley Emma Locality Neighbourhood Planning Programme Manager, David Hannah Planning Futures, Donnelly Mike Haymarket Media Group Senior Online Manager, Durtnal Linda National Planning Forum/LDA Secretariat, Edwards David Place-Make Architect, Eversden MBE Peter London Forum of Amenity and Civic Societies Chairman, Fallowfield-Cooper Matt Cambridge University Student, Fennell Jim Lichfields Chief
Executive, Gatenby Brian Get planning and architecture Ltd Director, Ginever Paul Plan A: Architects and Surveyors Architect Director, Ginor Yair Lipton Rogers Director, Gold Alexander Charles Russell Speechlys LLP Associate, Harris Chris Harris James RTPI, Harrison Richard Volume 3 Architects ACA Member, Harvey Gemma National Farmers Union Graduate Trainee, Hayes CBE Mike National Planning Forum Secretary, Heath Ron Living-architects Consultant architect, Herbert Rachel Dentons UKMEA LLP Associate, Houston Roddy Cambridge University Land Society Chairman, Commercial Forum, Hutton Helen Charles Russell Speechlys LLP Senior Associate Solicitor, Inglis Patrick IBLA, Keating Ben Jam Jam Properties Ltd Chief Executive, Leask Simon National Planning Forum, Lee William GreenHunt Principal, Lenon Fionnuala Homes & Communities Agency Garden Villages & Towns, Planning, Enabling & Development Team, Lewis Dan Institute of Directors Senior Advisor - Infrastructure Policy, Linfoot
of building are summarised in the following 5 arguments starting with the 4 point plan. 1. Planning for the right homes in the right places (plans and land) 2. Building homes faster 3. Diversifying the market 4. Helping people now “We need to build many more houses, of the type people want to live in, in the places they want to live. To do so requires a comprehensive approach that tackles failure at every point in the system.’’ – The Rt Hon Theresa May MP • Plans must be in place… but more flexibility over how • Requirement for regular updating • More standardised assessments of requirements • Stronger emphasis on meeting requirements • Better working across boundaries
McLean Claire Linfoot Country Homes Ltd Managing Director, Manns Jonathan Colliers International Planning Partner, Mashiter Ian Havebury Housing Partnership Vice Chair, Masters Dominic Capita Development Manager, McDonnell Lucy Dentons UKMEA LLP Associate, McKie Jamie Dentons UKMEA LLP, Minor Paul CPRE Planning Campaign Manager, Modlen Graham Burrell Mistry Architects Senior Architect, Morphet Dr Janice UCL Visiting Professor, Morton Richard Richard Morton Architects Director, O'Donnell Blake, Oosthuizen Riette HTA Design LLP Partner, Orf Roger Apollo Management International LLP Head of Real Estate, Pack Ed Pack Associates Principal, Peace CBE Liz CIL Review Chairman, Peto Robert Standard Life Investments Property Income Trust Ltd Chairman, Pinnock Roy Dentons UKMEA LLP Partner, Price Clive, Quartermain Steve Government Chief Planner, Reilly Dominic Howard Group Director, Richards Sarah The Planning Inspectorate Chief Executive Officer, Rourke Megan
• Process improvements • More transparent land ownership and interests • More proactive role for authorities in assembly/disposal • Further support for brownfield and public sector land • Boosting small, medium and rural sites • Delivering new communities • Enhanced tests for Green Belt release Improving delivery • More certainty over 5 year supply • Action on fees and capacity • Aligning growth with national and local infrastructure • Reform of developer contributions • Better information on build-out • Greater ability to take build rates into account and incentivise delivery Greater Market Diversity >>>
University of Cambridge Master of Philosophy in Architecture and Urban Design Student, Ruane Erik Cambridge University Land Society Honorary Treasurer, Russell Joanna Natural England Principal Adviser Planning, Ryser Judith, Silk Christian Simmons & Simmons Partner, Smith Henry TCPA Projects and Policy Manager, Steadman Spencer LRE Capital Director, Stevenson Hugh Wellingrove Estates Ltd Senior Director, Thompson Martin, Twine Emma University of Cambridge MPhil Student, Architectural Researcher, Uddin Syed, Vincent Tom Granit Chartered Architects Architect, Vivekananda Prashanna JLL Graduate Planning Consultant, Waterhouse David Design Council Cabe Strategic Development, Waters Brian National Planning Forum Chairman, Waters Andrew Pentlow Property Director, Watters Joseph Metaphorm Architects Architect, Wilkinson John Locality Neighbourhood Planning Officer, Young Alexandra Cambridge University Land Society Society Secretary
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• Using Accelerated Construction to diversify & innovate • Further support for custom build • Encouraging build to rent (separate consultation) • Supporting housing associations and authorities to build • More flexible approach to affordable home ownership products • A fairer deal for renters and leaseholders Cross Cutting Themes • Capacity • - Confirmed increase in planning fees (potential for more) • - Possible introduction of appeal fees • - £25m of capacity funding for areas of high housing need • Community • - Further support for neighbourhood planning groups and custom build • - Scope for NPs to do more (housing numbers, design, Green Belt boundary) • - Stronger emphasis on early pre-app discussions involving communities • Digital/transparency • - Improving digital access to planning data and data standards for plan • - More comprehensive and accessible data on land ownership/interests • - Greater transparency on delivery – by authorities and builders • Accountability • - Making authorities more accountable for whether plans are delivered • - Making developers more accountable for delivering consented schemes • - Holding utility companies to account for securing necessary connections Steve Quartermain closed by saying that DCLG were now in the process of implementing the Housing and Planning Act 2016 and were taking forward the Neighbourhood Planning Bill which was currently passing through Parliament. SQ sat out the first discussion topic before returning as a panel member for Q&A. Q&A moderated by the Chairman: Steve Quartermain, Sarah Richards and Jim Fennell Peter Eversden MBE, Chairman of the London Forum of Amenity & Civic Societies, drew attention to a lack of consistency in the content of Local Plans and how they were examined. SR responded that how Inspectors approach their brief is very much as individuals each with their own style. SQ said that the White Paper intentionally did not set out to lead to the introduction of prescribed contents of Local Plans instead leaving flexibility and more devolved powers. PE opined it was a very burdensome system. SQ went on to say that if more
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the community so that people knew what to expect. He went on to report that the ‘best sites’ in his village were not available so asked whether compulsory purchase was provided for and who would be expected to finance it. He also thought social housing was required if the target of 250,000 new homes a year was to be achieved. SQ said compulsory purchase was an option but it was complex but that local authorities would pay. (Note that in the final Q&A of the day, Dr Janice Morphet mentioned that her research included a look at compulsory purchase issues.) SQ went on to observe that the private sector had consistently over recent years delivered 150,000 units per year and it seemed to be stubbornly stuck at that level. The approach in the White Paper to breaking through that seeming barrier was get more players involved apart from the volume-house builders – so small builders and pre-fabricators. Paul Mynor CPRE Planning Campaign Manager asked when related aspects of the Housing White Paper would be put out to consultation and SQ replied “soon”. Jamie McKie of Dentons briefly summarised the presentations made to the meeting and ended by posing two questions: Have we reached saturation with current planning legislation and, if we accept that the market is broken, how do we ensure that our supposed solutions will achieve the right results such as building houses in the right places? Dominic Reilly, CULS President, concluded the afternoon by again thanking the hosts, Dentons, and putting this question to the meeting: Who thinks that the White Paper will solve the housing
supply crisis? Not one hand was raised. Sarah Richards, CEO the Planning Inspectorate Sarah Richards, Chief Executive of the Planning Inspectorate, explained the purpose of the Planning Inspectorate – PINS, an arm’s length body of DCLG. She said that PINS purely tests against Policy and doesn’t formulate Policy. On PINS’ role in local plans, SR reported that 365 plans had been examined since 2012 of which 15 had failed at examination (almost all for duty to co-operate reasons) and a further 23 had been withdrawn for soundness reasons Our Purpose “To work together to deliver decisions, recommendations and advice to customers in a open, fair, impartial and timely manner” • Ensure a fair planning system • Help meet future infrastructure needs • Help communities shape where they live, creating sustainable places Casework types • Planning appeals – Written Reps; Hearing; Inquiry • Enforcement appeals • Specialist casework – environment, transport, costs • Development plans • National Infrastructure applications • Major and minor applications – underperforming LPAs A year in the life of……………… Service improvements Process redesign Flexible staffing (office)
Recruiting Inspectors and promotions Operating electronically Stronger customer focus PINS role in local plans Plans submissions Getting sound local plans in place • More than 365 plans examined since 2012 • Positive working with LPAs to help make plans sound and avoid unnecessarily stalling their progress • 15 plans failed at examination, almost all for duty to co-operate reasons • A further 23 withdrawn for soundness reasons More delivery through White Paper reforms • Early focus on DtC will avoid wasted effort at examination • New housing needs methodology and simplified test of soundness will accelerate examinations • We expect evidence on housing land supply will be more robust • More focused plans and regular reviews Better together • Co-operation needed for optimum results • Representations should be complete at Reg 19 • Transitional arrangements will be important • Keep PINS informed! Jim Fennell of Lichfields referred to National Infrastructure Commission proposals and welcomed them. He also drew attention to the halving of LA Planning Department resources since 2009. His five year progress report is summarised in the slides. This of course is in advance of the White >>>
The White Paper also offers:
prescription wanted then those calling for it should respond accordingly during the consultation phase. Mike Hayes CBE asked if a Planning Authority rejected a proposal on poor design grounds whether that would lead to being penalised for failing the Delivery Test. SQ responded that if the proposal accorded with the Plan then there was an expectation of approval; but if not in the Plan then there was an expectation of rejection. MH’s second point was Planning Departments had too few resources and morale was very low. JF reinforced the under resourced assessment and said that the crisis in housing needed to be recog-
nised as such and adequate resources deployed to tackle it. SQ described the White Paper as a Planning-focused initiative. In a response to Hannah David (? Please check Ali’s attendance list) of Planning Futures, SQ said that an intention of the White Paper was to promote discussions between different authorities with inputs to a Plan. Robert Peto of Standard Life Investments had some observations on Neighbourhood Plans of which he had some experience being involved with one for his village. He wanted to emphasise that a Plan needed to be illustrated / communicated to
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Paper’s proposal – as yet not spelt out by government – to Standardise the mechanism for setting housing delivery targets for councils’ Local Plans. In reply to a query by CPRE to SQ this and other issues of planmaking detail can be expected “soon”. The white paper intends to bring forward a standardised approach to assessing housing requirements. The obvious implication is that applicants and appellants can more easily argue that the LPA’s current housing target is out-of-date and should reflect the latest calculation. The second headline change is the proposed introduction of a ‘housing delivery test’ for LPAs, which considers the LPA’s delivery of housing against its requirement. This begs the question: what constitutes an LPA’s housing requirement? The white paper states that where a LPA has an ‘up-to-date’ local plan, it should be based on that. The white paper defines an ‘up to date plan’ as less than five years old thus reinforcing the assumption that plans are updated or at least partially reviewed every five years. If no up-to-date plan, then Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) published household projections are relied on until
2017. Thereafter the white paper suggests the figure will be based on the proposed standard methodology for establishing housing need.
Post Meeting Note by Lichfields: Planned and deliver – our fifth annual review of local plan production – reveals that, after half a
decade with the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), England still has patchy plan coverage. Fewer than 4 in 10 local planning authorities have seen a ‘strategic-level’ local plan through examination to adoption, whilst 43% are yet even to publish a draft local plan ready for submission to Government. Our analysis also looks at how ‘early plan reviews’ are being used and whether they are proving to be an effective mechanism as well as reviewing 23 tools and policies set forth in the Housing White Paper which could help get plans in place and then ensure they deliver. Jonathan Manns of Colliers International spoke provocatively about the Green Belt describing its one ‘achievement’ as the prevention of urban expansion. He pointed out that London’s Green Belt alone accounted for 3.9% of the land area of England and that just 2% of Green Belt land would accommodate a million houses. He spoke of Green Belt Reform and the need for a Better Green Belt. He was critical of the NPPF and “Plan Led Confusion” He stressed the ambiguity of preventing urban sprawl in NPPF paragraph 79 and unrestricted urban sprawl in 80. He quoted the 5 purposes of Green Belt from the same paragraph, and queried 2 of them as below: He suggested that the Green Belt in fact serves
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one purpose: to prevent urban expansion. JM reviewed the evolution of the Green Belt, explored proposals to re-envisage it, including its size and the fact that it is 3.5 times the size of London and made the point that just 2% of it
could accommodate the 1 million new homes needed by 2030. Exploring the Scottish situation he quoted as an objective that that “The spatial form of the green belt should be appropriate to the location. It may encircle a settlement or take the
shape of a buffer, corridor, strip or wedge.” Scottish Planning Policy 2014.
Janice Morphet UCL : Local authority direct provision of housing: capacities and mechanisms Dr Janice Morphet of UCL reported on her research funded by NPF and RTPI. JM suggested that there was no evidence that increasing land supply led to an increase in housing completions in the private sector and that local authorities were seeing that they had to step in. She referred to the erosion of the Public Stock of housing through Right-to-Buy and that it was not being replenished for those in extra need such as the elderly and disabled. She did say that there were more and more voices calling for renewed public sector provision. JM described local authorities as severely squeezed on revenue but cash-rich when it came to capital spending and that an ever increasing number were becoming involved in income generating investments and housing development in their own right. Context: Challenge of housing provision always with governments Assumed by Treasury to be a planning issue Not enough land released >>>
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Not enough consents Too much regulation Not enough certainty though adopted local plan Numerous government initiatives which never seem to add significantly to supply Dominates planning to the detriment of all other land uses However… Since 1979, regardless of volume of planning consents, developers have been producing similar supply Developers operate rationally – they have a duty to provide a profit/dividend to their shareholders Developers have no duty to build houses No requirement on developers to build out planning consents – main concern of Treasury at the moment is the quantity of unimplemented consents Increasing supply may reduce value of their land stocks and profit levels No evidence that increasing land supply increases number of private sector dwellings built and Barker 2004… Assumed that public sector provision for housing would be made for social and affordable housing alongside freeing up planning and increasing housing supply… And public stock? Eroded though right to buy now extended to Housing Associations Much right to buy housing stock now transferred into buy to let market
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Reduced provision from s106 renegotiations on viability Not being provided for those needed extra support eg older people and those with disabilities Voices for public sector housing provision growing… The HoL Select Committee Report January 2016 House of Commons Select Committee Report June 2016 Housing White Paper 2017 What has prevented local authorities returning to provide housing again? Government levy on capital receipts Assumptions that housing can only be provided though the Housing Revenue Account Use of financial balances to keep services running Uncertainty about powers What is making some local authorities actively engage in housing provision again? Need to generate income stream post 2020 changes in local government finance Improving design of new build housing in their area Cost of funding Bed and Breakfast for homeless people Needs of specific groups including older people Failure of the market to provide housing – unimplemented consents Policy objectives to change housing mix Regeneration and place making Policy objective to build housing again Wish to support local economy including small
builders, apprentices, growth sectors What powers can local authorities use to build housing? 2011 Localism Act s1-7 – provides local authorities with powers to act as a company Implementation of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in local government means public and private sector have same financial reporting methods – affects use of funds for capital investment allows public and private sector partnerships to operate more easily Allows the use of the whole of the LA asset base to secure funds for development What funding can be used to build local authority housing? Local authorities can raise bonds secured on their assets to develop housing; Take and make loans Set up housing companies using assets Use asset backed vehicles for development Enter into public/public or public private partnerships Use pension funds Use land, finance or reputation as partnership assets Create housing associations Use funds raised to act as developers or patient investors Some local authority initiatives
Local authorities are increasingly engaging in housing supply initiatives. In 2015 nearly 50% of local authorities stated that it was their intention to create a housing company What difference could this make to housing… Lots of initiatives that would make a big difference in housing supply if applied across more local authorities Could encourage more private sector developers to build? Local authorities could use powers and funds to purchase consented schemes from developers – then use developers to build out schemes Could local authorities CPO consented schemes?
Could local authorities establish schemes for small builders? …and planning Assist planners in demonstrating that housing implementation going ahead Might enable planners to give priority to housing where plans suggest would be most beneficial Enable plans to provide mixed tenure housing Make planners more proactive in housing delivery Enable placemaking rather than housing provision to dominate plan making and delivery What needs to be done to encourage more local authority housing provision?
Need to share examples between local authorities – examples form all over England and from different types of authority Need to make planners aware of the way housing is now being delivered in some authorities Let local authorities appreciate that assets are worth more in generating income than being sold What is the research investigating? Which local authorities are providing housing? What is motivating them? How many units by tenure? What financial methods are being used? How are planners engaged in this? >>>
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Is this a significant issue for local plans and appeals? Research output: By end of 2017…Finding report. Recommendations. Data base (one off)
Liz Peace Adviser on Property, Politics and The Built Environment Community Infrastructure Levy – Past, Present and Future. Liz Peace’s talk was on the implications of the report as she had been surprised at how little feedback and reaction there had been. If anything the review had been too soon as the CIL has yet to bed-in, She commented that some local authorities were never going to adopt CILs and that CILs had not brought in as much cash as many LAs had anticipated. She called for simplification as CILs had spawned a CIL-industry whose skills could be more constructively applied to other matters if CILs were not so complex. She advocated a centrally conceived methodology for calculating CILs which should be set at a level that developers would not object to paying. LP was particularly scathing about Neighbourhood Shares calling them misconceived and a “silly idea”. She also wanted to be rid of the pooling restriction. The relationship of CIL to section 106 contributions was not aired. Community Infrastructure Levy – Past, Present and Future; Implications of the Report from the CIL Review Team. A bit of the background • The history of developer contributions • CIL as the next worst thing to PGS • A distortion of the tariff idea • A long and complex gestation • Promise of review
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Sir Peter Hall’s Polycentric Metropolis analysis of the south east and western Europe in 2006 SEE Drummond Robson’s comments on next page
Review Methodology • Three Dragons/University of Reading Research Report • Written submissions • Direct Evidence Sessions • Brainstorming • Official involvement Observations • Still early days • The patchwork • Quantum – exemptions and reliefs • S.106/Affordable Housing • Neighbourhood share – encouraging development? • The CIL industry Recommendations – the principles • ALL development should contribute to big pieces of infrastructure – a sort of permit to develop – the Local Infrastructure Tariff • The quantum should be decided by a centrally set methodology that allows for local price/value variation • Bigger schemes should then pay for site related needs necessitated specifically by their development – Section 106
• Mayors/CAs should be able to levy a Mayoral LIT to contribute for specific large pieces of infrastructure Calculating the charge • KISS • 1.75-2.50% of sale price of a typical 3 bedroom house, divide by 100 sq metre to reach a sq metre rate and then apply to all resi development • Not the only way of doing it – one other possible option – use sale price? • No need for lengthy hearings • But some let-off for very low value areas Small v. large developments • The LIT is all that a small development would pay • LIT plus s.106 for large developments – creates opportunities for lengthy negotiation • What about the sites in the middle? • The pooling restriction Remaining challenges • Affordable housing • Neighbourhood share • LA borrowing • Transition
• SANGS The Government’s reaction • Involves a possible fiscal solution – therefore Autumn Budget • Still a lot of work to do • CLG keen to garner reaction in the meantime • Affordable Housing proposition Responding to a complaint from Suzanne Clear of the National Farmers Union that some of her members were angry about levies raised from them towards Crossrail which they would derive no benefit from, LP said she believed that there should be no exemptions from Local Infrastructure Tariffs. Responding to Jamie Mckie of Dentons, LP agreed that the government does have to do something to address CIL shortcomings such as on pooling. The Chairman spoke in support of Neighbourhood Plans such as their provision for under-resourced localities and the identification of Brown Field Sites. NOTE: HTA Design’s Rory Bergin’s presentation on modular construction will be reported as a discrete topic in a separate article. n >>>
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Drummond Robson provides this editorial comment following the meeting: The take up of permissions as new building also shows a widening gap, but it may not simply be that housebuilders are not building fast enough but that the cost of building, inclusive of the (rising) costs of applications, is beyond purchasers’ means. Insistence on brownfield housing is likely to contribute to higher building costs than greenfield. In the immediate post war era greenfield development by Abercrombie was espoused as new towns, resulting in a much faster building rate, while leaving plenty of
countryside. The constraints on this today may be contributing to slower rates of construction. The emphasis on intended self-containment imposed by brownfield first is not supported by the way most towns operate in practice with high commuter flows, and unsustainable rising urban congestion as demonstrated in the late Sir Peter Hall’s Polycentric Metropolis analysis of the south east and western Europe in 2006 (SEE previous page) and more recent 2011 census data on commuter flows, and as practiced in the Cambridgeshire network. It will add genuine substance to cross boundary collaboration by local authorities which currently is all too often notion-
Help Shape the Future of London ! !
al as a “mutual noninterference pact”. Peter Brett Associates has asked recently: “Two proposed changes in the recently published Housing white paper will have a direct effect on the ‘dark art’ of housing land supply. Firstly, the planned introduction of regulations for development plans to be reviewed or updated every five years, where the housing target can no longer be justified against an LPA’s objectively assessed housing requirement. In practical terms, this will significantly foreshorten the shelf-life of local plans from the current 15-20-year timeframe, because housing provision is inextricably linked to other matters such as economic growth and associated infrastructure provision. You can’t simply plug in a new housing figure and leave the rest of the plan untouched. Why does this affect the calculation of housing supply? Well, if the housing target is in a state of constant flux (being considered out-of-date when a replacement plan is at an early stage), then the uncertainties over what housing requirement should be used over the five-year period will be perpetually reinforced.” It does seem to me that there is a polarising of those who frame policy without grasping its implications based on political direction is diverging from the real world. We aint Fixing our Broken Housing Market at all, merely making it more complex than ever, and harder and slower to do anything worthwhile. n
TEN PROPOSITIONS FOR LONDON | MAX FARRELL
Ten Propositions for planning in London In January 2017, Max Farrell was invited to present to the All Party Parliamentary Group for London’s Planning and the Built Environment in Parliament, organised by the London Society and chaired by the MP Rupa Huq. Here’s what he said to them
If you want to help promote the debate on the capital’s future, join the London Society. As a member you get priority booking and discounted rates for our walks, talks, debates and lectures. You will see inside important buildings (some not generally open to the public) on our tours. There will be opportunities to attend social events held in some of London’s most interesting locations. And if you join now we'll send you a FREE copy of the London Society Journal (worth £7.50) and you can get a free ticket to hear Sir Terry Farrell give this year's Banister Fletcher lecture in November. To join – and get your free Journal – visit
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Ten Propositions for planning in London In January 2017, Max Farrell was invited to present to the All Party Parliamentary Group for London’s Planning and the Built Environment in Parliament, organised by the London Society and chaired by the MP Rupa Huq
I thought this would be a good time to put together various propositions that Farrells have been working on into what turned out to be something of a manifesto. I then realised that it was ten years ago that Terry published a ‘Manifesto for London’ in the Architectural Review, with 20 propositions for London, and that this could be an opportunity to update the thinking. Given the age that we live in now, of information overload and social media driven attention spans, I thought I might stick to 10 propositions for this event, many of which have been covered in recent editions of Planning in London magazine. The only way to fill the gap left by the abolition of regional planning and the lack of 21st Century Ebenezeer Howards, perhaps after the opprobrium that followed Abercrombie’s vision for London as a motorway city, is to put forward propositions and get back into the visioning business as has been convincingly argued by Lee Mallet in the last issue of Planning in London, page 97. One of the key aims of the Farrell Review, published three years ago, was to reach out beyond the industry - to politicians, the media and the general public. In order to do this, we tried to simplify the language and the messages and to communicate visually through diagrams and illustrated narratives. The Review was non party-political and funded independently, primarily by Farrells, in order to maintain neutrality. So it was apt that this audience was made up of MPs from across the political spectrum
and the presentation was based on a simple narrative, with key messages communicated visually. This time though, the focus was on big picture propositions for planning in London, through practical examples of research and projects either on the drawing board or under construction.
1 London doesn’t need a green belt, it needs green braces I recently heard Peter Murray, Chairman of the NLA and the London Society, describe the green belt as being ‘like Kevin’ – as in we need to talk about it. With politicians committed to preserving it and arguments for releasing it exhausted by the industry, is it time now to start thinking about a ‘third way’? It is well known that the green belt is not really that ‘green’. However, what is less well recognised and appreciated is that it’s not much of a belt either. Major roads and rail links radiate out from the capital connecting it with the rest of the UK and we are spoilt compared to other world cities like New York and Paris when it comes to infrastructure (existing and planned). These routes already punch through the so called green belt, and there is not much in terms of human population along them. One of the advantages of our centralised political system is that significant funds have been made available to London by our national government delivering projects like HS1 and Thameslink. We are about to complete Crossrail, whilst HS2 and Crossrail 2 are now certain enough to
start planning for their city making potential. The argument has to be made for intensification along these transport corridors, now we have clean rail and will have cleaner roads in the not too distant future. The other major factor for thinking about these radial routes, or spokes, as the best way of growing London is the 360-degree nature of access to airports. Air travel is changing too, with greater capacity and lower carbon emissions trends that will increase as we use technology to fight climate change. What isn’t diminishing is the demand to travel in the globalised world that we live in and London is surprisingly well served already if you take into account City, Stansted, Luton, Southend and Birmingham (soon to be rebranded ‘London Birmingham’) it has a total of seven runways which is more than any other metropolis. I think it’s inevitable that Gatwick will build a second runway, as they face ever increasing demand and reach out to ever more global destinations. The growth of low-cost, long-haul flights that require landing charges lower than those offered at
Heathrow is increasing at an unprecedented rate, with British Airways entering the market and Norwegian Air already flying to the US from Gatwick. In fact, if I was a betting man I would put money on planes taking off from a second runway at Gatwick before they ever do from a third runway at Heathrow. The key to intensifying these transport corridors with mixed use development and building support to do so will be the commitment to improve the quality and accessibility of the landscape corridors alternating in between - the green spokes if you like. London is well served by the Chilterns, the Cotswolds, South Downs and Terry Farrell continues to make the case for the Thames Gateway to be rebranded the Thames Estuary Park, providing a green and productive corridor along the great river, as Chair of the Thames Estuary Local Nature Partnership. We tried to overlay all of these big picture planning propositions into simple and easy to understand diagrams along with a simple, easy to understand and dare I say it ‘headline grabbing’ strapline. So rather than talking about the green belt, and to use another sartorial reference, could we talk about ‘green >>>
Max Farrell is a partner at Farrells
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>>> braces’? The notion of ‘green braces’ might appear to be headline grabbing. Behind it though, lies a conviction that the way forward for London is to create a truly integrated network with all of the different elements thought of and planned in connection to one another rather than in isolation (which is so often the way thanks to our uniquely British love of ‘silos’!)
Find out more at www.FarrellReview.co.uk
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2 Make London the world’s first National Park City One excellent way of celebrating and reinforcing London’s most prized asset, tapestry of green spaces and rich biodiversity, is to support the campaign to make London the world’s first National Park City. London is used to ‘firsts’. As the world’s first industrialised city over 150 years ago it paved the way for industrial revolutions which are continuing to this day throughout the world. As a member of the Advisory Group for the Greater London National Park City campaign, I strongly believe in its aims and the very logical reasons behind them and we are lucky enough to have a truly great campaigner in the ‘guerrilla geographer’ Dan Raven-Ellison who is leading the charge. When we first came up with the idea of the landscape-led regeneration of the Thames Estuary over ten years ago, the idea was to transform perceptions from a post-industrial wasteland blighted by power stations and electricity pylons to one of the world’s most stunning and ecologically diverse estuary landscapes with wetlands, marshlands, historical buildings and riverside walks. We secured £80 million in national and local government funding which led to over fifteen major projects which are cumulatively making a difference. This has been turbocharged by the Olympic Park, the regeneration of the Royal Docks, ambitious plans to cut and cover the A13 in Barking and Dagenham and our planning application for London Paramount on the Swanscombe peninsula to be submitted at the end of this year. London Paramount alone will provide 27,000 jobs to ensure that Ebbsfleet Garden City doesn’t become a dormitory for London whilst our new business district under construction at Royal Albert Dock will provide another 20,000 jobs and act as a gateway to the East, which will be vital
for our post-Brexit economy. I think the National Park City campaign can have the same transformative impact over time. These projects are always slow burners but they capture the imagination and are all about the soft power of good ideas. The basic premise is that London’s USP is landscape yet it does a poor job of connecting it up, making it accessible and using it to educate the younger generation about the natural world around them. When Dan Raven-Ellison went on a walk with his young son from one end of the city to the other using only wild and green spaces they saw kingfishers, foxes, otters, every type of tree and plant you can imagine and yet not one single child, and this was during the school holidays! With 47 per cent of the capital green space, whether that’s parks, squares, woodlands or back gardens, why don’t we celebrate and map out this extraordinary patchwork and signpost it for everyone to use and enjoy? I am certain that other world cities would fall over themselves to have even a fraction of the natural environment we have cultivated over centuries, most of which has come about as a direct result of the manmade built environment. When you think about the previously inaccessible industrial areas like Canary Wharf, Potters Field, the South Bank, Kings Cross you realise what we have claimed back in terms of new riverside walks, new parks, new streets and squares in areas we couldn’t even get to before. We measured the amount of new public realm created by recent developments along the river and these alone have provided 16 km of new riverside walks, 11 km of new dock & canalside walks, 40 new parks with a total area equivalent to 2 Green Parks and 44 new squares with a total area equivalent to 5 Trafalgar Squares. That’s pretty extraordinary and transformative change, that is largely unreported and certainly not given the recognition it deserves. Something that the property industry should quite rightly be very proud of and shout about more in my view. When people complain about the privatisation of public space, the starting point should be whether those public spaces were accessible at all, as many of the spaces we currently enjoy were literally behind closed gates. The end goal should surely be to manage our public realm as well as the traditional great
estates like Grosvenor in Mayfair and the contemporary great estates like CapCo in Covent Garden.
3 Every placemaking project should have a cultural strategy One of the most significant outcomes of the Farrell Review was the formation of the Place Alliance as an industry-led body which has become a movement for place quality. It is founded on the idea that collaboration and communication can establish a culture where quality of place becomes a national and local priority. The Place Alliance has working groups dedicated to many of the themes and recommendations from the Farrell Review, like the Urban Room Network and another group that was formed to promote placemaking and the arts. Led by Review Panel Member Robert Powell, the Arts and Place group has met on several occasions and created a manifesto which can be downloaded here
https://placealliance.org.uk /working-groups/arts-place/ The manifesto calls for “a complete change in the way public art is taught, planned, commissioned, delivered and built, making it a key part of place-making in every urban development". We know from our own experience that projects can have significantly better outcomes when there is a cultural strategy, whether that’s at the masterplanning stage or with the integration of art and architecture through collaborative building design. Our masterplan for Newcastle Quayside included a number of commissions for local artists to reflect the maritime history within the public realm. Our architectural approach to the Home Office headquarters was to collaborate with several artists led by Liam Gillick who performed the role of ‘Master Artist’ curating and coordinating these efforts. At the Home Office, we managed to incorporate art within the building features without increasing the overall construction cost. A concrete canopy became coloured glass blocks with >>>
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Transport-Oriented Development – Charing Cross Station & One Embankment Place
>>> created a dramatic multi-coloured lighting display on the streetscape (now affectionately known as ‘Rainbow Street’ by the locals) and other artists reinterpreted the frit glass and bris soleil using patterns and a more graphic expression. All of this was achieved within the budget we had, which dispels the myth that artworks are an unaffordable luxury or additional cost. I suspect the real reason most architects don’t collaborate with artists is that they inevitably alter the buildings appearance which for many means ‘tampering with their brand’, particularly those architects that are wedded to a particular style of architecture. At Farrells we embrace this approach to every building being a place based artwork expressing it’s own unique character, meaning and identity.
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4 Make railway stations the new town centres First covered in PiL99, October 2016 by Laura Mazzeo, Managing Partner at Farrells, this proposition is one that is very close to our heart as a practice. The first air-rights building in the UK was Embankment Place, a commercial office building designed by Farrells and constructed above Charing Cross station, completed in 1991. Other than Broadgate and Cannon Place in the City of London there have not been many since and yet there is such a strong economic and environmental case for this kind of high-density, urban living and working above stations. If you search for Transport Oriented Development in Wikipedia, you will see Farrells built out masterplan for West
Kowloon in Hong Kong used as the exemplar. This international experience has taught us that high density urban planning and design are changing the model of sustainable development, with public transport and transport infrastructure as the enabler. Kowloon Station, the largest station on the line connecting Hong Kong with the new airport at Chek Lap Kok, created more than just a point of access to an efficient transport link. It was the first of its kind to bring development of homes, offices, shops, public spaces, hotels together and on top of a major station. The station itself resembles an airport terminal more than a railway station, with in-town check-in, baggage handling and screening systems as well as interchange facilities. Above the station, a high-density, three-dimensional urban quarter was developed comprising one million square metres of hotel, office, retail and residential accommodation arranged around a central square with easy access to the station below. More than a station, it is a new piece of city offering all the amenities an urban dweller might need, from gardens and alfresco dining to jobs and shops on your doorstep whilst also being extremely well connected to its surroundings and the rest of the city. With 90 per cent of all trips to and from this new district made by public transport, the project has become a model for transport oriented development throughout the
world. So why are we so slow to learn these lessons here in the UK and what can be done to prevent the mistakes that have already been made at Old Oak Common from happening again at Euston? Both of these projects, where HS2 will arrive in London, represent once in a lifetime opportunities to use stations as catalysts for city making, yet we are in danger of letting our silo thinking compromise them. You can’t do transport oriented development without design issues being addressed at the outset. At Kowloon we established nine plots that might be built on above the station, with different options for building cores that were then fully enabled by the infrastructure. HS2 appears to be going ahead with phase 1 at Euston without having an idea of what the complete scheme might look like, which means they aren’t taking into account the problems of redeveloping over a live station as we did at Embankment Place almost thirty years ago. If you don’t address these issues early on, then the opportunities for scale and quantum of development go down and if you try and retrofit at a later stage, as now appears to be the only option at Old Oak Common, then the costs and risks go up and the return to the public purse goes down. We argued for over five years, to local, regional and national politicians and all of >>>
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>>> the transport bodies, that they had to allow space between the tracks for piling to enable development above the Crossrail depot at Old Oak which under Boris Johnson’s tenure became a game of political ‘pass the parcel’. The imperatives of delivering Crossrail and HS2 on time still appear to be dominating everything despite the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation and the new Mayor trying to think comprehensively about integrated development there. Meanwhile, TfL’s five-year-old commitment to start 10,000 homes on 300 acres of TfL land by 2020 is looking less and less achievable. The long list of developers lined up to JV are backing off these complicated sites where there are seemingly unreasonable expectations for affordable housing and where TfL will retain the freeholds. Whether or not leaving the EU will speed up the procurement systems imposed by OJEU remains to be seen, but there is a prevailing view that bureaucracy is the biggest obstacle to the redevelopment of these sites. It’s no coincidence that the largest property developer in Hong Kong is their transport body, MTR, who are world leaders at delivering mixed use, transport oriented development. We should look long and hard at the opportunities we have to intensify around transport hubs to create more homes as well as easier access to jobs, services and green spaces. Euston, Clapham Junction, Earls Court, Waterloo and Old Oak Common should all be high on our politicians’ agenda along with planning ahead for integrated developments along the entire Crossrail 2 line, before it is too late.
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5 Connect East London with low-level, lifting bridges East London holds the city's greatest potential for regeneration and growth, with over 40 per cent of its opportunity areas. This potential remains blocked, however, and is severely constrained by low connectivity on both sides of the river with the absence of river crossings being the main factor. The need to better link communities across the Thames is undeniable - but which kind of links do we need? Conventional high-level bridges and tunnels create connections to the national and regional grid, but they come with long approach ramps that sterilize the river banks. They operate as motorway infrastructure, creating environments that are friendly to car traffic only as opposed to walking, cycling and public transport. They offer few, if any, benefits for connectivity at the local level. Still, the prevailing view continues to be that these are the only viable options for crossing the Thames east of Tower Bridge, as the Port of London Authority which manages the river is focused on the operational needs of river traffic rather than the placemaking needs of London as a whole. With the Docklands now acquiring a fundamentally different role as urban places housing mixed use communities, another model is needed.. Terry Farrell argued for multiple low-level bridges which lift at certain times of day to allow tall ships to pass in the AR Manifesto 10 years ago, and the scheme has since been developed in more detail led by Farrells Partner Neil Bennett in collaboration with Buro Happold, winning Best Conceptual Project at the 2016 London Planning Awards. The big
difference between now and when the proposals were first made 10 years ago is the extraordinary pressure facing London with it’s population growth and the housing crisis for which East London has to provide the answer. Low-level, lifting bridges are easily accessible to pedestrians and cyclists and better integrated into the public transport network, so they encourage more sustainable forms of commuting and spontaneous crossings while still allowing river traffic to pass. The footfall and spending generated in the bridge surroundings alone would be a significant boost to local economies, creating jobs and adding value. More than that, it’s the enhanced connectivity that low-level bridges create that is the key for East London’s urban potential. Every crossing would
open up access to thousands more jobs, as well as to cultural, educational and social amenities that have to date been inaccessible. With multiple bridges, significant amounts of land would be unlocked for development along the waterfront, enabling the delivery of at least 50,000 new homes. A conservative estimate suggests a 10 per cent value uplift above market trend for properties located within 10 and 15 minutes walking distance from a pedestrian bridge, with higher uplifts from bridges with public transport connections. Increased land value attracts higher densities, so the potential is there for a set of new developments along the Thames with high-quality, high-density housing and reanimated public spaces on the waterfront, link- >>>
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>>> ing existing town centres to the river and acting as growth drivers for the wider area. We have looked at six potential crossings east of Tower Bridge in three areas of the Thames: The Isle of Dogs & Greenwich peninsula, North to South Woolwich and Barking to Thamesmead. Each location has different growth and transport benefits, and where appropriate low-level bridges are planned as complementary to high-level or tunnel crossings planned by TfL (such as Gallions Reach. The new bridges would work together with the Elizabeth line to increase the catchment area of stations from Canary Wharf eastwards. While fully respecting the importance of river traffic and preserving the ability to navigate the waters on the Thames, these low-level, lifting bridges can still be delivered quickly with manageable construction risk and less than half the cost of high-level bridges or tunnels. The value uplift for mixed use development on the river banks means that a large portion, if not all, of this cost can be paid for by the private sector. This is a sensible, costeffective initiative that will contribute more to the transformation of housing delivery in London than any other, reinvigorating not only the communities on both sides of the river but the city as a whole. To put it in perspective, you could have two of these low level, lifting bridges in East London where they are desperately needed for the price of one Garden Bridge in central London, which is pretty well served by bridges already. 6 Agree where tall buildings are acceptable Tall building proposals raise broader issues and need to be considered within the context of urban density patterns,
ground-level interaction with the surroundings and impact on wider regeneration processes. In other words, the debate should not be ‘tall buildings vs. heritage’ – both should be regarded as pieces of the city and approached from the point of view of urban planning. It seems like an obvious statement that we should have tall buildings in the right places and this has been argued by all sides in the debates around London’s debates skyline. It’s a good starting point, but the right place cannot be left entirely open to interpretation. More than just ‘outside of conservation areas’ or ‘where the economic benefits will be the highest’, it should be based on urban design principles that justify the location of high-rises under a coherent spatial development strategy for the city as a whole. Guidelines and policies have already been produced, in the London Plan and Local Plans, which outline the main criteria that tall building proposals need to satisfy in order to be accepted. A lot of those points are not contested, in theory at least. It would be difficult to disagree that tall buildings belong in close proximity to railway stations, or that they are better placed in clusters rather than in isolation. However, the reality is that our reactive planning system means anyone can propose a tall building for just about anywhere, and that is exactly what happened with the 72 storey ‘Paddington Pole’ proposed within the heart of Westminster’s low rise, residential conservation area adjacent to Paddington station and a stone’s throw from Hyde Park. To say it
LEFT: Farrells mid rise, high density scheme for Paddington TOP & RIGHT: Piano's high rise scheme, same density as Farrells
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>>> was entirely out of context is an understatement; to say it was absurdly inappropriate is a fairer depiction of what became a case study for how not to do high rise. As the previous masterplanners for the same developer, we had a scheme that provided exactly the same amount of floor space within a street-based complex of urban blocks and 15 storey shoulder towers. What most people outside the industry aren’t aware of, is the fundamental differences between these two approaches when it comes to cost, risk and the implications for urban planning. Sellars argument was that they had to build that tall, to provide that level of density in order to make the improvements to the ground level and integrate with the station properly. With the mid-rise scheme, it was much lower cost and also easier to build in phases which meant you could have a mix of tenures and significant amounts of affordable housing rather than just a super tall, super expensive tower for the super rich. What was lacking was any kind of coherent vision for the future redevelopment of Paddington within which these proposals could have been assessed. As a result, a huge amount of time, money and energy was spent trying to counter these proposals which were eventually withdrawn in the face of unprecedented opposition, not least from Westminster’s own councillors. A better way of using that energy and those resources would be to draw up a spatial vision for London, ideally using a digital platform like VuCity, that could adapt to socio-economic changes and political cycles. This could quite clearly set out the best locations for tall building clusters like Canary Wharf and the
City, or at major road junctions, transport nodes and river banks where they aren’t damaging the existing urban fabric. We could move closer to the zoning system they have in New York or the land use provisions accompanied by carefully constructed sitespecific regulating plans they have in Germany, which establish the morphological framework within which development occurs. Arguably this kind of proactive planning approach guarantees design quality by establishing a unifying urban framework through which subsequent developments (large and small) coalesce to form coherent and connected bits of the city, rather than the free for all we have at the moment which is entirely open to negotiation and more often than not, acrimony.
7 Build 21st Century mansion blocks as new affordable housing First outlined in PiL96, Jan-March 2016, our proposals for 21st Century Mansion Blocks went on to be shortlisted for the London Planning Awards presented at City Hall in February 2017. Our starting point was to ask why it is that the current rules around daylight, sunlight and distances between buildings would all have to be broken if we wanted to build Marylebone or Covent Garden today. Farrells proposals, in collaboration with Savills and GIA, question the rules upon which residential development in London is currently planned. At a time when the housing crisis requires us to double our current efforts, mid-rise and high density blocks provide an alternative to building upwards or the need for urban
sprawl. Modern day mansion blocks put quality of accommodation first with smaller units to suit contemporary needs and dual aspect around small courtyards, maximising the use of land - our most precious resource. We propose a carefully considered face-to-face relationship for housing with streets that dispense with 18m rules and that deliver higher density without compromising on quality of design. We have improved daylight levels by working with angles and bay windows to ensure the face-to-face relationship between buildings have a positive impact on the end user whilst maintaining privacy. Mid-rise, high density blocks are an alternative to tall buildings to combat the London housing crisis because they support high density living but also because they are cheaper than building tall, with the opportunity for prefabrication and efficiency in repetition. Farrells have tested this theory by configuring different apartment types that appear uniform but with an individuality the end user would recognise as distinctive. The mansion blocks can then be built in phases which result in much improved funding and delivery options whilst targeting several different markets to spread the risk. Balcony space is incorporated into the interior space, giving the end user a higher quality living experience through function, energy efficiency and better daylight levels with the focus for outdoor space in communal areas. With their increased footprint mansion blocks occupy more of the site, and their layout has been optimised to reduce tarmac for roads and maximise public open space, delivered in sequential, phaseable pieces. It may seem ironic that in looking for ideas for the future, we are starting with the solutions of the past. But it is the long standing popularity, flexibility and ultimately value of these buildings that may hold all the clues.
8 Build affordable, adaptable and flexible workspace In the previous edition of our Shaping London column (PiL 100), Farrells partner Peter Barbalov argued that London’s commercial space market is increasingly being handled under a new ‘rent economy’, informed by deeper socio-economic shifts which have produced smaller, non-traditional business models and brought on the emergence and continuous evolution of co-working strategies. All this does not fit well with the typical CAT A commercial space production that has been the standard in the past decades. The increased variety and flexibility of work models is demanding equally rich in variety and adaptable spaces – planned, designed and occupied as places rather than machines to work in, with a sense of ‘internal placemaking’. Co-working spaces have started to appear more and more alongside the rise of the creative industries, and are increasingly more popular with freelancers and entrepreneurs as they bridge the gap between the flexibility of working from home and the
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benefits of an office environment – space, infrastructure, and the opportunities for collaboration or inspiration from others. Elements of this co-working philosophy though are emerging within more traditional office structures as well; one the one hand, smart phones, tablets, cloud-based computing services and many more technological advancements have eliminated the need for employers to work from one spot. On the other hand, the benefits of collaboration, in person and in ways much more informal than staff meetings, are becoming more and more clear. ‘Coffee machine conversations’, informal interactions in other words, create a sense of community and improve the engagement and productivity of employees. For this collaborative spirit to be fostered however, it is the quality of the interior design that plays the most important role – from the overall layout (the ‘internal urbanism’) to the treatment of materials, colours and natural light. It has long been recognised that the design of the spaces we work in affects not only our productivity but our overall health and wellbeing. The negative impact is easy to understand and has been more thoroughly researched: the wrong kind of environment can actively produce negative impacts on the performance and experience of both visitors and occupiers. We believe the reverse is naturally also true: successful internal placemaking results in both intangible and tangible benefits, for the employees but also the company as a whole. In the more commercial sense, workplace design becomes a brand statement on its own, conveying the company’s ethos. More importantly however, it is the planned adaptability of workspaces that has the greater impact, in the everyday routine as well as in the long run. For the daily office life, flexible design means an array of spaces that encourage different types of interaction, and can be easily altered to accommodate specific purposes. At the building scale, it can mean more fluid and inclusive work environments that have a reciprocal relationship with the city around them: spaces open to the public, amenities in the lobby, in-between third spaces between the corporate and the public. Within a wider timeframe though, the most successful buildings are those that, from the outset, consider the changing nature of the workplace and can accommodate retrofitting for completely different uses. Our own office is a good example, initially a furniture factory that has since hosted many different occupiers and is currently a mix of residential and office space, the latter including a ‘creative hub’ available to small, design-based businesses. The same mixing principles were applied in the planning and design of the Eagle, a mixeduse scheme covering an entire block and consisting of housing, retail and workspace, part of which specifically designed with co-working in mind.
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>>> 9 Design new kinds of ‘urban factories’ London’s rapid growth has put a lot of sectors and parts of the city under huge pressure, but industrial areas are one of the primary concerns. Outside of the central core, large areas are occupied by various industrial estates, laid out in very low density on land that is becoming prime target for higher value uses. The first step towards this inevitable process of land use change is usually full ‘eviction’ and relocation, a strategy meant to prevent land use conflicts such as housing in close proximity to heavy industry. Industrial uses are completely eradicated from (previously) peripheral areas and their built infrastructure, with few exceptions, demolished before new uses are brought in. This is, however, a lengthy and costly process, not to mention blindly destructive to a range of industrial activity forms that could co-exist with other uses like artisan uses, supporting the existing local economy and enhancing the mix and integration of new developments, so neither housing nor employment areas are planned in isolation. The need to intensify industrial land and to take every opportunity to address the housing crisis is undeniable. However, the relationship of the industry to the city does not need to be ‘either / or’. Not all types of industrial activity need to be separated from residential uses and certain categories may actually be better placed within mixed-use clusters, particularly modern forms of craftsmanship and making things which are less noisy and more neighbourly. The value of the existing building stock also need to be assessed for potential retention, for reasons of sustainability, economics but often also for quality alone; large industrial sheds with ample, flexible, open interior space are great candidates for retrofitting. Savills have been undertaking research into a framework to provide better quality, better integrated employment space as part of mixed-use schemes. Starting with
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a more detailed categorisation of industrial activities by their potential for co-existence with more sensitive uses, this initiative examines possibilities of integration at three levels; neighbourhood, urban block and building. Such frameworks would allow for industrial areas as a whole to be created as (or transformed into) multi-functional urban places, with inviting open spaces at street level and a good degree of diversity. Even in the case of activities that would not work well in close proximity to housing, provisions can be made for retail and leisure functions and lively public spaces. The overall masterplanning strategy should aim at providing a range of flexible premises to attract companies of different sizes and sectors, avoiding monocultural arrangements. The same principles can be applied to the design of block and building typologies. Innovative design solutions can allow for successful vertical or horizontal use mixing, with residential units above or alongside employment space. In the right circumstances, employment spaces themselves can be redesigned into vertical, higher-density models that interact more with their surroundings at ground level (with, for example, exhibition spaces open to the public). At Farrells we have been developing these typologies for a potential new trade hub at Albert Island in the Royal Docks, learning lessons from similar schemes in Asia. All solutions would need to be developed in context-specific ways but it is clear that creative planning and design can produce a toolbox of typologies for new kinds of ‘urban factories’, typologies that not only cover the current needs for intensification and mixing, but also open up space for opportunities not necessarily covered by the market, including co-working spaces and tech companies who want to work in close proximity to more established parts of the industry.
10 Prepare for autonomous vehicles and humanise our roads Driverless cars, better known as autonomous vehicles or AVs were first covered by Farrells Partner Nigel Bidwell, in PiL 94 and they are no longer a far-fetched idea or ‘Back to the Future’ like prospect. Vehicles that can complete journeys without a driver, move while empty and interact with other vehicles and road users in a safe and efficient way are being tested in various parts of the world and we can expect AVs to soon be introduced into daily commuting. While there are still many uncertainties surrounding their use, the potential benefits are enormous and extend well beyond increased road safety and lower carbon emissions. At this moment, there is a
unique window of opportunity to put in place creative strategies and plans, with this emerging technology as the catalyst, to create a new generation of living streets reinvigorating our town and city centres. At Farrells, we have collaborated with engineers WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff to explore autonomous vehicles as they relate to placemaking, in a piece of research discussed in the 98th issue of PiL last year. This work explored future visions of how different UK places might look and function after the introduction of AVs, as well as what kinds of new places might be possible. We have approached the potential benefits and impact of AVs against the backdrop of today’s reality, aiming for realistic and feasible propositions rather than a futuristic vision, and focused more on >>>
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TEN PROPOSITIONS FOR LONDON | MAX FARRELL
>>> those aspects of the technology that can offer the most interesting possibilities for placemaking. AVs will prioritise pedestrians and cyclists over other vehicles and after a necessary period of adjustment they will create much safer streets by removing human error, the principal cause of road accidents. AVs can offer door-to-door journeys without requiring a parking space at either end, a feature that opens up incredible possibilities for travelling between transport interchanges and sharing cars. With such models, the typical use pattern of vehicles remaining parked for the majority of the day would be reversed, with each AV being in use for much longer and far fewer vehicles needed in total to maintain current levels of use. The benefits will be transformational, not just in terms of efficiency but also environmental quality and the public realm. With proper planning, AVs will dramatically ease congestion and pollution, particularly within Zones 1 & 2, and an significantly reduction carbon emissions. Within existing neighbourhoods, AV use can be planned as complementary to the public transport network, covering gaps and enhancing access to healthcare, schools and community centres. Opportunities are opened up by the possibility of ‘AV zones’, areas designed for these new kinds of vehicles from the outset. Within these zones, parking spaces can be confined to the absolute minimum and the street design simplified into a more efficient thoroughfare, saving between 15 and 20 per cent more space compared with a typical urban layout – space that can be used to create higher density communities enhanced by more open and green space. Street clutter can be virtually eliminated as AVs will not need to gather information from the roadside, making directional and speed limit signs redundant. Initially an AV zone would operate as a self-contained system within a defined area, with the potential to be gradually integrated into the current network as AV use increases throughout the city. Given the relative long-term nature of most spatial plans for opportunity zones, housing zones and other growth areas, local authorities and development compa-
ALMSHOUSES | ROLAND KARTHAUS
Do almhouses hold the answer to London’s housing crisis? Section 106 agreements increase land values and so housing costs. Instead, land needs to be specifically designated for affordable housing, argues Matter Architecture’s Roland Karthaus
nies can begin planning for AV zones now incorporating smaller scale, ‘pilot areas’ to be designed for driverless vehicles within growth plans. With the right planning, autonomous vehicles will be transformational for London, across multiple scales. On the street level, they can provide the basis for a new generation of living streets, where people and public spaces have priority over car traffic – without reducing the overall efficiency of the road network. Existing neighbourhood and inner-city routes would be greatly improved, while gradually future ones can be planned with significantly less constraints in terms of both road design and parking space. Finally, with extended planning for AV use in highways and as alternative, shared-use transport mode between major interchanges, there is potential to enhance connectivity between peripheral town centres, rural areas and the central core – making for a more efficiently inter-linked metropolitan region. n
First published in AJ March 2017
Reprints of this feature may be downloaded from www.farrells.com or www.planninginlondon.com
Roland Karthaus is a director at Matter Architecture
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The first London Plan was published in 1943 by Patrick Abercrombie. It is an amazingly ambitious and beautiful document which should be read as a piece of propaganda as much as policy. The timing was significant: four years into the war, it was intended as the light at the end of the tunnel; the upside of widespread destruction was that the city could be replanned. We now view this idealistic form of planning as unrealistic and utopian, but rather than replacing it with a realistic model, we have rowed back to a form of planning that is as absurdly vague as the Abercrombie’s was optimistically precise. The recent draft Affordable Housing and Viability Supplementary Planning Guidance (SPG) presages the next iteration of the London Plan. The reference to ‘genuinely affordable housing’, reveals a loosening grip on reality and a frustration at the inability of planning to deliver affordable housing. The current model, in which affordable housing is secured via Section 106 as a condition of each planning consent, is effectively a land-tax, and has helped drive up land values, making all housing less affordable. ‘Genuinely’ affordable housing, delivered through a reinforcement of the same mechanism will only ever achieve the same result. To understand this trajectory and to consider an alternative, we need to rediscover what existed before. In the late Victorian period, the industrial revolution was well advanced, but working-class housing had hardly changed. Then, spanning the turn of the century, a wave of industrial philanthropists became the driving force behind mass social housing as we know it, providing for the basic needs of workers that in turn would ensure the economic health of the city. Now we face a similar crisis, as London is unaffordable for the average person. But a city is more than a simple economic engine; a truly healthy city is one that people can be born in, grow up in, work in and die in. Social housing was not invented in Britain by Victorian philanthropists but much earlier by the church. Scattered across the country are almshouses, owned by hyper-local charities that provided truly affordable housing for the elderly and infirm. Now, they could offer part of the answer to a new revolution in affordable housing. Affordable housing is in fact a land tax, which makes land more expensive and therefore more valuable The prohibitive cost of housing in London is not mainly due to construction cost, but to the value of the land it sits on. The London Plan fails to grasp this basic fact, and any additional requirements placed on the development of a piece of land can only ever ‘wash through’ into the land value. Developers may say that affordable housing is a development tax but in fact it is a land tax, which makes land more expensive and therefore more
valuable. In the era when council housing was predominant, central tax was used to subsidise the land, funding councils to buy it and rent out the housing at a reduced cost. In the late 1980s and 1990s, the baton was passed to housing associations, many of them former Victorian Philanthropic organisations, with funding still flowing from central tax. Over the past two decades, this has changed and many housing associations have effectively become commercial developers, serving a particular market. They still have many subsidised tenants, but most new developments do not provide significant truly affordable housing (hence the new ‘genuinely affordable’ terminology). This is because they have to compete with commercial developers for the same land, while central (plus some GLA) funding has become relatively minor in the process. In each era of housing innovation, land has been key: the church owned land within its parish, which gave it the security to build almshouses; the industrialists developed new areas of the city, next to their industrial estates, on low-value or undeveloped land; councils took advantage of bomb-sites (free demolition). London today is not a dense city and there is plenty of development land, but it has complex ownership and other constraints and most of all, it is expensive. If we are genuine about affordable housing, then planning has to proactively designate land accordingly. To some this will seem like heresy; the dominant argument is that only increasing values drive development, but this is the current trap we are stuck in – the London Plan viability assessment assumes that land is bought and sold at commercial rates and the land value is the ‘base’ for viability. In an escalating market, that means affordability is always out of reach. Planning policy needs to enable almshouse charities to expand and take on the baton of affordable housing But myriad alternative models, predating planning, still persist in London, including almshouse charities that own land. But their activities are legally restricted to the provision of meanstested affordable housing for the elderly. Other community housing organisations have similar, albeit less ancient remits. Planning policy needs to develop a framework that enables these organisations to expand and take on the baton of affordable housing that now needs to be passed on. Designating land for affordable housing might seem to counter the agenda of mixed tenures, but in a city that is unaffordable to the average person, precisely the opposite is true. As we no longer live in an industrial era and the city is not simply a giant factory, we also have to look beyond affordable housing being primarily for workers. The economy of London is an intri-
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ALMSHOUSES | ROLAND KARTHAUS
WORKSPACE | ALEXEI SCHWAB
Workspace that works
RIGHT: The Abercrombie and Forshaw plan for London, 1942
>>> cate network, connecting all ages and income levels and our population is getting older, while remaining active. Matter Architecture is currently working with an almshouse charity. Its constitution and assets means that we can redevelop its existing land to provide heavily subsidised (less than 50 per cent of market rent), spacious homes for vulnerable elderly people, together with their friends and neighbours who support one another. The homes are designed to promote health and wellbeing, allowing them to live there for longer and reducing the burden on health and social services. We are working with the housing managers and the existing residents so that the
RIGHT: Hopton Street almshouses, SE1 Source: Google Earth
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new buildings can accommodate them well into the future. All of this is only possible because of the charity’s constitution and land ownership. We’re also working with speculative developers to design high-quality housing, and we believe this form of development will remain important. The issue is that as a model, it can’t provide for all the diverse needs of housing in a city and shouldn’t be expected to. Planning has a significant role to play in giving a leg up to these alternative models. The mayor has said he will make London ‘a city for all’. His planning policies need to help deliver that. n
Local authorities and other public bodies can play a vital role in supporting workspace that will benefit communities and local economies says Alexei Schwab
Alexei Schwab is head of programme at Future of London
Small and micro businesses (SMEs) with fewer than 50 employees make up 99 per cent of all businesses and 41 per cent of employment in London, but workspace in the capital is under threat from office-to-residential conversion and a historically rapid loss of industrial land. Future of London’s Workspace that Works report – based on a year-long programme of research and events with more than 300 workspace operators, borough and property professionals – shows that well-considered workspace can both address the threat to London’s economy and deliver regeneration benefits. Those benefits include suitable SME space, but also learning and apprenticeship opportunities; formal and informal business, charity and social enterprise support; activating underused buildings and high streets; and working with colleges, universities and major employers to provide pathways into work for local people. Through visits and interviews, we heard from a wide range of workspace providers with differing offers, from subsidised to commercial providers, central- and outer-London workspaces, and desk-based workspace to studios, maker spaces, laboratories and kitchens. This diversity is flexible workspace’s strength, and allows local authorities to find operators whose spaces respond to an area’s economic and social needs. Research participants agreed that, when it responds to local economic and social conditions, workspace can have a positive impact on regeneration. They also said the public sector has an
important role to play in defining priorities and ensuring that the right types of workspace are delivered. With the growth of outsourcing and freelancing and a constant flow of start-ups, there is now huge demand for small business workspace. This market shift has come alongside a change in what people expect of a workplace: leisure, culture, flexibility and community. Even large corporations are getting in on the act, redesigning traditional offices to act and feel more like coworking spaces. Despite this demand, SME workspace is under threat in the capital. The London Plan seeks to accommodate the capital’s population growth within GLA boundaries, through densification and redevelopment of brownfield land, much of which has existing (albeit low-density) employment use. Redevelopment can mean loss of floorspace and higher rents for what remains. Industrial space is being lost at approximately three times the rate anticipated by the GLA, despite high demand and low vacancy. With residential land values significantly higher than for commercial uses, and with political pressure to build more homes, there are strong incentives to replace workspace with housing. Many councils have introduced Article 4 directions to protect employment areas from permitted development, but other parts of the city are still vulnerable and almost 9m sqft of office space (1m sqft of it fully occupied) has already been lost. >>>
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WORKSPACE | ALEXEI SCHWAB
>>>
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The GLA has been supporting SME workspace provision at a London-wide level. Regeneration funding has been used to support projects under the theme “Places of Work”, accompanied by research and guidance documents to inform bids. Mayor Sadiq Khan’s 2016 election manifesto included a commitment to supporting workspace for the creative industries and establishment of Creative Enterprise Zones; the GLA is currently researching how the zones will work in practice. As recognition of the importance of shared workspace, the GLA has set up the Workspace Provider Board to act as an advisory body. At borough level, councils are adapting policy to better protect workspace, especially flexible and affordable options suitable for small businesses. Planning policies can secure re-provision of employment floorspace in mixed-use redevelopment, and authorities are developing detailed guidance to make sure the final product is fit for purpose (for example, through design guidelines, recommended partners and/or affordability criteria). Councils are also providing workspace on their own property, often linked to regeneration goals such as helping people find jobs or engaging with the local community. Among the regeneration impacts cited by research participants were: • Providing the conditions for small businesses to grow (flexibility, affordability, networking) • Providing opportunities for learning, work experience and apprenticeships • Providing business support, both formal and informal • Providing space for charities and social enterprises • Bringing activity to underused buildings or high streets, or to sites awaiting development
• Supporting economic sectors which are underserved by the property market • Working with local institutions (colleges, universities, major employers) to provide pathways for employment or developing businesses Affordability came up regularly as an issue, with pressure from housing development driving up rents. Participants noted that while rent affordability is a headline issue, interventions such as business rates relief, sharing management overheads and allowing flexibility in contracts can have as much of an impact on SME costs as rent. With affordable space in short supply, it’s important to have clear and fair mechanisms to choose who can benefit from it. Flexible workspace is often linked to start-up businesses, but spaces catering only to start-ups are rare: more common is a mix of start-ups and established businesses. Those targeting only start-ups tend to have a focus on business support and development, linked to fixed timescales after which tenants are encouraged to make space for new beneficiaries. To provide effective help to SMEs, detailed knowledge of an area’s economy and of the flexible workspace sector is essential. Local authorities are strong on the former but weaker on the latter, and are well-served by partnering with experienced workspace providers who can bring a commercial focus, private- and/ or third-sector connections and a different perspective. Temporary or meanwhile workspace is widely used as a way to bring life to land awaiting development, but can present difficulties for operators: on the one hand, they are able to access land or buildings at low cost; on the other, many are wary of taking spaces on short contracts as it is difficult to earn back money invested in fit-out, especially if affordability is a priority. Meanwhile workspace rarely offers clear options for tenants when their time is up, something operators, councils and developers could work to improve. Increasingly, councils are using their own land and property for workspace, both meanwhile and permanent. Council-owned workspace allows authorities to generate revenue from underused assets and link employment space to social outcomes such as business support, training and public events. Offering flexible workspace, usually through a third-party operator, also allows authorities to build a relationship with both operators and SME tenants, who can be wary of interacting with councils. While flexible workspace is concentrated in central London, spaces beyond Zone 2 are expanding. Lower costs and larger spaces make outer London attractive to workspace operators and tenants, while reducing commuting is a strong selling point. Outer London spaces still face a challenge getting on the radar when compared to more glamorous central London locations, but town centres with good transport provide the right ingredients.
London’s industrial space is being lost at a rapid pace, and what is left is subject to rising prices. Part of the answer is industrial densification, and industrial, artist and maker spaces offer a model for this. Industrial, maker space and studio operators we spoke to had long waiting lists, indicating strong unmet demand, and examples show that it’s possible to integrate light industrial uses into residential areas. However, engaging with operators on space design at an early stage is important to keep costs down. Workspace targeting sectors with specialised requirements has the potential to reduce costs for tenants significantly. Sector-specific workspace which provides flexible access to resources such as kitchens or laboratories is more expensive to run than office-based spaces, but can give tenants access to specialist equipment, advice and networks. Local authorities (as well as the GLA, development corporations and other public bodies) can play a vital role in supporting workspace that will benefit communities and local economies. They can:
• Protect existing employment and industrial land through planning policy • Identify areas of need in the local economy (skills, types of space, services) • Develop guidelines on how best to support particular sectors or types of business • Work with developers to ensure new space is suitable • Encourage a variety of workspace types and sizes, to ensure growing businesses have space to move to • Help operators measure their social impact • Invest in facilities and services linked to social outcomes • Use their own land and buildings to house workspace Future of London’s Workspace that Works visits, workshops and networking events showed a strong desire among the sector to bolster the regeneration aspect of workspace provision. We will continue to support public-sector practitioners and their partners to make the most of SME workspace for the benefit of tenants and wider communities. n
Check www.futureoflondon.org.uk for updates, including a second matching event, and to download the full report. Future of London is an independent network connecting more than 2,700 of London’s regeneration, housing, infrastructure and economic development professionals. Our purpose is to share best practice and build skills, knowledge and connections amongst our cross-sector network. A central part of our work is preparing the next wave of London leaders. #DiversityPledgeLDN
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AIR AND SPACEPORT | BRYAN AVERY
The new London air and spaceport Are we destined to endlessly carp and cavil and for ever patch and darn the threadbare structure that is the London Heathrow and City air travel experience? asks Bryan Avery
Bryan Avery MBE is principal of Avery Associates Architects
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For decades now it’s been obvious that London’s Heathrow airport is an expedient post-war solution that has long outlived its usefulness. It served its purpose when aircraft were few and far between, used relatively quiet piston engines and could land in a circuit close to the field. Now the airport needs vast holding patterns covering much of southern England and casts a thirty-mile long acoustic blight across the whole of central London. And yet government after government has shirked the issue and hoped that with just another little bit more tinkering it’ll tide things over and then it’ll be someone else’s problem. The trouble is Heathrow really has come to the end of its life. Air travel isn’t shrinking. Oil prices haven’t affected it, nor has the internet. We still travel, and as more and more nations industrialise and prosper, so too does air travel. Our choice is to pull up the drawbridge and close the UK shop – or keep up with the rest of the world and expand. But expanding Heathrow (and just as crucially London’s City airport) is not an option that anyone other than the vested commercial interests there can justify any more. There are massive public health and safety issues with both airports that are being blithely ignored. Consider that in going into these two airports, the aircraft spray huge quantities of burnt jet fuel over the city, containing sulphur dioxides and nitrogen oxides, the very same toxic particulates that the planned ban on diesel vehicles in the city are intended to eradicate. The National Geographic Magazine carried a newspiece (10th of October 2010) claiming that toxic pollutants from aircraft kill 10,000 people annually whereas ‘only’ 1,000 die annually in plane crashes. Consider too that there is a nose-to-tail line of these jets going into Heathrow and they pass at low level spraying their particulates over pretty well the entire length of the densest concentration of population that this country has. Is that wise? It is also reported that jet noise can cause stress and strokes (British Medical Journal 08/10/13) and the onslaught is ever increasing. Between 11.30 at night and 6.00 in the morning Heathrow has been ‘capped’ at 5,800 night time take-offs and landings a year. Pity the poor people living in this environment because at 6.00 am it all starts again in earnest. Those fortunate enough to afford double glazing and air-conditioning can escape from it but for the vast majority whose only recourse on a hot summer’s night is to open the window, it’s a remorseless aural onslaught. And lest we forget, it was announced last year that under a new restructuring of the flight path, the aerial traffic is about to increase by 50 per cent and this is additional to the effect that a third runway with its hugely increased aural footprint will have.
The pro-Heathrow lobby has argued that quieter planes are always in prospect, they always are. They say too that aircraft will be ever bigger and therefore fewer, but they just get bigger and more of them. They say too that if the pilots would only leave the wheels up just a little longer they’d make less noise, but its all obfuscation. It was also said that the planes using London’s City airport would be ultra quiet because they were powered by turboprops and could land and take off very steeply. That didn’t last very long, did it? Consider too that aircraft have on occasion been known to crash. Its hugely devastating wherever it occurs but over a densely populated area it’s doubly so. There have been numerous emergencies and lucky escapes at Heathrow. In 2008 a BA Boeing 777 lost all power from its engines over London and crash-landed just short of the runway. In 2015 another BA flight had to make an emergency landing when it took off with one of its engines still under repair. A similar accident happened to a BA Airbus A 319 in 2013 and it had to overfly London with one of its engines on fire. In New York there was the famous case of the US Airways pilot of an Airbus A320 who crash-landed in the Hudson. This pilot exhibited an extraordinary level of professionalism but not all pilots are so well trained or indeed so fit for their roles. Sad to say pilots now may be trained in countries where the standards are less stringent, perhaps even corrupt. Bear in mind too that there was a report in the Times newspaper last year that one in eight pilots admitted to suffering from depression; another in January this year of a drunk pilot found slumped at his controls before take-off. There was also the Heathrow pilot arrested for carrying knives in his baggage; and of course the horrific case of the Germanwings pilot of Flight 9525 who committed suicide by deliberately flying his plane into the Alps killing all 150 people on board. He could just as easily have done so over London. It is then but a short step to those who actually intend such devastation, the terrorists. They struck Washington and the twin towers in New York; they’ve blown up aeroplanes numerous times since and there are constant emergencies and atrocities at the airports. There was a gunman loose at Fort Lauderdale airport (January 2017) and a flight from Pakistan in February 2017 had to be escorted into Heathrow by Typhoon fighters over Germany. Is it only a matter of time before someone succeeds with a terrorist atrocity over London? The security services clearly think its possible; they set up a no-fly zone over the 2012 Olympic site and over Anmer Hall where the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge live so why not over Buckingham Palace or the Houses of Parliament? Could it be that there’s no point because at the height the planes are flying the RAF’s rapid-reaction aircraft can’t get there in time?
It takes but a few seconds for an aircraft to plummet to earth from 3000 feet over London but it takes 6 minutes for an RAF Typhoon to get there from Coningsby. And yet despite all of this – which you might have imagined would have already been considered an extreme health and safety issue and been central to any planning enquiry about the future of aviation in London – it’s been considered an officially ‘acceptable’ risk and we still allow these hugely damaging and dangerous vehicles, emanating from all parts of a war-torn globe, and with who know who at the controls, free passage over the heart of our capital. One would have thought that every one of the London Boroughs through which these planes pass would have something to say about that but no, hardly a word, it’s too politically charged. And, to add to the absurdity, we appear to have no ability to prevent drones from coming within 20 m of a collision with an Airbus A 320 on approach over London (BBC 17 Nov 2016); nor can we stop various mechanical parts and stowaways in undercarriages from falling on the city. We can’t even stop one of the many low flying helicopters from crashing into one of London’s towers and killing two people (St George’s Wharf 16/01/13). So what then is the sense in allowing two international flight paths to cross through this dangerously congested local airspace? In Victoria, Central London, there are two flight paths which, whenever the landing directions at City and Heathrow aren’t synchronised, as can happen when the wind speed is less than 5 Knots, they are allowed to cross paths. There can be one flight path where the aircraft are already at a low level and descending, wheels out, into Heathrow; and another even lower, barely 2000 ft, crossing and descending into City Airport – and they are doing this complex manoeuvre immediately above Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament and the nation’s most cherished institutions. What nonsense is that? What other major capital of a civilised country condones such a flagrant flouting of values and for what – the cost? Can that really be all that this is about? We don’t use that as an excuse in any other life-critical decision. We don’t create national parks: host the Olympics, keep an army or maintain a national health service to save money. We wouldn’t do anything worthwhile ever, if that were the case. But expanding Heathrow isn’t the cheapest option anyway. To add a runway will take years of negotiation to overcome the huge political and legal obstructions that will assuredly come into play. And even if it was actually realised and a new runway came into existence ten or fifteen years from now, it would already be insufficient for the needs then and the debate on a fourth runway would then begin again…and so on ad infinitum. One would have thought that where large, contentious,
infra-structure projects are concerned it’s best to bite the bullet early on and go for the fastest option. When the A3 was extended through the Surrey Hills they avoided the years of wrangling and cost escalations of the Winchester By-Pass fiasco and opted for tunnelling straight away. So too here, we should get on with commissioning a new airport. Its what other countries have done with only a fraction of our GDP and many designed by British consultants. Moreover if we duck the issue yet again and settle for another short-term expedient, consider the world we may find ourselves in in ten or fifteen years time. Short of an unforeseeable cataclysmic event we must assume that whatever we do post Brexit the rest of the world will continue to seek a better standard of living and will therefore trade more and as our trade will, by necessity, be directed ever further afield, air traffic in the future can only increase. We would also be wise to assume that as it is now thirteen years since the supersonic Concorde was taken out of service (and it has to be remembered that it plied the Atlantic at twice the speed of sound for twenty seven years before that), the issue of speed will inevitably come to the fore again. Wouldn’t everyone, given the chance, and were it to be affordable, prefer getting to New York in three and a half hours rather than seven or eight? And soon it will be affordable. There are a number of supersonic aircraft currently being designed, some for private hire, others, by Boeing and Branson for airline use. Airbus also has one under review capable of reaching New York in an hour. These kinds of vehicles should be central to any planning for a new hub airport and yet in the whole of the Davies Commission report there was not one reference to them. One >>>
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AIR AND SPACEPORT | BRYAN AVERY
>>> can understand why since none of our land-bound airports are up to the mark technically let alone tolerating such powerful vehicles to overfly populated areas – and certainly not 24/7 and 365 days a year. Moreover, if one does seriously plan for the next big leap in aviation we can already see it in gestation here in the UK. Reaction Engines of Oxford have just been given a very sizeable government grant to develop a revolutionary air-breathing engine designed by Alan Bond which could get a plane to Sydney, Australia in four hours. That would change the whole aviation world and we should capitalise on our leadership - if only we’d stop picking over the entrails of Heathrow. The issue then is where other than at Heathrow should a new airport be built? Assuming that the two other main (existing) contenders, Gatwick and Stansted, have similar albeit slightly lesser social and political difficulties to overcome and, like Heathrow, once one more runway has been built they’ll have reached the end of their capabilities to build more, then it just leaves the Thames-Estuary sites. They have the advantage of a relative proximity to London and if it were not for the difficulties of building on an environmentally sensitive site, of bird strikes, a dangerous munitions ship etc, etc - they would be the obvious option. It was the solution favoured by London’s former Mayor, Boris Johnson, but to surmount these difficulties would again take time and time is by far the biggest cost risk. The essential point that the Davis Commission ignored in favour of ‘cost’ was ‘speed’. Speed is of the essence in so many ways. The only site within striking distance of the capital without any critical impediments, where construction could begin immediately; where the nearest neighbour is five miles away
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(about the same distance as from the Spinnaker Tower in the centre of Portsmouth to Ryde on the Isle of Wight – almost too far to see); where there are no nesting birds; where at least four, and probably five runways could be built and all five could be operated in a twenty four hours a day cycle, seven days a week and fifty two weeks a year to maximise on intercontinental traffic; where powerful supersonic and hypersonic aircraft could take off and land without impediment; and the facilities there could serve the whole of Western Europe. The site? – the notorious danger to shipping, the semi-submerged sand reef five miles off the Kent coast called the Goodwin Sands. Certainly the site would need to be secured but the Dutch have been doing that for centuries and Schiphol airport is itself 4 m below sea level. There would also need to be a suitable resting place for the war graves and the fisheries too would need to be protected but these pale into insignificance when compared with the issues faced by the other sites. Indeed, this very site was put to the Davies Commission by its originators, Beckett Rankine, one of the world’s leading marine engineers, and went almost straight into the waste bin, as did the estuary airport options initially until retrieved under political pressure and then finally they were all kicked into the long grass because the Commission was interested only in the two criteria that would see Heathrow chosen, its cheapness and its distance from the centre of London. Put all the other criteria into the Commission’s selection matrix and unsurprisingly Goodwin comes out ahead of Heathrow. There’s obviously not much you can say if the cheapest initial cost trumps all and you don’t mind how long it will take but distance is really only an issue of speed and with the high speed cross-channel shuttle from St Pancreas and a new tunnel link from Folkestone to the Sands you’d be there in forty minutes. Maybe that’s perfectly good enough. After all, it currently takes an average thirty minutes to get to Gatwick from Victoria; thirty four minutes (on a good day) from St Pancras to Luton Airport; forty five minutes from Liverpool Street to Stansted Airport; and more than an hour from Westminster to Heathrow on the Piccadilly line, when its running. However, if you change the parameters you could locate the ‘terminal’, the place where you check-in, drop off your bags, go through security, shop and wait for your flight to be called, ie. the place you would normally think of as the ‘airport’, in a convenient spot much closer to the centre of the city. The British Overseas Airways Corporation used to have such a terminal in Victoria where you’d check in and then trains and coaches would take you, freed of your baggage, to the two airstrips at Heathrow and Gatwick or to the flying boat terminal at Southampton, some seventy miles away. Imagine then such a terminal located at the intersection of
the M25 with the high speed Cross-Rail and Eurostar cross channel trains, which would then also link via HS2 and the motorways to the Midlands and the North. An airport terminal there would be both a genuine London terminal and serve the continent too. The connection between the terminal and the aircraft would then be much like that at Stansted today, that is with shuttle-trains out to the departure lounges. The only difference is that the departure lounges would be fifty five miles away. However, at the speed of the Eurostar (185 mph) this would take just forty minutes or so; at the speed of the Shanghai Maglev (267 mph) it might take twenty five minutes and with Elon Musk’s Hyperloop (760 mph) it could take around nine minutes. Considering that it can currently take twenty minutes to walk to a departure gate at Heathrow or Gatwick, such times would transform airport design.
Moreover given that if we adopted the same criteria for the transport system as for the runway location, that time is ultimately the most costly factor, then to avoid acrimonious and very expensive public enquiries and delays, we should just bite the bullet and tunnel as much as possible, the whole length if needs be. After all we already have abundant expertise with Crossrail and the Channel Tunnel but there are other huge tunnelling operations in progress now too such as the Thames Tideway Tunnel (sixteen miles long) and the extraordinary Thames Water Ring Main which upon completion in 2025 will itself be fifty miles long. And let’s not forget that London initiated the very concept of the ‘tube’. The London Underground has over one hundred and twelve miles of tunnels under the capital already. This new ‘tube’ is just the twenty-first century’s extension of the same system. As for the pragmatics of the proposal let’s assume that it be phased and that in broad outline the first phase will include the construction of a small passenger terminal on the sands which will later become a transit terminal plus an undersea road link from the mainland. This would help to relieve the immediate pressure to expand Heathrow. The second phase would include the construction of the
London terminal and the high speed transit tunnels to the runways. At this point Heathrow and Gatwick could begin downsizing and at the end of the third phase, which would see the second island built and four runways come into play, Gatwick could revert to being a primary cargo hub and Heathrow and City airports could at last come out of service. It has been calculated that the value of Heathrow as a development site could be in excess of £ 3.5 billion and maybe City Airport would realise £1.0 billion – certainly enough to get things moving and we would then have a new air and spaceport designed for the 21st century to serve the whole of Northwestern Europe. Imagine what a transformational effect that would have on the capital. The everyday noise and pollution would vastly decrease; the parks and open spaces would regain their tranquillity; buildings wouldn’t be constrained in height by flight paths; the east side of the city would receive a massive boost in investment; and the Heathrow and City Airport sites together with a vast swathe of land around them, would provide hugely desirable and much needed new residential and commercial developments. The question is, are we up to such a challenge or are we destined to endlessly carp and cavil and for ever patch and darn the threadbare structure that is the London Heathrow and City air travel experience? n
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NEIGHBOURHOOD PLANNING | ADAM COOK
BRICK BY BRCK | COLM LACEY
We are all planners now Neighbourhood plans are beginning to show their influence says Adam Cook
© Adam Cook 2017 All rights reserved
Adam Cook is a chartered landscape architect and planner
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Since the launch of Planning in London over 25 years ago statutory requirement for public advertisement of planning applications was heralded in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (TCPA 1990) and before the 1990 Act publicity was only required for ‘bad neighbour’ planning applications Before this the phenomenon of public involvement under the TCPA 1968 led to Enquiry in Public, during consultations for County Structure Plans, for an invited only panel. Reader’s might recall the 1969 Skeffington Report placed emphasis on promoting the principle of public participation in town planning The question is raised as to whether the ambitious objects of the Skeffington report, could ever be achieved. Public engagement and inclusion in planning is believed to originate with Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 1960. The later work of Paul Davidoff’s, Advocacy and pluralism in planning, appeared in the Journal of the American Planning Association, in 1965 and focused on enabling participation of the less well off. Davidoff suggested what happens in planning should be matter of choice rather than fact. Relevant at a time of Brexit, where it’s accepted that the European Spatial Development Strategy 1999 (ESDP, is the basis for the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 (PCPA 2004) Section 18(1) of this Act, granted the right to public involvement in spatial planning. This right is enshrined in Statements of Community Involvement (SCI). The PCPA 2004, might have restated the Skeffington report’s objects as public involvement in town planning rather than direct participation. Whilst a step change was introduced in the Localism Act 2011 and Neighbourhood Planning Regulations 2012, and the TCPA 1990 (as amended), this legislation potentially creates citizen policy makers, able to shape the preparation of neighbourhood plans and returning more closely to the Skeffington Report’s objectives to encourage direct public participation in town planning. Statistically speaking Neighbourhood planning in London has had a slow take off. For example If equated with a District in Buckinghamshire, London should possibly have at least 12 adopted neighbourhood development plans, whilst today it has only about four. Whilst the reasons given for the slow take up include bureaucratic local government, the complex nature of city policy frameworks and fragile city economics. One view is that neighbourhood planning, is only one of the tools in the planner’s box, an important point to grasp for willing Londoners. A raft of Statutory Instruments has been required to clarify the working out of neighbourhood planning in practice. For example, setting local authority deadlines to decide on neighbourhood areas and forum applications and the adoption of neighbourhood development plans.
As member of Planning Aid England (PAE)/ RTPI London Task Group, I participated in the steering group formulating the event Community Planning Afternoon; London a Fair and Affordable City, run by RTPI London, in association with PAE. The event took a look at Neighbourhood Planning in London. Under a brief which considered potential to increase public knowledge and understanding of town and spatial planning, the event brought together a collection of speakers, aiming at updating recent legislation in community planning in theory and practice with a focus on neighbourhood planning in London. The event followed the introduction of the Localism Act 2011. It also introduced the promise of spatial plan-led neighbourhood planning. For example in forthcoming publication of neighbourhood planning draft policies, for the London Plan. This was by an introduction to the Mayor of London’s A City for all Londoners and it is interesting to note how in relation to building healthy neighbourhoods this hints at the need to plan new health care and supporting facilities. A critical perspective was presented in which a positive role for citizen-led collaborative planning was shown in the example of work with Just Space at Carpenter’s Estate, East London. This introduces the possibility to plan at neighbourhood scale characterised by poverty and exclusion, which trends show are less likely to prepare neighbourhood plans. A look at the actual effect that neighbourhood development plans are having in London in interesting. This might establish whether participation in town planning is being carried through in the actual weight given to these plans in local planning authority decision making. In practice a look to the Kentish Town Neighbourhood Plan (KTNP), which passed at referendum in June 2016, and was adopted by Camden in September 2016. KTNP has a policy framework for significant major potential redevelopment sites and about half a dozen site allocations. So far two mixed use significant site redevelopments have gained consent. One question might be what weight will KTNP view policies (D1) carry, where major development is proposed for areas covered by the policy which lie outside the neighbourhood planning area. Forum Chair, Roger Winfield has reported a positive response from the LPA and developers, whom he believes respect the statutory status of the adopted neighbourhood plan. There was only one occasion reported in which Camden’s Planning Officers’ have so far failed to alert the forum of a change of use application, which was rectified in a timely way. So it appears KTNP is being taken account of. Whilst overall this move towards public participation in planning in London at neighbourhood level has little evidence on the ground, as more plans are made and adopted the picture should become clearer. n
Croydon builds ‘Brick by Brick’ Colm Lacey explains how authorities can deliver development activity which directly benefits local communities by establishing their own independent development company
RIGHT: Coldharbour Road vPPR architects
Colm Lacey is Managing Director and CEO of Brick by Brick Photo ©NinaSologubenko
There are many unique things about Croydon. The lack of supply of homes to suit local housing need is not one of them. The borough’s population is rising and is set to rise still further in the years ahead. Aside from the quantum of homes needed to house residents new and old, the affordability of homes for purchase and for rent is an increasingly challenging and emotive issue. Clearly, the productivity of the wider development sector is instrumental in addressing these needs and strategic instruments such as Croydon's new Local Plan will go a long way to enabling the development of new multi-tenure homes on appropriate sites throughout the borough. However, the private development industry, like most other economic ecosystems, has a finite and consistent production capacity and it is obvious that
the council must take a very direct role in delivery if a transformative change in local housing supply is to occur. Traditionally, housing development on council land has taken place using land disposal or joint venture agreements with 'property developers', an arrangement which often didn't deliver housing at the scale, tenure, quality or speed anticipated. Nor did this process really divest councils of development risk, or at least not to the extent that the comparatively paltry returns accruing to them would suggest. This type of experience has led Croydon and many other local authorities to seek a different approach to development and house building. Most councils already have the attributes of a serious development actor. They are major land owners, usually with enormous potential for new homes to be delivered on this land. They
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BRICK BY BRCK | COLM LACEY
are trusted financial entities, with very considerable short and long term borrowing capacity. They are staffed by people who, in one way or another, have been involved in steering the various processes of urban change through a range of economic conditions. So, in the context of seriously constrained central government funding and the attendant unsubtle nudge towards public sector commercialisation, how can authorities release the true value of these resources and deliver development activity which more directly benefits local communities? In Croydon, our answer was to establish our own independent development company, 'Brick by Brick'. Brick by Brick is structured as a private company (with the council as sole shareholder), placing it on an equal commercial footing with private developers. It borrows development finance from the council, paying a market rate for those funds which is significantly greater than that at which the council borrows, and uses this finance to purchase land from the council (again at market rates), prepare planning applications and develop out schemes. Any profit which arises from development activity is returned in full to the council as sole shareholder to be used to fund further development activity or invest in frontline council services. The basic intention here is to create a sealed economic sysRIGHT: Kingsdown Mae architects
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tem which prevents value from the development process from leaking out of the borough. So funding value, which would traditionally be paid to a bank in the form of an interest rate, is returned to the council as primary lender. Development and land related value, traditionally accruing to a developer or housebuilder, is returned in full to the council in the form of dividend. Similarly, there are potential economies of scale on build costs when delivering at scale, countering the many problems councils face when engaging with the contractor market for one off projects. One of the key aims of the company is to enable housing delivery in locations which would not otherwise come forward for development. By nature, Brick by Brick sites are infill or brownfield sites with an average lot size of around 20 units in suburban locations with comparatively low land values. In other words, constrained, complicated and certainly not the type of plots which would excite your common-or-garden housebuilder. In this context, the initial site identification process must include a significant amount of due diligence to avoid abortive costs. In our case, we undertake a detailed, construction focussed exercise including analysis of a wide range of issues such as policy and development control considerations, utilities surveys, geotechnical/civils, access issues etc. Using this
process, around 45 potential development sites have been identified thus far with a broad geographic spread throughout the borough. Even with the benefit of this analysis, a huge amount of work is still required to resolve physical site issues, address adjacency conditions and accommodate existing uses. Design innovation and expertise is therefore crucial, and Brick by Brick makes a point of commissioning a range of housing-focussed architecture practices, usually small to medium sized, who are willing to work in close collaboration and in very fine grain with the client to realise the full potential of these complex sites. Alongside this we have established an experienced in-house architecture team who act as a practice in their own right on some of our sites in addition to providing programme wide design specification and expert design clienting services. One of the others reasons we do this is because the potential impact of considered design in a programme like ours is vast. Ours are small, inherently local schemes, delivered at scale in many different locations throughout the borough. In a place like Croydon, which has struggled in the past with perception and reputation, the daily influence of properly designed schemes on streetscape quality and local pride and identity could be highly significant. Brick by Brick has made real progress over the last year, submitting 30 planning applications for our smaller sites programme which will provide around 600 new residential units. These sites have thus far provided some great case studies for development in outer London. Despite the comparatively low value context (typically £350 to £600 psf), we have been able to achieve 50% affordable housing in our applications to date, almost three times the average developer offer in Croydon over the last five years. This is partly due to our programme wide approach to affordable housing delivery, but it also offers an important narrative about the potential for affordable housing delivery in the absence of overinflated land prices and/or excessive developers profit.
We have also begun taking on larger sites, with 18 sites at pre-application stage which could provide 600 residential units and 45,000 sqft of new community facilities. Our 'Cultural Quarter' scheme in Central Croydon recently received planning approval and features a £30m investment into the wonderful Fairfield Halls complex, a new 200,000 sqft college/university building and approximately 1,400 new residential units alongside new public realm, retail and leisure space. Enabling works for this scheme are now on site with main works due to start in the summer. Of course there remains much to do, and we are under absolutely no illusions about the scale of the challenge ahead. We go to tender on our smaller sites programme later in the summer and while there has been a pleasing amount of interest thus far from quality contractors who want to join us on our journey, the cost, quality and programme task remains ever present. However, our ambition remains clear and undimmed - to create a sustainable framework for development activity which genuinely delivers local benefit yet remains robustly commercial. So far, so good. n
ABOVE: Homefield House Pitman Tozer architects BELOW: Regina Road Stitch architects
Colm Lacey is Managing Director and CEO of Brick by Brick and is responsible for the day-to-day operation and strategic direction of the company, and the delivery of all schemes. He is also currently Director of Development for Croydon Council, promoting responsible development activity throughout the borough and leading on major capital delivery projects. Previously, Colm has held a variety of high profile positions across London delivering some of the capitals most complex and demanding projects. This has included time at LB Newham as Director of Regeneration and Planning leading on the post-Olympic rebuilding of Stratford and the Royal Docks, and at the Greater London Authority leading on major regeneration projects in south and east London.
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THE MEANING OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT | SUE CHADWICK
Planning in Wonderland? Sue Chadwick argues that the NPPF presumption in favour of sustainable development undermines rather than preserves the Brundtland principles from which the term ‘sustainable development’ has evolved
Dr Sue Chadwick is senior associate in the planning and environmental team at solicitors Birketts LLP
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Planning in London
On 20th December 2010 the Minister of State at the determination of each and every application for planning perDepartment for Communities and Local Government mission. The meaning of ‘sustainable development’ within the announced plans to publish “a simple and consolidated Framework is being considered daily as the benchmark for national planning framework that covers all forms of devel- whether or not planning permission should be granted in relaopment and sets out national economic, environmental and tion to a wide range of proposals by planning officers, plansocial priorities”2. This document would also include a pre- ning committees, planning inspectors, and the secretary of sumption in favour of sustainable development, as part of a state. The term has many meanings in the planning context – and none. The definitional possibil“strong basis for economic ities of sustainable development growth”. The presumption 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty are ring-fenced by the content of imported an evaluative crisaid, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means the Framework itself and whether terion into the legal test a development is considered susthat – unlike the concept of Just what I choose it to mean — tainable is entirely dependent on development – had no forneither more nor less.” 1 the constantly mutating interacmal or enforceable definition between the development tion. This article argues that the Framework presumption in favour of sustainable devel- proposed, local circumstances and the policy context. In theory, there are a very wide range of actors involved in opment can be used to restrict or permit planning permission for a wide range of developments, with little regard the planning process including planning officers, local authorieither to previous local or national policy approaches or tra- ty members, and the community affected. Technically, all ditional understandings of sustainable development. This should have a say in whether or not a development is sustainundermines, rather than preserves the Brundtland principles able. In practice, particularly in relation to larger scale and more contentious proposals, the assessment of sustainability from which the term sustainable development has evolved. can easily be taken out of the hands of the local authority, by The term sustainable development was of course already the use of the Secretary of State’s powers of recovery or call in use in a range of international and national policies. In the in. In these cases, the exercise of planning judgment, including report ‘Our Common Future’ presented to the World the determination of whether or not the proposal constitutes Commission on Environment and Development to the UN sustainable development in the terms set out in the General Assembly in 1987 Gro Harlem Bruntland stated that Framework, is carried out by a planning inspector or the “Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable Secretary of State himself. Appeals are determined on a caseto ensure that it meets the needs of the present without comby-case basis with no consistent evaluative standards applied promising the ability of future generations to meet their own 3 so that assessment of sustainability is a qualitative, individual needs” . This has often been used as a ‘definition’ since and exercise entirely dependent on the unique combination of the indeed is included in the Framework itself. proposal, its locality and the planning policy context. The judiHowever, the Framework does not define sustainable ciary, unwilling to interfere with the decision maker’s discredevelopment. Instead, paragraph 6 states that “The policies in paragraphs 18 to 219, taken as a whole, constitute the tionary scope, also generally limit their consideration of susGovernment’s view of what sustainable development in tainable development to whether or not conformity with the England means in practice for the planning system.” The Framework has been properly considered. The 2010 statement introducing the Framework stated Framework refers to three dimensions of sustainable development but customises the concept through the intersecting that it would be “used as a mechanism for delivering consequences of the requirements of paragraphs six and four- Government objectives only where it is relevant, proportionteen of the Framework itself – and part of a system that ate and effective to do so”. However in practice the Allmendinger has referred to as “rigged to promote growth”4 Government has demonstrated a strong selection bias in the The Framework refers to three dimensions of sustainable use of recovery powers to intervene in the decision making development and even recites the Brundtland definition, but process relating to renewables and traveller developments. the essence of the concept - the need to restrict the growth of The 2010 statement said that the Framework would provide some world populations to preserve environmental capacity “clear policies on making robust local and neighbourhood for others - is rarely acknowledged or applied. The sustainabili- plans and development management decisions.” However, ty or otherwise of a proposal is assessed primarily on whether because sustainability is assessed based primarily on conformity with the Framework a number of Framework policies, most it is consistent with the Framework. The Framework is a relevant, material consideration in the notably paragraph 4, have proved very difficult to interpret so
that a simple phrase such as ‘policies for the supply of housing’ has recently been debated in the Supreme Court. In the 2012 Tesco case Lord Reed asserted that “planning authorities do not live in the world of Humpty Dumpty: they cannot make the development plan mean whatever they would like it to mean”5. This may or may not be true in relation to local authorities and development plans; in relation to sustainable development, the combination of the wide discretion available to the decision maker and the vague, contingent way in which that term is defined and employed in this particular context facilitates what can only be described as a ‘Humpty Dumpty’ approach to decision making. As the maker of policy, and with the scope to insert himself as decision maker into any planning consent process, the Secretary of State is the ‘master’ of the relevant discretionary space, the decision maker “sitting at the apex of the planning system”.6 Securely perched at the top of the decision-making hierarchy the Secretary of State is indeed the master of planning and able to adopt a Humpty Dumpty approach to the meaning of sustainable development. In December 2014 The Communities and Local Government Select Committee published its report on the NPPF. The first recommendation was that paragraph 6 - the statement that the policies in paragraphs 18 to 219, taken as a whole, constitute the Government’s view of what sustainable development means in practice – should be removed, and that the page 2 definition – clearly referencing Brundtland – should “stand on its own.” The Government response, published in February 2015, rejected that recommendation, stating instead that it was for the planning system to look for environmental, social and economic gains, depending on the particular development in its specific context7. The government also rejected opposition proposals for statutory definitions of sustainable development in the committee proceedings prior to enactment of 2016 Housing and Planning Act and currently underway for the Neighbourhood Planning Bill. The government shows no appetite for changing the current definition of sustainable development in the Framework or for adopting a new definition in any of the emerging legislation. A definition is nevertheless required. There are already two legislative examples – section 39 of the 2004 Act or section 2 of the Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. Alternatively the Government could adopt sustainable development goals for planning that would enable a sustainable development ‘scorecard’ to be produced for proposed developments. It seems unlikely that the Government will introduce either a statutory definition of sustainable development or any kind of empirical analysis of the sustainability of particular proposals. Unfortunately this leaves judges, rather than policy makers
and communities, as the individuals who consider and rule on the meaning of sustainable development. Even more unfortunately this seems likely to produce outcomes like that of paragraph 53 of Mr Justice Green’s judgement in East Staffordshire part of which is set out on below8. ‘The Inspector has not explained why the Proposed Development is "sustainable" when it prima facie is inconsistent with significant policies in the Local Plan. There is one aspect of the argument that has caused me some hesitation. The Inspector says that the proposal was a "sustainable development". This is expressly set out in the second sentence of paragraph [40] of his Decision (see paragraph [18] above). I agree with Mr Justice Jay in Cheshire at paragraph [24] where he states that the point of paragraph [14] is to lead decision makers "… along a tightly defined and constrained path, at the end of which the decision must be: is this sustainable development or not?". The reference to "or not" is a reference to the binary outcome of the paragraph [14] process. But that conclusion is not decisive because (as was also recognised by Mr Justice Jay) it is accepted that there is a discretion outside of paragraph [14]. It is therefore, in principle, open to a decision maker to approve a proposal which is not, technically speaking, "sustainable development" within the meaning of paragraph [14]. In all probability if a development was approved outside the scope of paragraph [14] it would have to be "sustainable" else it is hard to see how or why it could or would have been properly approved. Mr Choongh for the Developer gave an illustration of a site that might he argued theoretically fall outside of a Local Plan but would nonetheless be "sustainable". He hypothesised a scenario whereby ten sites were initially submitted to the authority as possible sites for development. Each of these sites was eminently sustainable in a physical sense. However the authority chose only 8 of the 10 sites upon the basis that only 8 sites were needed when set against the present economic and policy based assessment of housing need. It was argued that this would not, without more, indicate that sites 9 and 10 were "unsustainable". They would have been rejected for reasons other than their intrinsic "sustainability". As such, he argued that paragraph [14] could not lead, inexorably, to a conclusion that any proposal inconsistent with the Local Plan was for a site which was necessarily unsustainable. However, counsel for both the Local Authority and Secretary of State declined to pin their forensic colours to an endorsement of this proposition. Both considered that it would be highly unlikely that a development on an unplanned site would be acceptable or "sustainable" and they pointed out that under paragraph [7] NPPF a site might well be defined as unsustainable for a variety of micro or macro-economic, social or environmental reasons such that Mr Choongh's example they considered begged more questions than it answered. I see some force in this argument but it does not wholly explain how one categorises a development which is inconsistent with a Local Plan yet is still, quite properly, to be approved: would such a development not, ex hypothesi, be sustainable?
If this is the ‘meaning’ of sustainable development then the planning system is indeed heading for Wonderland. n
FOOTNOTES 1 Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass (Collins Classics 2010) 83 2 HC Deb 20th December 2010 Col144WS 3 World Commission on Environment and Development Our Common Future (OUP 1987) 4 Philip Allmendinger Neoliberal Spatial Governance Routledge p18 5 Tesco Stores Ltd v Dundee City Council (Scotland) [2012] UKSC 13 (21 March 2012) para 19 6 Clive Moys “Has the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 stood the test of time? J.P.L. 2016, 5, 447-456 7 CLG Committee Inquiry into the operation of the National Planning Policy Framework Government response (CM 9016 February 2015) 8 East Staffordshire Borough Council v Secretary of State for Communities & Local Government & Anor [2016] EWHC 2973
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HIGH STREETS | LARS CHRISTIAN
Is the death and resurrection of London's high streets nigh? The town centre high street of the future in London and Britain should be about denser living says Lars Christian
Lars Christian, UrbanPilot London & Scandinavia
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Planning in London
Life in Britain has changed extensively over the last 70 years since the end of the second world war. However, it is unclear whether the town centre high streets have caught up with the twenty-first century post car urban era. This article argues that urban Britain may have to change further before the four nations embraces the town centre high street of the future. Visiting Merton or South Wimbledon as the place is also known, one should be forgiven for assuming that one has returned to 1970s Britain. Equally surprising and interesting is that the public realm of Croydon, the largest 'city centre' of outer London, gives associations to the 1970s – 40 years later. With frequent poor public realm and poor provisions for pedestrians and cyclists, as well as poor provisions for cars and lorries attempting to reach or bypass Croydon – north, east, south or west. It is uncertain whether this proves that Merton and parts of Croydon were not meant to change, but be preserved in their late 19th century ambiance of pedestrians and horse drawn carts and coaches. Without taking into account that the world has moved on – that e-bikes, globalisation and long distance commuting are here to stay. But why this rather sorry state of affairs in London and elsewhere? Who failed at what time? How has this been allowed to go on for so long? What can the next generation do differently? Not least by learning from our adjacent northern European and North Sea neighbours – the Scandinavians, the Dutch and the Germans. And is London performing better or worse than elsewhere in Britain? A post second world war urban backlash? Post second world war high streets gradually embraced two aspects of the car – the driven and the parked car. The way this was done changed throughout the second half to the century, from prudent attempts in the 40s and 50s, to costlier physical interventions in the 60s and 70s, and back to more cautious attempts in the 80s, 90s and 00s. Parallel to this, life and society has changed extensively throughout the last two to three generations. Changes to retail, catering, services and entertainment; as well as to people's domestic, housing, education, work, commuter, week, weekend, leisure, holiday and retirement habits and customs. However, attempts to accommodate physical urban changes with social changes has not always matched well. A noticeable failure in much of Britain since 1979 may be the location and low proportion of new quality denser housing. To better reflect the increase in smaller households, longer edu-
cations, longer domestic and overseas retirement, longer week and weekend commutes. As well as to better reflect more frequent and faraway weekends and holidays, more second homes, as well as more suburban, out of town and internet retail, catering, leisure and entertainment. It is not immediately clear if or why London's or Britain's high streets suffered more than elsewhere. However, there are some noticeable characteristics that may partly explain why Britain's high streets may have fared differently. Some more obvious differences between the European continent and Britain include: i) The high proportion of row houses versus apartments in neighbourhoods adjacent to town centre high streets. ii) Much of the pre-war road and path system is still in use in many towns and cities, catering badly for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians alike. iii) The use, misuse or non use of compulsory purchase planning powers versus zoning or local development planning orders. iv) The detailed and maybe obsolete land use class planning system. v) A post war backlash against the frameworks, plans and visions that state, county and local authorities prepared and implemented, sometimes disregarding local people's long term needs, prosperity and aspirations. vi) The sometimes more distinct division(s) between the owner-occupied and private rented versus the social rented households and neighbourhoods. vii) And lastly the location, connection and layout of light industrial estates and retail parks. Including the lack of long term plans and visions of how these estates and parks relate to existing and future suburban residential neighbourhoods and rail, bus, road and path systems.
Ten lessons and recommendations The Urban Task Force published recommendations for how to proceed with town centre regeneration in 2000 – already half a generation ago. Aiming for the same goals and objectives, set out below is an alternative set of ten recommendations to strengthening town centre high streets: First_ A long term objective would be to replace off-street car parking with maisonettes and apartments, as city centres cannot compete with edge-of-town parking provisions. This may challenge town centre retail as we know it, but will revive town centre living for young couples, young families, single adults, adult couples, elderly couples and elderly singles. Accounting for half the households of Britain, smaller households need considerable retail, leisure and service provisions – even if typically of a different kind from suburban couples with two or more children.
Second_ Another objective would be to allow new buildings in neighbourhoods adjacent to town centres to be approximately twice as high as existing buildings. As medium-rise building heights combine more readily with higher quality private and public realm. Further, allowing only residential permit curb-side car parking and parking within the building's footprint, will improve compactness, save space and shorten walking and cycling distances in town centre neighbourhoods. Requiring new apartment and mixed-use developments to either provide a communal or roof top garden or contribute to an adjacent square or pocket park, will improve provisions for children, the elderly, adults and sports. Third_ To increase the number of housing units, allow two and three storey twenty century high street buildings to add a double mansard roof. Thus keeping the original two storey facades intact, by requiring owners to stick to one of three or four approved designs for roof extensions along the same street or row of houses. Where relevant, simultaneously require front extensions to be stepped back to allow for better private and public realm. Forth_ Differentiate housing targets. Nationally, maybe half of all new apartments built since 1979 have been located in suburban or edge-of-town neighbourhoods. Whilst the proportion varies from district to district, more districts should aim to locate a higher proportion of new apartments within short cycling distance of their town centre high street over the next few decades. Five_ Accommodate cyclists before car drivers. Starting with high streets and selected adjacent (side) streets, this will stimulate to more local short distance cycling and e-cycling. As locals take up cycling more frequently and invest in more bikes, in towns and cities with shared bikes. After having initially tried a bike share or seen friends or neighbours bike share. Six_ Stick to one single, simple, cost effective and long term
public realm standard. Lessons from Berlin are relevant, where renovations and (re)developments are given environmental credit for either upgrading the pavement, adding public or private trees and/or hedges or similar, within the property itself, in-front or nearby. A minimum of credit is required to obtain building or planning permissions. And since the 1950s, Berlin uses three kinds of pavement stones, a few cycle lane and a single tree planting design standard throughout an area half the size of London. The standard is equally applied in the inner city as well as suburban mixed use, commercial, industrial and residential neighbourhoods. Seven_ In some countries, zoning is used rather than compulsory purchase orders in regenerating areas of multiple land ownership. Local development orders or zoning may allow more stakeholders to take financially contribute to regeneration – and potentially speed up and gain from it. Allocating individual urban blocks to different teams of developers and designers is notably used in Malmö and Stockholm to improve both design quality and speed of delivery. Eight_ Town centre high streets should be as much about socio-cultural as socio-economic activities and services. As towns and cities grow more suburban, bringing socio-cultural life back to our town centre high streets is increasingly important. This implies attracting more catering, leisure, sports and entertainment offers and activities, rather than first and foremost retail. This should include services and activities that are open in the evening, to function as a social node for smaller young, adult and older households in adjacent neighbourhoods. Households that on average may have higher disposable income than (suburban) households with children. Nine_ Town centre high streets should attract businesses that are not in competition with e-commerce or car dependent retail and services. For example, businesses that offer services and activities that are more people intensive, either from a cus-
LEFT: Figure 1 shows South London's 12 boroughs with a 1.5 or 2 miles square grid for inner and outer boroughs respectively, excluding the greenbelt. Also shown is Southwark with the five potential town centre high streets mentioned in the article, four in Lambeth, three in Lewisham, six in Wandsworth as well as one main town centre in each outer borough. Given a town centre high street every 1.5 or 2 miles, distances to the nearest is on average under half a mile in the inner boroughs and just over ⅔ mile in the outer boroughs – within easy reach of most inhabitants on foot, by bike or e-bike. The number of households per town centre high street varies between 22-31k (49-71k inhabitants) in the four inner boroughs and 1321k (34-52k) in the eight outer boroughs. A population large enough to support a variety of local retail, catering, services and entertainment – given households of normal income distribution in adjacent neighbourhoods (UrbanPilot 2©17)
>>>
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HIGH STREETS | LARS CHRISTIAN
>>> tomer's or a provider's perspective. As well as businesses that are life style orientated and provide a niche in the market. Ten_ Edge-of-town mixed use industrial and retail parks should not compete with town centre high streets. Where appropriate, they should supplement the latter and become twenty-first century suburban or edge-of-town destinations typically serving suburban and edge-of-town car based larger households of couples with children.
ABOVE AND RIGHT: Figures 2 and 3 shows the high streets of Bexley and Exeter, maybe two of the more outstanding high streets of Southern England. To further strengthen the two centres and better cater for smaller households, both places would gain from aiming to locate half of new apartments in neighbourhoods within short cycling distance of the two high streets over the next few decades (wikimedia).
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Planning in London
London's two hundred high streets In London, large row housing neighbourhoods typically date from before the second world war, whilst council apartment neighbourhoods, typically as small or medium size infills, ruled after that. Post war neighbourhoods typically have complex or high-maintenance private and public realm, especially when accommodating the car was either attempted from the outset or retrospectively. Throughout London, retail is sometimes mixed with light industry, with limited long term thinking and planning of how outer London suburbs will or can grow a little higher and a little more compact. And how residents and business should go about their daily lives – one or two generations into the future. Accommodating light industry, retail and housing in high quality mixed used bicycle friendly neighbourhoods have proved especially challenging in outer London (1). The traditional high streets of London were gradually challenged as car ownership rose. However, some of the high streets have experienced a renaissance after the turn of the century. The renaissance of selected town centre high streets have a number of socio-economic causes, including: i) Gentrification, ii) Higher tube, train and bus usage, iii) Lower car ownership and usage, iv) Relatively fewer and wealthier pensioners, v) More younger, smaller and low-debt households, and vi) Relatively more jobs, fewer unemployed and more above average income households. In London, each borough may have only a handful of twenty first century, larger and busier 'town centre' high streets of the future, or a total of a couple of hundred across London (fig 1). To use Southwark as an example, three high streets of the future may be found in neighbourhoods such as Canada Water, Elephant & Castle and Old Kent Road – supplementing two thriving existing ones, East Dulwich and Peckham. If given six dozen town centre high streets across South London's twelve boroughs, each serve an average of approx 19k households and 40k inhabitants on an area of approx 1.5 or 2 square miles (2). High streets typically reached on average within ½ or ¾ mile or 10-15 minutes on foot, by bike or e-bike by local inhabitants. Taking two East London town centres, both served by the future Elizabeth Crossrail line, Ilford a few miles northeast of
LONDON’S RAILWAY STATIONS | TONY DUCKENFIELD
The railway network – the beating heart of London Stratford and Woolwich a few miles east of Greenwich on the south bank of the river Thames. Both of the town centre high streets' future attractiveness may be directly related to their physical settings and physical potentials – or lack of. Independent of local and strategic public policy, finance and investment. As for town centres and high streets elsewhere in the Docklands, it is too early to predict the long term success of potential town centres such as Silvertown, North Greenwich, Ebbsfleet, Canning Town, Canary Wharf, Canada Water and Barking Riverside (3).
Stations play an important role in supporting local people and local businesses says Tony Duckenfield
Town centre high streets of the future The town centre high street of the future in London and Britain should be about denser living, catering for nearby mixed use and residential neighbourhoods of denser and smaller households – for the young, adults and the elderly. High streets that should first and foremost cater for households that go about their daily life, chores, routines and activities by foot, bike or e-bike – without the need of a car for typical daily local journeys. Similarly, town centre high streets of the future should differ from suburban edge of town high streets. Reflecting the different needs and characteristics of smaller urban town centre households versus large suburban edge of town households – and how the two differ in going about their daily lives and their daily travel. n
RIGHT: Figure 1: Growth in rail travel in London and elsewhere, 2008-9 to 2015-16 Source: ORR
From icons such as St Pancras and Kings Cross to workhorses such as Surbiton and Catford, London’s mainline railway stations are a vital element of London’s transport network as well as its character. As London continues to develop and grow, the railways can play a crucial part in managing this growth in a sustainable manner. At the same time, London stations are the foundation of the whole rail network, with around half of all rail trips going through a London station (see London Station Facts and Figure 1 which shows how growth at London stations has outstripped the rest of the country).
NOTES 1 Read more about 'A cycling revolution, half a century of catching up to do' in PiL 97/2016 2 South London extends over an area of 525 km2 excl 125 km2 of greenbelt with about 3 million inhabitants and 1.2 million jobs or ⅓, ⅓ and ¼ of London respectively. 3 Read more about the 'Thames estuary in a post-car metropolitan urban era' in PiL 91/2014
Tony Duckenfield is Head of Insight at consultants Steer Davies Gleave
London station facts • Number of stations: 329 • Annual trips: 1,471,957,408 entries and exits • Share of all trips: 50% • Busiest station: Waterloo (99,148,388 entries and exits)
Recently though there has been a growing recognition of the role and importance of stations across the industry and amongst politicians and planners, with some important work undertaken on behalf of the Rail Delivery Group, RSSB and DfT. One common thread running through these studies is the recognition of the need to better integrate our stations with the places they serve. One of the first pieces of work to highlight this was the Rail Delivery Group (RDG) Vision for Stations which was developed with help from Steer Davies Gleave. This vision established nine core principles (see Figure 2) which, amongst other factors highlights integration with the local community and its needs. Since its launch in 2015 it has gained strong recognition and initiated an on-going process of encouraging disparate parts of the industry to move in the same direction. In particular it is helping break down the barriers between the station and the environment it sits in, and the places it serves. This concept is well illustrated by images produced by architects BPR which blur the boundaries between the physical station and the local streetscape (see Figure 3).
A stations dashboard – the one stop shop for data on stations and communities The theme of bringing together stations with the places >>>
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BOOKS | JULIA PARK
One hundred years of housing space standards: What now? Julia Park introduces her new e-book LEFT: Figure 3: Station design concept blurring the boundaries of the station with its surrounding streetscape Source BPR Architects
>>> they serve has been taken further in the RSSB’s stations dashboard. In this research study, the RSSB commissioned Steer Davies Gleave to explore the potential for creating a dashboard which can be used by industry insiders and external stakeholders such as local authorities, LEPs, and developers to make better informed decisions using the latest available data. The result is a prototype dashboard which acts as an interface with a wide range of data (a ‘data warehouse’) relating to each station and its catchment area. This includes data available from ORR, National Rail Enquiries and the ONS, amongst other sources. The prototype dashboard is now being used by the DfT in the East Midlands franchise competition process, while there is considerable interest in rolling it out more widely and making it available to planners across the country.
Figure 2: Nine Principles behind the Vision for Stations P1: Customer focussed P2: Intelligent use of technology P3: Seamless journey experience P4: Reflect local needs and opportunities P5: Safe and secure environment P6: Entrepreneurial spirit P7: Flexible and long-term stewardship P8: Shared industry know-how P9: Optimised network 82
Planning in London
Uncovering the value of stations to communities In 2013 we examined the local economic impacts of station related investment on behalf of Network Rail, while more recently we have looked at the community benefits that can arise or be triggered by collaborative investment and engagement at and around railway stations. This work highlighted the challenges associated with the railway working together with local authorities, but also how when rail industry and local community agencies actively work together the station, railway, and community all benefit. Our work again has reiterated the points we made in our 2011 report: • the benefits are maximised when there is collaborative investment that supports regeneration of the station and its local neighbourhood; • action is most likely to occur when there is strong leadership around a common intent; • all parties, railway and non, need to acknowledge, recognise and empathise with the policy objectives, funding constraints and operational implications of their partners – expecting others to “stump up the cash” without compromise is more likely to result in delay frustration and inaction or a suboptimal scheme. So what next for London’s stations? While the railway landscape in London will be transformed over the coming years with high profile major projects it is important to remember that rail stations play an important role in dozens of towns and neighbourhoods across the capital, and that there is room for these relatively unsung stations to play an even more crucial role in supporting local people and local businesses. This can be achieved by greater collaboration between the railway and planning authorities, and by utilising the latest information and tools available, such as those highlighted here. n
Cover image, Brunswick Centre, Camden. Image by Ed Hill
Tony Duckenfield is Head of Insight at consultants Steer Davies Gleave. He specialises in transport and has worked in the field for over thirty years. He has been heavily involved in the projects referred to including the RDG Vision for Stations, and the RSSB Sustainable Stations Framework which included as one of its outputs the prototype stations dashboard. He has worked extensively on projects in London and has been seconded to TfL a number of times, most recently to help them develop a geodemographic tool, the TfL Classification of Londoners, being used to support the planning of future transport provision.
Download the publication for free here: http://housingspacestandards.co.uk/
Just 18 months after the government introduced the Nationally Described Space Standard, (NDSS) there are signs that it is considering withdrawing, or relaxing it. The White Paper proposes a review; suggesting that space standards are a ‘one size fits all approach’, and ‘rule out new approaches to meeting demand’. This new book, written by Julia Park, architect and Head of Housing Research at Levitt Bernstein, is therefore timely. Part history, part insight, part opinion, the account begins with a summary of the evolution, or perhaps more accurately, the comings and goings, of the various space standards that have been applied to new housing in England. Wavering is nothing new when it comes to the highly controversial subject of space standards, but few governments have wavered this soon or against a backdrop of such, rigorous cross-sector debate, and such overwhelming public support. When asked in the 2013 consultation whether a space standard was necessary, 80 per cent of respondents agreed that it was. Reflecting on what history tells us, the book examines the role of space standards in the context of the current housing crisis and explores how themes such as under-occupancy, overcrowding, density, mix, land value, viability and politics are all part of the story. The final section offers informed thoughts about the way forward. The chronology reveals that housing space standards can be traced back almost exactly a century to the Tudor Walters report of 1918. This ambitious document was produced as the First World War drew to an end. Relief that the fighting was over and optimism about the future were accompanied by some harsh realities. War is all consuming. As the soldiers returned it was obvious that general living conditions had become very poor, quite apart from the widespread bomb damage. A huge housebuilding programme became a social and political priority. The Housing Act of 1935 defined minimum bedroom areas as a means to control overcrowding. Seen then as just a starting point, it still holds today. It was not until the 1960s that we got our first set of comprehensive, evidence-based space standards. If not aspirational, then certainly ‘decent’, the ‘Parker Morris’ standards are probably still the best-known space standards in England; perhaps even internationally. They were widely lauded and held for two decades before being abolished in 1980 by prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who considered them an ‘unnecessary barrier’. The historic account pays particular attention to the last ten years; a decade which seems certain to go down in history as one of the most interesting in the evolution of space standards. In 2012, the Mayor of London set a bold precedent by officially
Buccleuch House, Hackney. Image by Tim Crocker
extending his new housing space standards to all tenures. That same year, concerned by the uncontrolled proliferation of ‘local housing standards’, the government initiated a major review of housing standards. The introduction of the NDSS in 2015 was one of the chief outcomes. Cross-country and cross-tenure, it is now the only space standard that can be applied by any local authority in England. Despite being ‘optional’ (subject to need and viability testing) it is arguably the closest we have ever come to a national, universally applicable space standard. All the more remarkable given that the review was part of a cost-cutting, deregulatory exercise. It is unclear how many authorities have adopted the new space standard, and it will be many more years before we understand the impact it will have. This informed account reflects on a process that saw the pros and cons of space standards rigorously debated by a pan-industry, ‘expert working group’. After fierce, initial opposition from the housebuilders, the mood changed and >>>
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BOOKS
BOOKS: MOBILISING HOUSING HISTORIES
Mobilising Housing Histories
Julia Park is an experienced architect who has specialised in housing for almost 30 years. An expert in housing policy and standards, she is currently Head of Housing Research at Levitt Bernstein, a multi-disciplinary practice based in London and Manchester. Continually pushing for higher quality housing, Julia contributes widely to debate and publications, tests new ideas and shares theories. She writes a regular housing column for Building Design, contributes articles to other journals, and coauthored the 2009 HAPPI Report and the National Housing Federation’s Housing Standards Handbook, 2016. Julia carries out training, works with national organisations and policy makers, including the GLA and HCA, and is the chair of the RIBA Housing Group and a member of the Housing Forum. She was seconded to the Department of Communities and Local Government to assist with its review of housing standards in 2013-14.
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Julia Park reviews Mobilising Housing Histories edited by Peter Guillery and David Kroll; RIBA Publications
the new space standard eventually received an overwhelming mandate through public consultation. Space is likely to remain a highly contentious issue. Many people believed then, and still believe now, that it would be simpler, better and fairer for the space standard to be regulated. This evidence-based report reopens the debate in the context of the housing market as a whole. It concludes that the benefits of regulation are likely to significantly outweigh any disadvantages, and could be a catalyst for far-reaching, positive changes in the way we live; assuming that is, that it lasts long enough to allow history to be the judge of that. n TOP: Brunswick Centre, Camden. Image by Ed Hill. LEFT: Dombey Street, Camden. Image by Dennis Gilbert BELOW: Dial House, Haringey. Image by Jo Reid & John Peck
This book is beautifully written and immaculately timed. Its 11 chapters combine personal experience, professional insight, well-framed views with meticulous research; so don’t expect to get through it in a weekend. There is nothing sentimental about Mobilising Housing Histories. Instead there is deep concern about what London has already lost, what remains at stake, the pace of change - and our apparent failure to learn from history. In his foreword, Owen Hatherley recounts his own experience of living in London. Arriving at 18, his first London ‘home’ was a hall of residence in New Cross (with ‘a view of what was then the only tower in Canary Wharf’). He progressed to a shared flat above a shop, followed by a series of similarly impoverished, rented rooms; moving further and further out in an attempt to beat rising rents. It is, as he says, a very familiar story. David Kroll’s introduction prepares the ground for the rich patchwork of essays that forms the individual chapters of the book - each written by a different author. Most focus on a specific era but others cover a much longer period. Some concentrate on the history of a particular building (such as the Balfron Tower), or on a particular theme, (such as the ‘sink estate’). They are presented in roughly chronological order and stand alone, as well as together – not by any means a complete history of London but a series of insights that collectively tell a powerful story. There has been no attempt to unify the style, or even the message, but that works well and there are links if you look for them. Although the essays mobilise London’s past from varied perspectives, they all comment on design, social, economic and policy issues – as they must if they are to offer meaningful lessons for the future. The book does not claim to offer solutions but it helps by first posing, and then probing, some clear questions. Kroll asks, ‘What kind of housing is needed? And how to go about providing it? Housing has a crucial role in contributing to quality of life and wellbeing. These are therefore ultimately also questions of the kind of place that London will be in the future. Affordable housing should not be confused with building cheaply, which would have little impact on house prices; construction costs have only been a minor factor in the escalation of housing costs over
Before ‘How do we build 55,000 new homes a year?’ it would be good to ask, ‘What kind of city do we want London to become?’ Julia Park is an architect and head of housing research at Levitt Bernstein
recent decades. Part of the challenge is therefore to take a longterm and holistic view of affordability, which also means making London’s housing more energy-efficient and sustainable.’ He picks up on the big issues that beset the city. What makes this book so timely is that London seems to have reached a tipping point. Until very recently it has felt like a city for everyone - a culturally diverse mix of young and old, rich and poor - and that has been critical to its success. It is a cruel irony that this success also risks being its downfall by damaging the very thing that made it so popular. London is only just hanging on to the rich mix of physical and social fabric that has created the mixed-use, mixed-scale, mixed-style architecture and the mixed-tenure, mixed-income, mixed-ethnicity communities that have made it uniquely welcoming and real. New developments in inner London now routinely exceed 500 dwellings per hectare. The definition of ‘mid-rise’ is being stretched as much as the definition of ‘affordable housing’ and fewer spaces are genuinely ‘public’. It’s beginning to feel like a city for an unknown elite. Faced with a monumental challenge, the new Mayor and his team at City Hall have listened to many of the warnings and are beginning to provide some of the answers. But this book makes you wonder whether they have asked themselves the right question. Before ‘How do we build 55,000 new homes a year?’ it would be good to ask, ‘What kind of city do we want London to become?’ Those responsible for the next London Plan would do well to read this book before deciding whether it’s possible to achieve both at the same time. n
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BOOKS | CLASSIC COLUMNS
Planning Law Update Conference 29 June 2017 | London
This one-day conference will provide a thorough, thought provoking examination of key legal issues and will help delegates to navigate the labyrinth of the current UK planning system. It will address and critically assess major SROLF\ FKDQJHV QHZ OHJLVODWLRQ DQG D QXPEHU RI VLJQLČ´ FDQW ministerial and judicial decisions.
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Housing
Classic Columns: 40 Years of Writing on Architecture by Robert Adam Reviewed by Riette Oosthuizen
Classic Columns: 40 Years of Writing on Architecture by Robert Adam (Edited by Clive Aslet with foreword by Sir Roger Scruton)
“For Adam, in order to improve life in the city â€œâ€Ś we must restore city identity, civic life, and communal responsibility but ‌ we will not do so if we try to recreate an idealised past that will not fit with the important changes in living that have taken place in the last two centuriesâ€?
The housing white paper Environmental Impact Assessment Neighbourhood plans
020 3553 9736 | rtpiconferences.co.uk/planninglaw
This collection of the Classicist Robert Adam’s writings, spanning a period of 40 years, is an intellectual and passionate tour de force. At times it is highly provocative. It covers a wide range of subjects on architecture as a reflection of wider societal change. Major topic areas include the role of traditions and traditionalism; classical composition as a design framework for today in contrast with modernism; our cities as having lost the focus on human scale and beauty; the disappearing architect (for example estate agents defining ‘value’ and therefore driving the quality of new mass-market homes); the impact of globalisation; the British desire to create arcadias; and a warning of what the future may hold. I found Classic Columns to be an informative, well thought through and insightful perspective on the interaction between built and artistic form and changing cultural, economic, and technological forces. Adam focusses on the importance of incorporating tradition into architecture instead of meaningless ‘copying’ – the latter something the mass housing market in particular suffers from. To incorporate tradition is to incorporate humanism for Adam. He is fiercely against Modernism, even refers to it as banal. For him, life and our surroundings are never
Dr Riette Oosthuizen is a partner at HTA Design LLP
just new, but always a continuum of aspects from the past, the present and future. He argues: “We no longer need to feel some duty to be just to prove that we are being modern, or true to our age, or of our time. This is an historical concept, not a traditional concept. The destruction wrought by the idea that deliberate difference was the only way to be authentically modern in an historic environment has been devastating� (p80). Adams makes the case for the importance and contribution
of the traditionalist in architecture in many ways. I found his argument that built and spatial heritage must be for the benefit of an identifiable group or community particularly interesting as in planning policy terms ‘conservation value' is generally the realm of the somewhat removed expert. Unfortunately there is no example in the book of a design outcome where an identifiable group or community was closely engaged in ascribing value and meaning with the architect: this would be an interesting outcome. Adam conclude his book with a warning: “It is possible that we are witnessing in architecture and urbanism precisely the dialogue between homogenisation and fragmentation that is found in society, economics, and politics. We are, nonetheless, likely to see the continued espousals of the cult-like doctrine of modernism; the attraction of exclusivity, radicalism, and historical determinism will take a long time to pass. As a consequence, the persistence of what has become an almost ritual disparagement of traditionalist will continueâ€? (p227). For Adam, in order to improve life in the city â€œâ€Ś we must restore city identity, civic life, and communal responsibility, but ‌ we will not do so if we try to recreate an idealised past that will not fit with the important changes in living that have taken place in the last two centuriesâ€? (p129). Whether you agree with Adam or not, he makes thorough, well-argued points even if at times highly personal. A book well worth reading. n
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DIRECTORY DIRECTORY
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Jeanette.collins@brent.gov.uk 020 8937 5206
Ric Patterson Head of Building Control richard.patterson@croydon.gov.uk
London Borough of Ealing Perceval House 14-16 Uxbridge Road Ealing London W5 2HL
Andy Bates Team Manager South Andy.bates@brent.gov.uk 020 8937 5228 Tim Rolt Enforcement Manager Tim.rolt@brent.gov.uk 020 8937 5206
City of London Department of the Built Environment PO Box 270 Guildhall London EC2P 2EJ
Jeanette Collins Area Planning Support Manager
020 7332 1710 www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/planning
020 8825 6600 http://www.ealing.gov.uk/planning Martin Smith Chief Executive smithm@ealing.gov.uk 020 8825 7089
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Issue 99Issue OCTOBER-DECEMBER 101 April-June 2016 2017
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PLANNING AND ENVIRONMENT REFERENCE GUIDE
Lucy Taylor Director of Regeneration and Planning Policy taylorl@ealing.gov.uk 020 8825 9036 Noel Rutherford Director of Built Environment rutherfordn@ealing.gov.uk 020 8825 6639 Pat Hayes Executive Director Regeneration & Housing hayesp@ealing.gov.uk 020 8825 8280 London Borough of Enfield
Tim.jackson@greenwich.gov.uk 020 8921 5463 Sue Sewell Head of Democratic Services sue.sewell@greenwich.gov.uk 0208 921 5670 Andrew Parker Planning Manager (Major Developments) Andrew.parker@greenwich.gov.uk 020 8921 5875
Simon Thelwell Planning Control Manager (Projects and Compliance) simon.thelwell@havering.gov.uk 01708 432685 London Borough of Haringey Level 6 River Park House 225 High Road Wood Green London N22 8HQ
Martyn Thomas Development & Transport Planning Manager martyn.thomas@havering.gov.uk 01708 432845
020 8489 1400 http://www.haringey.gov.uk/planning London Borough of Hackney Environment and Planning Hackney Service Centre 1 Hillman Street E8 1DY 020 8356 8062 http://www.hackney.gov.uk/planning PO Box Civic Centre, Silver Street Enfield EN1 3XE 020 8379 4419 http://www.enfield.gov.uk/planning Rob Leak Chief Executive Chief.executive@enfield.gov.uk 020 8379 3902 Joanne Woodward Head of Planning Policy Joanne.woodward@enfield.gov.uk 020 8379 3881 Bob Griffiths Assistant Director Planning, Highways & Transportation Bob.griffiths@enfield.gov.uk 020 8379 3676 Andy Higham Head of Development Management Andy.higham@enfield.gov.uk 020 8379 3848
Tim Shields Chief Executive tim.shields@hackney.gov.uk 020 8356 3201 John Allen Assistant Director of Planning and Regulatory Services john.allen@hackney.gov.uk 020 8356 8134 Randall Macdonald Head of Spatial Planning 020 8356 8051
London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham Hammersmith Town Hall Extension King Street London W6 9JU 020 8748 3020 http://www.lbhf.gov.uk/planning Nigel Pallace Chief Executive nigel.pallace@lbhf.gov.uk 020 8753 3000
Royal Borough of Greenwich Council The Woolwich Centre 35 Wellington Street London SE18 6HQ 0208 921 6426 http://www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/planning John Comber Chief Executive John.comber@greenwich.gov.uk 020 8921 6426
Pat Cox Head of Policy & Spatial Planning Pat.cox@lbhf.gov.uk 020 8753 5773 John Finlayson Head of Planning Regeneration John.finlayson@lbhf.gov.uk 020 8753 6743 Ellen Whitchurch Head of Development Management ellen.whitchurch@lbhf.gov.uk 020 8753 3484
Mike Hows Assistant Director of Planning mike.hows@greenwich.gov.uk 020 8921 5363
Matin Miah Head of Regeneration & Development matin.miah@lbhf.gov.uk 0208 753 3482
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Dan Hawthorn Assistant Director for Regeneration Dan.hawthorn@haringey.gov.uk 020 8489 5678
London Borough of Hillingdon Civic Centre, High Street Uxbridge UB8 1UW 01895 250111 www.hillingdon.gov.uk/planning Jean Palmer OBE Deputy Chief Executive and Corporate Director Residents Services jean.palmer@hillingdon.gov.uk 0189 5250622 Nigel Dicker Deputy Director of Residents Services Ndicker@hillingdon.gov.uk 01895 250566
London Borough of Harrow PO Box 37 Civic Centre, Station Road Harrow HA1 2UY
Michael Lockwood Chief Executive leaders.appointments@harrow.gov.uk 020 8863 5611 Caroline Bruce Corporate Director-Environment & Enterprise caroline.bruce@harrow.gov.uk 020 8416 8628 Paul Nichols Divisional Director of Planning paul.nichols@harrow.gov.uk 020 8736 6149
James Rodger Head of Planning and Enforcement james.rodger@hillingdon.gov.uk 01895 250230 Jales Tippell Deputy Director Policy, Highways and Community Engagement jales.tippell@hillingdon.gov.uk 01895 250230
London Borough of Havering Town Hall, Main Road Romford RM1 3BD 01708 433100 https://www.havering.gov.uk/planning Cheryl Coppell Chief Executive cheryl.coppell@havering.gov.uk 01708 432062 Andrew Blake-Herbert Group Director for Community and Resources (Deputy Chief Executive) Andrew.blakeherbert@havering.gov.uk Helen Oakerbee
020 7527 6743 http://www.islington. gov.uk/ services/planning Lesley Seary, Chief Executive lesley.seary@islington.gov.uk 020 7527 3136
Eshwyn Prabhu Team Leader for Planning & Projects eshwyn.prabhu@islington.gov.uk 020 7527 2450 Victoria Geoghegan Head of Development Management & Building Control Victoria.Geoghegan@islington.gov.uk Andrew Marx Deputy Head of Development Management & Building Control, Andrew.marx@ islington.gov.uk 020 7527 2045
London Borough of Hounslow Civic Centre Lampton Road Hounslow TW3 4DN 020 8583 5555 http://www.hounslow.gov.uk/planning
London Borough of Lambeth Phoenix House 10 Wandsworth Road London SW8 2LL 020 7926 1180 http://www.lambeth.gov.uk/planning Sean Harriss Chief Executive sharriss@lambeth.gov.uk 020 7926 9677 Alison Young Divisional Director for Planning, Regeneration and Enterprise Neil Vokes Project Manager in Planning, Regeneration and Enterprise NVokes@lambeth.gov.uk Rachel Sharpe Divisional Director Housing Strategy and Partnership rshape@lambeth.gov.uk
Sakiba Gurda Planning Policy Team Leader sakiba.gurda@islington.gov.uk 020 7527 2731
Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea The Town Hall, Hornton Street London W8 7NX 020 7361 3000 www.rbkc.gov.uk/planning Chief Executive Nicholas Holgate chief.executive@rbkc.gov.uk 020 7361 2299
Mary Harpley Chief Executive mary.harpley@hounslow.gov.uk 020 8583 2012 Brendon Walsh Director of Regeneration, Economic Development and Environment brendon.walsh@hounslow.gov.uk 020 8583 5331
Juliemma McLoughlin Director for Planning juliemma.mcloughlin@lbhf.gov.uk 020 8753 3565
Pippa Hack (Acting) Director of Regeneration, Enterprise and Skills Pippa.hack@greenwich.gov.uk 020 8921 5519
Tim Jackson Assistant Director of Transportation
Stephen Kelly Assistant Director for Planning stephen.kelly@haringey.gov.uk
020 8863 5611 www.harrow.gov.uk/planning
Sharon Davidson Planning Decisions Manager Sharon.davidson@enfield.gov.uk 020 8379 3841 David B Taylor Transportation Planning David.b.taylor@enfield.gov.uk 020 8379 3576
Lyn Garner Director of Regeneration, Planning and Development lyn.garner@haringey.gov.uk 020 8489 4523
Simon.williams@merton.gov.uk 020 8545 3680
Graham Stallwood Executive Director of Planning and Borough Development Graham.Stallwood@rbkc.gov.uk 020 7361 2612 Rob Krzyszowski Planning Policy Team Leader Rob.Krzyszowski@rbkc.gov.uk
Marilyn Smith Head of Development Management Marilyn.smith@hounslow.gov.uk 020 8583 4994
Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames Guildhall 2, High Street Kingston upon Thames KT1 1EU
Ian Rae Head of Regeneration & Spatial Planning ian.rae@hounslow.gov.uk 020 8583 2561
020 8547 5002 www.kingston.gov.uk/planning Bruce McDonald Chief Executive bruce.mcdonald@kingston.gov.uk 020 8547 5150 Darren Richards Head of Planning and Transport darren.richards@rbk.kingston.gov.uk 020 8547 5933
London Borough of Newham Newham Dockside 1000 Dockside Road London E16 2QU 020 8430 2000 www.newham.gov.uk/planning Kim Bromley-Derry Chief Executive Kim.bromley-derry@newham.gov.uk Jackie Belton Executive Director for Strategic Commissioning Jackie.belton@newham.gov.uk VACANT Director for Commissioning (Planning & Regeneration)
020 8314 6000 http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/planning Barry Quirk CBE, Chief Executive barry.quirk@lewisham.gov.uk 020 8314 6447 Gavin Cooper, Development Manager gavin.cooper@lewisham.gov.uk 020 8314 9271 John Miller, Head of Planning john.miller@lewisham.gov.uk 020 8314 8706 Chris Brodie, Growth Area Manager chris.brodie@lewisham.gov.uk 020 8314 9162
London Borough of Merton Merton Civic Centre London Road, Morden Surrey SM4 5DX
Deirdra Armsby Head of Planning and Physical Regeneration deirdra.armsby@newham.gov.uk London Borough of Redbridge 128-142 High Road Ilford, London IG1 1DD
Ged Curran Chief Executive chief.executive@merton.gov.uk 020 8545 3332
Philip Wealthy Head of Policy and Design p.wealthy@richmond.gov.uk 020 8891 7320 Robert Angus Development Control Manager r.angus@richmond.gov.uk 020 8891 7271
London Borough of Southwark 160 Tooley Street London SE1 2QH
Eleanor Kelly Chief Executive eleanor.kelly@southwark.gov.uk 020 7525 7171 Deborah Collins Strategic Director of Environment & leisure deborah.collins@southwark.gov.uk 020 7525 0899
Roger Hampson, Chief Executive roger.hampson@redbridge.gov.uk 020 8708 2100 Fiona Dunning Head of Development Management 020 8708 2052 Fiona.dunning@redbridge.gov.uk 020 8708 2052 Mark Lucas Head of Inward Investment & Enterprise 020 8708 2143 mark.lucas@redbridge.gov.uk John Pearce Head of Planning Policy and Environment 020 8708 2843 john.pearce@redbridge.gov.uk 020 708 2843 Amrik Notta Head of Building Control 020 8708 2521 amrik.notta@redbridge.gov.uk 020 8708 2521
London Borough of Richmond Upon Thames Civic Centre 44 York Street Twickenham TW1 3BZ
020 8545 3837 http://www.merton.gov.uk/planning
Jon Freer Assistant Director, Development and Street Scene j.freer@richmond.gov.uk 020 8891 7319
020 7525 3559 www.southwark.gov.uk/planning
020 8554 5000 http://www.redbridge.gov.uk/Planning London Borough of Lewisham Town Hall, Catford London SE6 4RU
d.barnes@richmond.gov.uk 020 8891 7477 Andrew Darvill Assistant Director of Traffic and Transport a.darvill@richmond.gov.uk 020 8891 7070
London Borough of Islington 222 Upper Street London N1 1XR
Karen Sullivan Service Director of Planning & Development Karen.sullivan@islington.gov.uk 020 7527 2949
Nick Walkley Chief Executive nick.walkley@haringey.gov.uk 020 8489 2648
Femi Nwanze Head of Development Management femi.nwanze@hackney.gov.uk 020 8356 8061 Zoe Collins Head of Regeneration Delivery & Strategic Partnership Zoe.Collins@Hackney.gov.uk
Roy Thompson Director of Place roy.thompson@rbk.kingston.gov.uk
Planning Control Manager helen.oakerbee@havering.gov.uk 01708 432800
020 8891 1411 www.richmond.gov.uk/planning
London Borough of Sutton 24 Denmark Road, Carshalton, Surrey SM5 2JG 020 8770 5000 www.sutton.gov.uk/planning Niall Bolger Chief Executive niall.bolger@sutton.gov.uk 020 8770 5203 Ade Adebayo Executive Head Asset Management & Planning & Capital Delivery ade.adebayo@sutton.gov.uk 020 8770 6349 Eleanor Purser Executive Head of Economic Development Planning and Sustainability eleanor.purser@sutton.gov.uk Simon Latham Executive Head Housing and Regeneration simon.latham@sutton.gov.uk 020 8770 6173 Mary Morrissey Strategic Director Environment, Housing and Regeneration mary.morrissey@sutton.gov.uk
Gillian Norton Chief Executive g.norton@richmond.gov.uk 020 8891 7908
Chris Lee Director of Environment & Regeneration chris.lee@merton.gov.uk 020 8274 4901
Paul Chadwick Director of Environment p.chadwick@richmond.gov.uk 020 8891 7870
London Borough of Tower Hamlets Mulberry Place 5 Clove Crescent London E14 2BE
Simon Williams Director of Community and Housing
David Barnes Head of Development and Enforcement
020 7364 5009 http://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/planning
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SHAPING LONDON | SIR TERRY FARRELL CBE Please notify any changes immediately by e?mail to jonathan.manns@colliers.com cc to planninginlondon@mac.com with the subject planning in london directory . Aman Dalvi OBE Corporate Director for Development & Renewal Aman.dalvi@towerhamleys.gov.uk Owen Whalley Service Head Planning and Building Control owen.whalley@towerhamlets.gov.uk 020 7364 5314 Paul Buckenham Development Manager 020 7364 2502 Adele Maher Strategic Planning Manager 020 7364 5375 Jackie Odunoye Head of Strategy, Regeneration & Sustainability, Development and Renewal jackie.odunoye@towerhamlets.gov.uk
Forest Road London E17 4JF 020 8496 3000 http://www.walthamforest.gov.uk/planning Martin Esom Chief Executive martin.esom@walthamforest.gov.uk 020 8496 4201 Lucy Shomali Director of Regeneration & Growth lucy.shomali@walthamforest.gov.uk 020 8496 6734 Ken Jones Director of Housing & Growth Ken.jones@walthamforest.gov.uk 020 8496 5309 Ron Presswell, Design & Conservation Ron.presswell@walthamforest.gov.uk 020 8496 6736
London Borough of Waltham Forest Town Hall,
OTHER ORGANISATIONS Greater London Authority City Hall, The Queen's Walk London SE1 2AA 020 7983 4000 https://www.london.gov.uk/ Boris Johnson Mayor of London mayor@london.gov.uk 0207 983 4000 Colin Wilson Senior Manager, Development & Projects
colin.wilson@london.gov.uk 020 7983 4783
Westminster City Hall 64 Victoria Street, London SW1E 6QP 020 7641 6500 https://www.westminster.gov.uk/planning
Nick Calder Head of Development Permissions ncalder@wandsworth.gov.uk 020 8871 8417 Nigel Granger Development Management East Area Manager ngranger@wandsworth.gov.uk 020 8871 8415
Charlie Parker, Chief Executive cparker@westminster.gov.uk 020 7641 2358 John Walker Operational Director Planning Delivery Unit jwalker2@westminster.gov.uk 020 7641 2519 Barry Smith Operational Director City Planning bsmith@westminster.gov.uk 020 7641 2923
Mark Hunter Development Management Nine Elms Opportunity Area Manager mhunter@wandsworth.gov.uk 020 8871 8418
Ben Denton Executive Director for Growth, Planning and Housing bdenton@westminster.gov.uk 020 7641 3025
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Graham Clements Senior Strategic Planner Graham.clements@london.gov.uk 020 7983 4265
Urban Design London Palestra 197 Blackfriars Road London SE1 8AA 020 7593 9000 www.urbandesignlondon.com
enquiries.br@communities.gsi.gov.uk planning.policies@communities.gsi.g ov.uk
Christine McGoldrick Strategic Planning Manager (Development Plans) christine.mcgoldrick@london.gov.uk 020 7983 4309
Design for London City Hall, The Queen's Walk More London, London SE1 2AA
Terry Farrell, with Giuseppe Parita of Farrells see London as a testbed for a postpostmodern approach
Department for Communities and Local Government 020 7944 4400
sponsored by ABOVE: Marylebone and Euston Roads RIGHT: Regent’s Place, London – Design from masterplan through to interiors
Many have questioned the future of the architectural profession following Brexit but very few have enquired about the direction architecture itself might take in a post-Brexit scenario. In order to compete on a more international platform, British architecture will have to respond to a broader market, with new investors, new needs and potentially a new creative
workforce. It is likely that London – the least European of the big EU cities – will become even less European and more international. From an urbanism perspective, this might be considered a natural evolution, as London has always been the antithesis of its consciously planned European counterpart, an eclectic atlas >>>
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ABOVE: Giuseppe Parita BELOW: Sir Terry Farrell
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SHAPING LONDON | SIR TERRY FARRELL CBE
>>> composed of many characterful and distinctive places. High Streets coexist with the magnificence of the monumental intervention of the Crown, the fine grain of the villages sits alongside the vastness of the City, and its intimate public spaces are side by side with big parks. All these very different places live together in an equilibrium that could be considered itself as postmodern – if not in its aesthetic, then in structure; a structure where the distinctiveness of the urban artefacts prevail on both the sovereignty of planning and the logic of the individual architecture. This structure has made London one of the world's most interesting and beautiful cities but it is not without its problems. As proved by some of the successful projects completed in London over recent years, some intrinsic features of the Postmodern approach give an exhaustive response to the architectural matter, adding value from the social, the economic and the environmental perspectives. Postmodern has yet to be considered in its broader sense and cleansed of the clichés that the stylistic phenomenon we are now referring as "PoMo" has been labelled for many years. But from the 1980s onwards, the broader culture of Postmodernism has evolved and continues to add value to contemporary projects. Among the many criticisms made towards Modernism, the main objection was the complete lack of respect for the context in which Modernist architecture was built. As such, the real legacy of Postmodernism is contextualism and its contribution to both architecture and urban design. In the attempt to react to Modernism dogma, the Postmodern approach operated a paradigm shift, as it clearly demonstrated that the design process begins with the city, proceeds inwards and then returns to the urban scale. In the London of the late 1980s, PoMo projects such as Embankment Place, Alban Gate and Vauxhall Cross, all started with an urban gesture and managed to operate through architecture on the city. After many years of experience in London, more recent Farrells projects can be read as the result of a more advanced version of the same process; the attention to the meso-scale of the urban environment has led to a loop where architecture, urban design and planning achieve the regeneration of big portions of the city. The masterplan for Euston Road and Regent's Place redevelopment are two projects that illustrate this success. The Euston Road Masterplan set a strategic framework to improve the existing pattern of spaces in order to create a linear civic infrastructure Though the masterplan helped initiate a number of key public realm projects, the noble ambition to shift the perception of this important axis of the city as urban motorway to a distinctive liveable place would not be possible without architectural-led interventions like Regent's place. Here, the architecture responds contextually to each frontage of this mixed-use redevelopment, activating spaces at street level and
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drawing people to the internal spaces whilst protecting them from the passing traffic of Euston road. Triton Square – a little masterpiece of placemaking – creates the appropriate linkage between the high-density residential buildings and the main road, allowing a threshold between public and private, vehicular and pedestrian spaces, the linearity of the road infrastructure and the fabric of the northern settlements. Regent's Place illustrates at a smaller scale the broader vision set in Euston Road masterplan and serves as an urban les-
BELOW: Farrell’s Home Office
ABOVE: Earl’s Court masterplan
son for future local projects. Now that Euston is expected to host HS2 terminus, for example, the flexibility of the original masterplan and its conception as a process rather than a defined design exercise appear almost prophetic and will be extremely useful. Another important feature of the Postmodern contextualism is related to the idea of the city as a source of design inspiration in itself. Through their experimental approach, Postmodernists have demonstrated that the design process progresses through both logical and analogic thinking, using analysis and rationality to explain the underlying structure of a city as well as a set of analogue pictures to interpret and evolve that same structure with. Thus, for example, in our Earl's Court masterplan, while the logic responds to the need of regenerating an isolated area through providing a network of new connections and centres, the analogic thinking establishes that the main connection will be shaped as a High Street, the new settlements will be as traditional villages and the answer to the problem of density and height will be a reinterpretation of the mansion block. "Four villages and a high street" proposes on a tighter scale two very well-known archetypes of London. As a result, the new street layout is a loose grid with perimeter blocks surrounding green spaces, which echoes the urban structure of adjacent Kensington. The open and accessible character of contextualism, which allowed PoMo architects to play with historical elements of the
city in a flexible way, is strongly related to eclecticism. To the very strict canons of Modernism, Postmodern architects made variety one of the main drivers for a qualitative approach to architecture and city-making. What we are now considering as quite an obvious premise has to be read as a key result of this eclectic approach, of which the much criticised pastiche was only an aesthetic expression of the 80s style. The Eagle – a residential-led mixed use city centre scheme – sees Farrells following an approach that embraces diversity and harmonises difference. This is the logic behind the decision of retaining and restoring the existing Art Deco buildings, whilst building a new landmark tower alongside. The project takes inspiration from the history of the site and goes further to gain the first consent for a taller building in the area, demonstrating through an exhaustive study how the tower will be strategic to the future of the high-tech quarter of Old Street. An unusual challenge was restarting completion of the building after the original developer ceased to trade; this meant that part of the building was already there, not constructed exactly as the planning consent and with some structural inadequacies, which effectively led to a conversion of the building. This added another different element that had to be integrated and combined within the design solution. Despite the challenges, the elegant result demonstrates the ability of this pioneering approach to create once again a contemporary version of Venturi's "bothand" scenario. In addition to this complexity, on top of the restoration of >>>
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ADVICE ADVICE
SHAPING LONDON | SIR TERRY FARRELL CBE
Planning Planning and and Advice Advice
>>> the 1930s building, a rooftop sculpture tangibly projects the post-postmodernist. However, those who have been pioneering eagle imagery. Apart from being part of an integral arts strate- the Postmodern approach are more aware that these very few gy, this celebrates the history of the site through a further quo- principles – if rightly declined – offer pertinent solutions in crititation, yet another feature of Postmodern legacy. At the height cal conditions and stimulate innovation in times of crisis. We strongly believe that the more international the market of the movement, the quotations – particularly when historical becomes, the more contextualism can help design solutions – were meant to provoke by deconsecrating architectural structhat meet local needs and that eclecticism is still the key to tures and elements that were supposed to be inviolable. Farrells response to the complexity of reality and response to multiple approach on quotation has always been more playful than needs. We also believe that shapes, archetypes and historical provocative, disseminating pieces of art throughout its archiimages of cities should be considered as valuable “big data” to tecture as coded messages to its audience. develop smarter cities and that architecture should preserve Our Hatton Street Studios display on its facade a series of multiple codes in order to be accessible to different stakeholdwings, which allude to urban stories; they pay homage to the pil99 OCTOBER 2016 2.qxp_pil pp15-18 13/10/2016 13:24 71 ers. In addition to this, we believe that the city has to bePage considpast of the building, which once used to host an aircraft factory. ered as the ultimate client and democratically be transmitted This use of memory make this approach particularly important in the Information Era, fulfilling the architecture of both deno- to future generations. All this considered, Brexit’s uncertainty is tative and connotative meanings by using the same playful only one of the many challenges that the Post-Modern Era will ADVICE have positively faced. n code of current mass-media. There is no doubt that playfulness is a characteristic that PoMo inherited from the pop culture. Like pop culture, Postmodernists appealed to a broad popular audience without trivialising the quality of their products, proposing a "double coding" that continues to stimulate the debate on architecture at an advanced level while offering democratic solutions. For the Home Office, the collaboration between Farrells and artist Liam Gillick created a better place, using art not as an add-on but as an integral part of the architectural expression itself. At the same time, this intervention has become well-known from the urban perspective as it has been able to demonstrate the feasibility of a low-rise intervention with a high capacity for office, residential and retail uses. By clearing the area from the previous intrusive towers, the design solution has provided an invaluable contribution to the urban district of Westminster and its residents by creating an inclusive, civic community. ABOVE: The pluralism and openness of PoMo have been declining in Farrell’s offices, Hatton many ways until now, giving some very appropriate responses Street to the ever-changing needs of a city like London. Its principles have been unconsciously absorbed into the daily practice of RIGHT: The Eagle, City Road architecture, to the extent that we can now all be defined as
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