For old time's sake, I whizzed down to the Thames Gateway Forum (TGF) - predictably a little scaled-down to meet economic circumstances, and shifted from its previous venue, at ExCeL, to the Indigo suite at the O2.
The TGF has been running for five years now and it was a great privilege for me to work with the entrepreneurs who started up the project. Indeed, when I first I met the organisers (I was chief executive at Kent Thameside at the time), I was so blown away by their passion and energy that I think it's fair to say that I "got it" straight away. So I set about working night and day to make the show a success and to glean benefits for Dartford and Gravesham. And it all worked!
In the first year it was Kent Thameside who set the tone, with more folk on our stand (and we had the longest visit with the Sainted Prezza). I brought 30 back-bench councillors from our boroughs to ExCeL to meet people (something that I could never do for MIPIM) and the TGF went from strength-to-strength: the proof being when the start-up team sold the show to one of the UK's most established publishing houses in 2007.
Indeed, a cynical commentator (but certainly not me, m'lud) could make the waspish observation that the TGF was such a runaway success that it had become rather disconnected from the lack of real progress on the ground in the Gateway.
And it is the case that, straight after the highly successful first show, the organisers suggested to me that they should introduce a system of bench-marking progress on real projects year-on-year.
Well, I took a deep breath and responded that I wasn't entirely sure that that would be in their best interests. They didn't pursue it, and I think that is probably just as well.
Things were a little pared back and subdued this year, somewhat in line with current progress in the Gateway, I guess. Still no bench-marking. Probably just as well.
But it was nice to see the old gang again, even if you had a very real sense of Groundhog Day. At one point I found myself sandwiched between Graham Harris, MD of Dartford and Pete Raine, once my gaffer at KCC, but currently interim director of environment at Swale borough council. As I said to that pair of old rogues: "I feel I've gone nowhere at all!"
We were then joined by Bob Kerslake and Eammon Boylan of the HCA (I say "joined", in reality, it was simply that we had blocked their way to the comfy seats), whereupon the incorrigible Pete started a "glories of Sheerness" exposition; Bob, ever the professional, smiled sweetly and said he could see what Pete meant and he was totally against uniformity.
Really! He must seriously have thought we were all barking (Barking... Thames Gateway... Geddit? I'm such a wit!).
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful to see Michael Auger, now at Muse Developments but once my partner in crime at Brierley Hill in Chelsfield days. Now there's a lad who truly understands regeneration and partnership working.
Nice also to see the very talented Lisa Hayward (formerly of SEEDA now of Invest Thames Gateway) who says she was in the same resort as me and my girls in Egypt last Easter but "hadn't wanted to intrude"! Blimey! What's with folk being polite? (And just goes to show how blind I am, as I certainly never spotted her). I could have done with a drinking buddy an' all!
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