April 2010 Archives

It's been a busy week but I did find time to join in with a webinar (just who invents these perfectly dreadful words do you think?) with an august industry publication on Tuesday (once I'd got over the stress inducing business of logging on and what-have-you, nearly gave up the attempt at one point).

It was hardly ground-breaking stuff since the guys were questioned separately, although the calm of a low-key approach was rather refreshing in contrast to the slightly shrill tone of the national debate. 

The temperature did rise from time to time though; Labour's housing minister John Healey claiming that it would be a "catastrophe" if the RDAs get scrapped was perhaps a tad hysterical (although his praise for Yorkshire Forward was well-placed).

In any case, it is clear that the uncertainty over the RDAs future has done more collateral damage to them than any cuts could ever have effected.

At another point, when asked about the future of the Thames Gateway his (somewhat masterly) understatement was "it is a cluttered field" but he didn't at any point explain why he did nothing at all about this during all the time he was minister of state. I find it a complete mystery that so many of them can perfectly analyse the problem while neatly side stepping the fact that they were the people responsible.

Well, I continue to be incandescent with rage about the airbrushing of regeneration out of the body politick (btw, for the punctilious among you, the BURA comment on the SNP and Plaid Cymru manifestos is now on the BURA website). 

And I am still climbing the walls about my domestics, which continue to be fraught (largely due to the Loud Lanky Lad, the LLL, not doing anything like enough work for his AS levels; I actually found 'imself putting the two words "boot camp" into his laptop at the weekend!). 

We've now written to all three spokespeople from the main parties asking them to account for themselves on regeneration policy. I will, of course, let you know what transpires...

But life goes on. Catching up on the e-mail backlog, it is first my pleasant duty to write to the lovely Julian Barwick thanking him for inviting me to the simply splendid Luncheon Reception to mark the completion of Two Kingdom Street, Paddington Central last Thursday. 

                                       Two Kingdom Street, Paddington

Aviva Investors and Avestus Capital Partners were jointly hosting the bash with Development Securities and what a swell party it was. A proper champagne reception and a proper sit down lunch on the fifth floor (great views). As people kept remarking, it was just like the old days.

Was at a simply splendid breakfast seminar this morning, courtesy of Lexington Communications, with Sir Simon Milton of the GLA, relaxed, authoritative and urbane, and openly discussing "Planning under a Conservative government".

What a relief I made the effort (despite my fraught domestics)!

Close readers of this blog know I've been in a bit of a frenzy these last few days concerning matters politic, so I'm delighted to report that this event has altogether calmed my nerves. 

Indeed if I was at all hubristic (!) I would go so far as to say it has poured balm on my tortured soul!

Simon gave a lumenescent account of the policy context in which he is operating, and honestly debated the possible scenarios unfolding. What a joy! It was a seriously grown up and sensible exchange among like-minded professionals in the room, all of whom start from a presumption of wanting what's best for our environment and our communities.

Simon was open in where he is supportive - and equally open in where he is critical - in respect of "Open Source Planning".

In particular, he gave our industry some truly excellent advice in respect of Third Party Appeals (he himself is not in favour of course and apparently did say so at draft stage).

Blimey I'm cross. I can't sleep. I mean, if politicians are going to ignore regeneration - even though it represents a rare bright hope for the economy - how do they propose to hang onto any sort of housing strategy? How will they deliver housing in any significant quantity? Are they seriously proposing to build swathes of housing with no infrastructure or amenities at all (because that is the logical extension of the documents all being silent on regeneration) let alone any sense of community?

I continue to be outraged. As Alex says: "Damn them all."

In the midst of my anguish it was a joy to be alerted to one political manifesto from one political party in one borough who, far from turning their back on regeneration, embrace it wholeheartedly as a central plank of their strategy to improve the lot of their residents.

I refer, of course, to the Conservative manifesto for the London Borough of Wandsworth, 'Better Today, Better Tomorrow'.  Put together by the very talented and able councillor Nick Cuff (One to Watch, methinks) the manifesto was launched earlier this week and it's now live on their new website. 

The key pledges include good housekeeping stuff like keeping a low council tax and a debt free borough but they also seek to innovate - pioneering free schools, reinvigorating the Right to Buy, promoting a Northern Line extension through Battersea and creating a 1,000 new car club space across the borough.

I'm in a right sulk about the election now (save for the chicken and egg joke which lifted me for... oooh... all of 30 seconds). I just cannot believe how little regeneration is mentioned in any of the manifesto statements. 

And, believe me, it is knackering being this incandescent with rage.

Come the day of reckoning it looks as if the DUP will get the gold star: "The DUP reaffirms our commitment to tackle child poverty and wants to see the development of comprehensive strategies aimed at lifting our deprived communities out of poverty and creating genuine opportunities for people of all ages. We know this will not be easy but we support the creation of interventions ... The DUP wants to work in partnership with local people to improve areas of disadvantage."

Well, thank you to whoever wrote that but, in all honesty, God help us all if it's the DUP that lead the way! The other parties should be ashamed. We are seriously on our knees. The politicians have sooooo lost the plot, it's disgraceful. Blow me down, it's not as if they're spoilt for ideas elsewhere!

So, now we've done the work and BURA's analysis of the main party manifestos can now be found on www.bura.org.

Paul Evans was so traumatised by the experience that he felt the need to go back over ALL the manifesto pledges made in his illustrious career just to point up the stark contrast in how much used to be said about regeneration compared to how little is being said now (this is also included in the analysis, btw, a very useful crib sheet for you students currently wrestling with your dissertations out there). 

And the scores on the doors are sobering: close followers of this blog know that our traffic light code is to signal the way in which proposals stack up: green for right in line; amber for beginning to get there; red for positively damaging.

Overall there is nothing to choose between the manifestos. They all get a red for failing at the first hurdle of simply not telling a proper story about regeneration. There are flickering ambers here and there about individual proposals but almost none of them holds out a prospect of fundamental change. 

Our analysis shows that for the first time in more than 30 years no political party has made an explicit commitment to regenerate our most deprived communities. We are incensed. We are now writing to all the lead spokespeople, as well as joining in the many debates being held, whether here at the Estates Gazette, or elsewhere.  We will be inviting the lead spokespeople to show how their policies will deliver regeneration.

I love Tim Williams. Somebody has to. And I loved his latest blog in R&R, already quoted in my last post and about to be extensively quoted again. He is so clever. 

He said: "We would have done a lot more from 1997 to now if we'd not waited for permission. It's time to create our own solutions, find our own funding, change our own places - without seeking permission. That humbling tactic was only barely acceptable when the gatekeepers had money. We know now they are financially bankrupt."

Well three cheers, Dr Williams! Well said that man! 

But hang on a minute, Tim... wasn't it YOU who was special adviser to David Miliband and then Carline Flint at the CLG (from 2005 to 2007) at the peak of the market, presiding over the top-down bureaucratic machinery in regeneration? Are we saying that that was OK in those days because then the "gatekeepers had money"?

There didn't seem to be much (well, nothing at all really) coming out of last night's televised debate for regeneration. Or planning. Or even housing. I guess not everyone's as obsessive as me!

(Although there is an alarming undertow about how low our field is, in the politicians list of priorities; as I keeping insisting, regeneration could touch everyone's lives for the better, and make a significant contribution to lifting the economy, if we harnessed our energies in a smart way).

Much more diverting (at least for me) was the Sky News flash that came up on my BlackBerry: "Reuters reporting a cloud of ash has closed UK airports. Police have arrested the Emirates Stadium trophy room cleaner in connection with this incident." Hilarious.

But back to the serious stuff: I'm still struggling with this Big Society malarkey. Intuitively I like it, but I keep having more thoughts.

One thing which really worries me is the Tories' references in their Big Society idea to 'dysfunctional communities'. Just seems a weensy bit sweeping.

Could these communities, in fact, be not dysfunctional per se but, actually, locations where people experience disadvantage? What sort of message is there in labelling whole communities 'dysfunctional', for the people living in such locations or communities?

Now feel like I'm wading through porridge with these manifestos. It's truly very difficult to pick out what any of them mean for regeneration (or planning or housing) in this tide of warm words and noise.

We will get to the bottom of it and you can expect a comprehensive BURA analysis (courtesy of Two Brains Evans) by the start of next week with our now-fabled traffic lights scoring.

At first glance, the Lib Dems seems to chime somewhat with the Tories: they will reform business rates and seek to spread the burden more fairly between small and large firms (good news for the likes of the 2000 stalwart businesses in Park Royal, for instance).

They will "slim down" Regional Development Agencies and focus them solely on economic development (this seems a somewhat more rational position than outright abolition).

But they will abolish the (truly ill-fated) Infrastructure Planning Commission and return decision-making, including housing targets, to local people (how will this work?).

They will create a third-party right of appeal in cases where planning decisions go against locally agreed plans. They will give local authorities the power to set higher Council Tax rates for second homes and (fraught with danger, this) the option to require specific planning permission for new second homes in areas where the number of such homes is threatening the viability of a community.

Just at the point when British Waterways is being scaled back, the Lib Dems have gone all watery: they will introduce landscape-scale planning policies with a specific remit to restore water channels, rivers and wetlands and reduce flood risk by properly utilising the natural capacity of the landscape to retain water.

Well...... as I say, expect the pukka analysis from us in a few days, once Paul has done his homework. But I'm certainly not expecting any political party to score a green light from us for regeneration. And we really can't let the attack that Ed Miliband made on our sector on R4 on Monday go unchallenged.....

Drumming my fingers, waiting for my policy wonks to come back to me to say what precious little there is in the Conservative party manifesto about regeneration.

Yes, it falls to poor Paul Evans - yet again - to plough through the 130 pages and work out what proposals there are in this for us beleaguered regeneration types, trying valiantly to make a contribution. 

So far, we can find only passing references to deprivation which, apparently, will be dealt with by siting of schools. And the observation is made that "in some deprived parts of the country life expectancy has fallen" and later "we will direct funding to those groups that strengthen communities in deprived areas". And there's a bit of praise for Manchester. So that's alright then. 
 
But already the howls of indignation have been sounded, big style, in respect of yesterday's effort from Labour and you'll see what Stephen Sorrell (never to be underestimated, that man) and the lovely Alex Kendall have been saying.

Alex's kind urgings in respect of my own leadership capabilities have made me blush - frankly putting me in charge, would be a bit like putting a lunatic in charge of the asylum. Actually I was so touched by Alex's kind remarks that I wrote to her to thank her and she wrote back even more forthright: "It's clear we are in a bloody mess re planning, regeneration & housing. I do not have the answers!!! They suggest 750,000 jobs in the public sector, god knows what's going down in the private sector."

And so say all of us.

Since early this morning, we've been trying frantically to understand what the Labour manifesto means for regeneration and we're struggling. So far, it seems like pretty desperate stuff. Certainly on the thin side.

You'll get a traffic lights response against our Framework when Dr Evans has done the homework but first impressions do not foster hope.

The front cover seems to be taking us back to the 30s (although aiming at the sunlit uplands: nice touch) and the foreword makes 2011 sound like a "khaki" election!

Worst of all, Page 2.6 restates what Miliband said this morning about regeneration, to the effect of: job done, so cutting the money and focusing on worklessness. Then there's a few bits more, later on, about design (so the architectural lobby have got in) and about keeping pubs (whaaaaa?).

Clutching at straws. Total Place is totally for savings to the exclusion of anything else (which seriously misses a trick in regeneration terms) and City Regions are the answer (again!). Labour will extend home ownership but also look at new forms of social renting. Well I never!

It seems it's the universally unanimous view that Tim Wheeler's litigious campaign against his former employer, as reported extensively in Estates Gazette and elsewhere, has been most unedifying. A very poor chapter in property history. And, of course, it may not be over yet.

However, Louise Patten, former Brixton Chairman, has clearly led a sheltered life when she says "I have never encountered a CEO who has behaved with so little regard for the company but with such great regard for his own financial position".

Well, welcome to my world, Louise! Tim Wheeler obviously had a clear sense of his own entitlement (Baroness Susan Greenfield, latterly of the Royal Institution, clearly had similar delusions) but this is a widely observed phenomenon in the public or voluntary sectors (or the quasi variants therein).

I have written before about my own anguish in respect of what I perceive as the "Age of Entitlement" and this latest episode only confirms my views.   

I have personally been involved in more than one employment dispute where the complainant was more than willing to press his or her inflated sense of their "rights", even though they'd been offered a compromise, and even if - by pursuing this course - it meant the demise of the organisation itself.

In my most recent experience of this, the presentation of a "dossier", carefully assembled from day one, with a clear plan from the outset to trigger employment litigation at some point, was tantamount to nothing short of Mutually Assured Destruction for employee and employer alike.

All this talk of "Big Society" and "localism" and "community" makes the recent initiative taken by Lesley Webber and Karen Cooksley of Field Fisher Waterhouse "New Techniques for Risk management in Planning and Public Consultation" seem timely indeed.

These girls are certainly onto something (it does help rather that Ms Webber, when not being a hotshot lawyer, is a - senior Tory gal - district councillor for Epping Forest district council and chair of the planning committee there) .

The "new media" must make for more effective community consultation, surely? And what does this mean for "Open Source Planning" then?

When I began my career all those years ago in community relations in London's Docklands in the mid 1980s, "consultation" had already become a much-abused word covering a range of different activities; from full-on community engagement at one end of the spectrum (rare) to public meetings in drafty church halls to broadcast plans (somewhat more common).  

Right from the start I was aware that the whole area was subject to "spin" (we didn't call it that then, of course, but it was well recognised) and I will never forget the sage advice of one (architect) colleague which was "beware of the best-put case, eclipsing the best case".  

So what's going to happen then? Well, whatever the outcome, after a short time in government (geologically speaking; of course, in human terms we'll all be climbing the walls), those - new or old - in power may just about realise that if everything's a priority, then nothing is. Well, let's hope so in any case. Because the sooner we start to face the hard questions full on, the better.

But what will happen structurally? The big question for BURA and the regeneration sector will be: what changes will we see in government machinery around regeneration? It is widely anticipated that there will be no 'Great Office of State' to take the place of the Department for Communities and Local Government (Why? While this may be a good thing, it would have been nice to have had a proper debate!).

Are we to learn anything from the Olympics experience? There is a school of thought that believes a strong private-sector-minded ODA was a good thing (in terms of getting things done, I mean, I would still criticise the inward-looking culture of the ODA and of course, its lack of contribution to legacy but hey!).

Of course it always helps if you have a strong and intelligent client (and the ODA suffered from too many cooks). We would argue that in this debt-ridden climate we need an empowered, well-respected, department-leading regeneration with clout in and across Whitehall, as the only way to get efficiencies and encourage smarter working (the same applies at local and regional level, of course, but right now I'm trying to satisfy those looking for thoughts on the central administration). 

While we were waiting for the wholly unsurprising announcement of the Election yesterday we took a look at the Tories proposals for the "Big Society". You can see how it meets the BURA test over at the BURA website: www.bura.org.uk. Not good: barely scraping above red on our traffic-light scale (and only because we are such nice people who always offer words of encouragement).

I am worried. David Cameron made this Big Society one of the centre pieces of his election-launch talk by the Thames yesterday morning, when it was still sunny. It is (mostly) good stuff, if bearing all the marks of an overstuffed ragbag. And I guess if Big Society means first, that we admit that there is such a thing as society at all (is this a significant departure from Thatcher?), and secondly that it will entail smaller (central) government, then we have to give it a cautious welcome.

But it's a all bit jolly-hockey-sticks! Wouldn't we all love to live in a society where poverty had been abolished and everyone was jolly nice and middle class (in the best possible way, that is, not the way that rabid anti-development mobs have been known to act; there is nothing worse than living in a road full of planning barristers when you want to extend your house).

This is just not enough. No doubt the manifestos are already written and on the way to the printers so we aren't too hopeful about anything different there. So, a lot more will be needed to get "Big Society"  working if we get a Tory or a Tory-hybrid Government.

So it's the 6th April and the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) comes into force today (and will anyone notice, I wonder? One eminent planning consultancy of our mutual acquaintance put out a briefing note on the CIL, rather apologetically, as "it is still legislation you may wish to acquaint yourself with". Honestly! This is a text book case study of how a government can allow an initiative to wither on the vine).

More importantly of course, it is expected that the General Election will be called today.The kidult is home from university for the holidays and is very excited as it's her first voting excursion.

And Paul Evans (BURA vice chair and the brains behind the operation - as I keep explaining, he can't help being an architect) and I will now have to literally spring into action on the BURA Framework.

We've had a phenomenal response to the BURA Framework. And not only favourable coverage, some favourable outcomes already: one consultant (who shall remain nameless) confessed he'd written his entire pitch to a public sector client around the Framework. And won the job to boot! So we were feeling very pleased with ourselves about all this.

That is, until Dr Evans and I began to draft up a timetable for BURA activity for the weeks between now and the General Election. And it is rather daunting...