Recently in BCSC Category

I've been hankering after being at the BCSC Conference all this week. Comes of being a recidivist. I am a serial conference-goer (uber gregarious you see, like a gossip, like to get stuck into debate, like a barney, and do like a glass of white wine), but the BCSC Conference was never really on my radar before. BPF and BCO conferences: yes. RESI: yes, usually, although I won't be spotted in Newport today. Anything with the word "regeneration" in it: yes of course. I have even graced the Sheds Show (ah! the days of "sheds are the new sex") in the wretched Celtic Manor. But I've never been to the BCSC Conference before, even though I worked for yonks on White City (pre-Westfield) and even longer on Merry Hill. 

But I understand that the BCSC put on an important conference this year. And a strong one.  And I'm sorry I missed it. From the Twitter stream (such a bloody distraction, Twitter) there seemed to be so much going on, what with Portas and so on. All my friends were there. And one of the great things coming out of it all was the beginnings of a rather staunch defence of traditional town centres. Hurrah for that. All the more potent coming from a conference mainly given over to discussing built shopping centres and malls in single ownership. Perhaps there is a new understanding of how inter-connected all these things are.

There was an old boy on the Piccadilly line this morning sporting a canvass bag with the very distinctive logos of Lunson Mitchenall, BCSC and Westfield prominently displayed.  Made me smile.  Without wishing to be rude about the old boy on the tube, I do not think he had ever attended a BCSC Conference (from which this bag almost certainly had come) and he was not exactly the ...um ...sort of person that Lunson Mitchenall, or Westfield, or the BCSC come to that, would really have wanted to be seen toting their logo around.

More activity around the country, as folks form up in packs to deliver Mr Pickles' Local Enterprise Partnerships. 

But it would seem that the ruling elite in London remains a bit tight-lipped about it all, struggling to find a way through Boris's Big Agency (no similarity to Big Society at all there then!) of the GLA/LDA/HCA centralised morass and the need for bottom up partnerships.

It is rumoured that certain London boroughs will be submitting letters to Mr Pickles suggesting that they form a LEP for ...er.... their own borough only, which does rather defeat the idea wouldn't you say?

Hey! Most savvy London officers know that there's no money forthcoming in any case so they're a bit apathetic about putting the work in at all, and who could blame them?

London may still be in disarray but the Thames Valley has always been rather good at getting its act together. And now I have agreed to help with the lovely Matthew Battle's Thames Valley Property Forum on September 9th in Reading ( see www.tvpf.co.uk).

As part of this grand event he has a dinner the night before and it has been suggested that I lead a talk on the Regeneration of Business Parks, along the lines of "Business parks are dead, long live the business park" (or something equally obtuse) looking at the potential for existing not new (key point here) business parks to actually provide a valuable service for the community if they were to actually adapt and become part of the urban fabric rather than being monolithic office parks.

The Loud Lanky Lad is studying economics at AS level and his teacher seems to have a rather marvellous off-the-wall take on the subject. I have been reading LLL's course books, one called "Free Lunch" is particularly enjoyable and - well behind the rest of you I do appreciate - I have finally caught up with "Freakonomics" where I have learnt the secret to a successful blog......

It's all about reciprocity and back-scratching apparently. Oh the parallels!

Talking of reciprocity and back-scratching, I was out on Monday evening hoovering up the Sauvignon Blanc (which is drug of choice, after all) in the Black and Blue with that old smoothie, Alistair Parker of Cushman and Wakefield, plotting and scheming - as ever - about the British Council for Shopping Centres (BCSC) Conference being held in Manchester 9-11 November.

He is currently chairman of the BCSC of course and puts a huge amount of effort in; the old rogue and his team are planning a really good bash up there at GMex. Alistair has the energy of 10 men and he does tell it how it is. I was picking his brains about retail-led regeneration and he confirmed my suspicions that most of the old models are past their sell-by dates and we will need a new paradigm. He says it could be TIFs. I threw in my usual quip (somewhat glib and irresponsible, I do concede) about how TIFs were only a new form of debt and he got very agitated with me. Told me to shut up in fact. How very rude!