Recently in BURA Category

A double-page spread in the Times' Bricks & Mortar section today has the screaming headline "Inner-city regeneration has 'failed to materialise'".

Another feature in the four page section asks whether the 2012 Olympic project is enough to "save Stratford", whatever that means, and there's a review of Heron's planned 36-storey tower in the City.

I will be studying this feature over the weekend and formally responding to my friends at The Times, as is right and proper, but I am afraid to say that I have been expecting this for some time.

Regular readers of this blog will know how deeply troubled I am about the waste that we've witnessed in the regeneration sector over the last ten years and our attenuated need to do something about it and fast. Sooner or later, someone was going to notice. And I'm sorry to say I predict a spate of such articles in the next few weeks. There has been waste. And people are right to be angry.

BURA chips away at our mission to share best practice and we are making some real inroads at sharing what works out there and - more importantly - what doesn't. We must step up our efforts on this front.

Our very best offer is Regeneration Masterclass 2010. Never before has it been as important to have a forum to enable senior managers from the public private and community sectors to meet, learn and share knowledge.

A lovely guy came up to me after the Sheffield gig the other day and thanked me for being kind to him a few months ago, when he had on-spec approached me after he had been made redundant by St Modwen.

Nigel Cunis - who is clearly a very talented bloke - has now found gainful employment at Sheffield City Council in their property department. So that's great for him and even greater for Sheffield.

It was a delight to meet him, and his colleague, Nalin Seneviratne, a pair of complete charmers, both ex-private sector and both great appointments for any council badly needing professionals who bring a bit of business discipline and rigour to a challenging property portfolio.

I can see the two of these as being very proactive in this market; they clearly had not missed the fact that it could be land of opportunity out there, and this is a refreshing new mindset for a local authority.

There should be more opportunities for people to cross from the private sector to the public sector, and back, for the health of regeneration. This should not be the rarity, this should be the norm. I always encourage folk I meet from the private sector (like those made redundant in recent years from real estate consultancies) to have a stint in the public sector. And vice versa.

It's done wonders for the likes of Reg, who is now a fully rounded urban regeneration professional if ever you needed an exemplar (despite his slightly irreverent remarks on this blog) and I would encourage others to follow suit. Out of your comfort zone, you learn. You develop.

I don't know why we never learn. There are a number of excellent business reasons, more than enough really, for public sector agencies, particularly those with land or other assets seeking partners for development, to be out at MIPIM.

But already this year Croydon's had a serious drubbing in the weekend papers and who knows how many red-top reporters will be sent out to stalk Boris Johnson around the duty-free shop in Nice airport as he attempts to buy some perfume for the missus whilst beating a hasty retreat having (apologetically) spent only one day at the event in order not to provoke press attention.

As with so many other things, we never seem to share best practice. We need to pool local authority experience and devise a blueprint for public sector attendees at MIPIM to get the best price for participation, and the best value for so doing.

Too frequently, elected members and officers alike are left defenceless before the onslaught of journalists on the hunt for waste-of-public-money stories. We need to track contacts made by local authorities at MIPIM over the last ten years and see what investment was leveraged as a result; the more sensationalist in the press pack may not have much of a leg to stand on then!

Smart local authorities see clearly that MIPIM is a valuable forum in which to promote regeneration projects and attract inward investment. Having said that, with a potential 25% cut in public sector budgets over next few years, we're going to have to work cuter and smarter if we are to keep local authorities - so very vital to the Cannes experience - in the MIPIM fold.

Just had to post this fantastic picture of Dan Sequerra, chair of the BURA Community Inspired Awards Panel, giving Stewart Jackson MP, the Conservative spokesperson on Regeneration, the "finger treatment" at BURA@20.

I adore Dan-Dan-the-Portuguese-Man. I love him with a fierce passion, but there is no avoiding the fact that the bloke can talk for Britain. Poor Stewart Jackson couldn't get a word in! And then you've got dear old Jim Briscoe of CB Richard Ellis looking on in exasperation, patiently waiting to have a serious conversation with Mr Jackson about the Private Rented Sector Initiative.

Ross Sturley is running a caption competition for this photograph around the BURA family as we speak. Current leader is "and you can put your localism...".

On a serious note though, it was a joy to bring something fresh and new to the table at BURA@20. Something that specifically addresses the heart of the problems that we're facing today: the need for us to have to respond to massive regeneration challenges with no money AND the need to find work for regeneration professionals who are out of work.

If it's not one darned thing, it's another!  No sooner do I get through the BURA@20 Conference last week then we have to start working on our BURA@20 Seminar at Mipim: "More-for-Less Regeneration".

No peace for the wicked, I guess.

The BURA@20 Seminar will be the hot ticket this year, to be held in the Room Croisette, Gray D'Albion Hotel, 38 Rue des Serbes, Cannes, at midday on Wednesday 17 March. 

We are trying to achieve rather a lot at this event but it promises much, and fresh from our interesting debates of last week, we already have a great deal of interest. 

BURA always aims to combine an interesting mix of people - life's rich tapestry if you like - and we have tried to get a balance between private sector and public sector speakers (and also, from the local authority side, both a senior officer and a distinguished elected member).  

Had to accompany 'imself to Parents Evening up at the school last night to be told that the Littley's organisation skills were comparable to Eddie the Eagle's commanding grasp on world class skiing.

You'll appreciate that this did not come as a great surprise. Blimey. I just hate Parents Evenings; it isn't so much having to be polite to the other mummies (thankfully, altogether less yummy, now we've hit secondary school, which is something of a relief) although that's bad enough.

But, worse, I'm always on the back foot as the working mother and always come away with another serious bout of BMF (bad mother feeling). Last night was no exception: starting this weekend I am going to get that kid organised if it kills me! Whew! It is knackering being me.

It also meant I had to miss the Mishcon de Reya party which was a bit of a blow as it's always a good bash and, as I keep asserting, we are - none of us - having anything like enough fun and we need to take our pleasures where we can.

I'd written to Susan Freeman (my fellow blogger) to tell her I wasn't able to do it and we agreed to hook up in MIPIM but I still resented it. Susan runs a super stylish party: I like a decent flute of champagne and the chance to rub shoulders with the heady mixture of property establishment and high net worth individuals that she blends together (although you do have to be careful not to get photographed next to Susan as she is too beautiful and thin to be seen with).

We're still coping with the aftermath of BURA@20 which does indeed seem to have been terribly well received.

Of course the thing about being 20 years old and being in business to share best practice is that BURA has seen a lot of regeneration initiatives come and go and we have a pretty good idea, probably the best idea of anyone really, of what works and what doesn't.

As I was telling the conference, we were born in the dog days of the Thatcher government - we were Heseltinies really (I won't divulge the terrible Freudian slip I made at the conference about this) and we were established during the era of the first generation UDCs (and in particular, the London Docklands Development Corporation, many of whose diaspora rocked up on Tuesday to say hello) and, of course, City Challenge.

As rehearsed elsewhere in this blog (it's official: I have become a crashing bore!) we rather like City Challenge, the ultimate bottom-up model, rewarding as it does the quality of the ideas, the proposals and the partnerships involved, rather than that other - less rigorous, dare I say soppier - game of getting rewards for multiple indices of deprivation.

BURA@20 yesterday at the old German Gym in King's Cross - what a party! Still nursing the hangover.

Well now! I think it was a success. Certainly it was a lot more cerebral than some of the daft industry events that I've been invited to recently, in the run up to the general election. 

In the conference session, we had a sort of fireside chat with each of the regeneration spokespeople proffered by the three main parties. 

It wasn't designed to be adversarial or confrontational, but more to tease out emerging policy; dare I say, to lead the witness a little. 

Poor Gordon Marsden MP (John Denham's PPS) was a bit between a rock and a hard place, having been brought in off the subs bench in the first place, as he was supposed to be somewhere else at the same time so he was a tad late for us and that knocked the schedule a bit, but whatever!  (Never work with children or animals, or politicians huh.)

So we still seem to be hanging around waiting for the Conservatives Planning Green Paper (let alone the policy statement on regeneration) and the excellent Patrick Clift watches this for us like a hawk in the EG planning blog. 

Actually, many of us are getting a bit frantic with anxiety about it all. 

Alex Kendall has been coming onto this blog and saying rather provocative things, which I think I agree with (in an much as I understand them!) and I think we do need an honest debate here - and we'll be looking to start this at the BURA@20 debate on Tuesday 23 February. 

I suppose, as the cynics would have it, there aint many votes in planning - and this is one for Ann Skippers, the admirable new president of the RTPI, to get her teeth into (yes, Alex, they are my friends).

I've been tardy in responding to a certain newcomer on the blog and I must make amends.

The EG Regeneration Blog warmly welcomes our fraternal correspondent, senator Arnold Vinick (Republican) of the State of California to our merry band.  

I don't need to point out, to such an audience of aficionados, that I am of course referring to Senator Vinick of the "West Wing" - the second-best television series ever made. Delighted to see Arnold Vinick back in my life I must say. I have missed him.

I have a good friend who I used to text compulsively in the run-up to the election (Series Six I believe) and he and I both agreed (despite probably being more Democrat than Republican in persuasion) that Arnie Vinick was robbed!