Recently in JESSICA Category

Coming fresh form the compilation of the Urban Regeneration Dictionary (as reported in this blog on Tuesday 11 February) the news today that consultancy Arup has been appointed "to coordinate the work for the environmental impact assessment (EIA)" into the planned HS2 link between London and Birmingham has caused immense mirth and merriment around the UKR camp.  Nobody disputes the appointment, of course, as everybody loves Arup.  And they are the obvious cross-disciplinary practice to use really. They are also our esteemed neighbours, as the UKR office is also in Fitzroy Square (theirs is perhaps just a little grander). 

But having only just issued our definition of an EIA as "an earnest and exhaustive combination of the obvious, the speculative and the impossible-to-know" the UKR team believes that the HS2 EIA will have to be the Mother of All EIAs ever!  Blimey, it will even put that for T5 to shame, we reckon.  Mutterings to the effect of "Coordinate the work huh! More like co-ordinating the convoy of pantechnicons necessary to carry such an EIA" and "just how many forests will be felled to achieve this extraordinary feat" and "think of the expense" through to a mere collapse-in-a-heap-burying-your-head-in-your-hands "why oh why". 

Regular readers of this blog will recall the good-natured exchange I had with Howard Bernstein at MIPIM over the Enterprise Zones (10 March 2011). I still intend to furnish Sir Howard with his (highly alliterative) "empirical evidence of the efficacy of Enterprise Zones", but Dr Evans is on holiday right now (as a cheeky person quipped earlier today: "The President's Brian is Missing.") so I haven't gotten around to it yet. I'll keep you posted.

But Sir Howard certainly continues to excite strong emotions. On Tuesday, Manchester Evening News carried an hilarious interview with Barbara Spicer, chief executive of Salford city council, where she explains how she has become incredibly close to her Manchester city council counterpart (Sir Howard Bernstein, of course), and describes their relationship as "almost like that of a mother and daughter". As she says (with apparently genuine affection): "It's a little like you'd say, 'Mum, what do you think about this?'."

The article is headed "Howard Bernstein is like my mum", which is a bit of a shame really, as the piece is, in all other respects, exemplary. Well, the mind boggles! Ms Spicer gets us into this unfortunate mire of maternalism (which I bet she is truly regretting now) in her attempt to explain that there wasn't a natural partnership with Manchester when she took the Salford job over four years ago. She says: "I'm not saying that the politicians weren't talking, but in organisational terms, there wasn't any real partnership. And to be honest, I think there was some kind of competition. Very early on, I made it clear that any competition with Manchester was over. In terms of developing the core of the conurbation, we take a very singular view and that is one of the things that we will look at in the round: we discuss which sites we are going to bring forward."

Very good outing this week with regeneration finance types at the SocInvest conference. We were treated to a veritable tour de force by my mate Andrew Screen (now fetched up at GVA as head of financial consultancy, and good for him!) who gave us a whirlwind tour of the "collapse of monolines and collateralised debt obligation". Blimey, it was exhausting! And wonderful to see the sainted Chris Munday of the WDA, who is best in class by a country mile in the JESSICA stakes (not a classic of the flat-racing season, I assure you) and one wonders whether those Welsh know how lucky they are to have him...

Despite the sterling work in Wales by Munday, though, the big news for the market came from the keynote address given by my good friend and all round seven-brains, Mr Brian Field. He told the conference that billions of pounds of European funds are still available for urban regeneration projects struggling to cope with UK government cuts. Actually, this isn't really big news (as Chris has proved): it has been "out there" for years, but it remains such a trade secret because of the fact that the programmes are complex and not readily understood. They are monopolised by consultants who demand huge fees as the entry price. And, of course, they have daft names.

But our Brian, who is the urban planning and development adviser at the European Investment Bank, is trying to dismantle the barriers. He told our delegates that many councils and regeneration bodies are unaware of the funding streams available from Europe and said that the European funds, mainly in the form of loans, were now a much more attractive proposition for local authorities owing to the rise in costs for other forms of lending. He said: "We tend to lend money in large denominations - it was €9bn-€10bn last year. You can get a lot of money from us if you have decent urban projects. In the past, we have not been an attractive lending product because the Public Works Loan Board has been able to undercut us. However, the board's lending rates have gone up recently, so now we are competitive."