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It's official! Brent is the new Southwark. It is, quite simply, Land of Opportunity.

This has been a pet thesis of mine in recent years but is now totally reinforced in the light of the news that my very good mates over at Brent council have launched their vision for a new Alperton. And quite right too!

I regularly used to eye up Alperton when I was CE at the Park Royal Partnership. And me and my old muckers at the dear-departed Brixton plc used to stomp around there on a regular basis (btw is it really true that the beauteous, but thoroughly mild-mannered, buttoned-down, measured and considered Peter Dawson is going to give evidence against Tim Wheeler at the high court next month? The mind seriously seriously boggles!).

Now, the energetic and pragmatic cllr John Detre, lead member for regeneration at Brent, wants to see Alperton transformed into a place that people choose to live, work and invest. Opening up the splendid Paddington branch of the Grand Union canal "turning it not only into a place to travel to and from home, work and school but also a place to visit and enjoy". 

It was wonderful to see the news about my old gaffers, that ultimate pair of old lounge lizards, Nigel Hugill and Robin Butler, setting up their own development company.

And they've already purchased 1,100 acres in Huntingdonshire. Hurrah!

The company is to be called Urban & Civic. Well ! It has a certain ring to it, I guess. I like "Urban" (of course!) and I like "Civic" (connotes ownership and leadership and pride). But what will it be shortened to d'ya think ? U&C or UrbCiv ? Whatever.

Here's hoping that we're talking about Urban & Civic in 20 years, in the same way that the boys in white shirts now talk of "Land Sec" or "CapCo"; that is, as part of the furniture. Certainly it is the case that Robin and Nigel are really smart and they deserve success on that scale.

And about bleedin' time, some would say, as we groupies have been hanging about for a year since the announcement they were leaving Lend Lease. I got fed up of fending off enquiries about what that pair were up to; my stock retorts being "I know nurthing", "you think they'd tell ME" and "I am not my brother's keeper" (none of which, clearly, was going to be good enough for the boys' huge adoring public).

More seriously, though, is that the urban regeneration sector cannot afford for the likes of Hugill and Butler to be out of commission for too long. There are a number of excellent mixed-use developers who "get" urban regeneration although still too few (and I mention these precious individuals repeatedly in this blog) but Nigel and Robin are first among equals and it will be a thrill to see them back in action.

And we need them to set the bar for enduring development, once again, as we come out of recession.

Andrew Ludiman of King Sturge clearly Knows a Thing and I was pleased and flattered that, at a Conservative Party Conference fringe meeting no less, he singled out Paddington as an exemplar for partnership working for our Age of Austerity.

For years I have been meaning to write up the Paddington experience but there just are not enough hours in the day. Perhaps I'd better get a grip.

Adjacent land-owners in regeneration areas, said the Ludiman, should be stitched together with the panoply of the various powers of the relevant public sector agencies to form a robust partnership vehicle, fit to deliver real results in a joined-up fashion.

Well, needless to say, I like this a lot! A real lot! But it did take me back to the summer of 1997 when, having persuaded all eight landowners in Paddington to form up into a pack -somewhat assisted by the late great John Sienkiewicz from the Government Office for London threatening to call them all in to the Secretary of State if they didn't come quietly - I took my proposition in to Bill Roots (Remember him? Remember Sid Sporle?), the then Chief Executive of Westminster City Council.

What about it then, says I to Bill: would Westminster like to dance ? Would they join with me in forming a public sector-private sector partnership, pretty please ? (I did, of course, have my beady eye on the current Single Regeneration Budget spending round, SRB4 I think it was).

People ask me for examples of good regeneration projects in the UK and I always cite Paddington Waterside (pictured left). Of course I am disgracefully biased, having invented the regeneration partnership there, and led it for six years.

The purist lobby within BURA would (and do) say that Paddington isn't strictly a regeneration project and is more properly defined as a property development project.

But I would argue that: the site had been blighted for decades (and had, you will remember, completely done for Trafalgar House); British Waterways had sold the land there three times (nice work if you can get it Mr Bensted); and - crucially - we would never have got the development away and attracted the level of private sector investment it eventually did, even in a rising market, had it not been for the fact that we firmly adopted a partnership approach, predicated on best practice in urban generation.