Recently in South Kilburn Partnership Trust Category

It is a serious period of transition for me as we gear up to go on site with the first UKR pilot.  I am clearing the decks.  This week I chaired my final meeting of the South Kilburn Neighbourhood Trust, after nearly five years during which it has been my honour and privilege to serve that fine community.  

And, though I say so myself, I think I leave SK in pretty good shape.  And in pretty safe hands. With the amount of visible progress being made, South Kilburn is seriously becoming a "good news" story: multiple cranes can be seen swinging into action every morning and we have nothing short of a phoenix rising from the ashes of a crumbling 1960s council estate, with the decant programme now significantly underway, under the stewardship of the London Borough of Brent, as master developer and landowner.

I have hung rather a lot onto Greg Clark's "General Power of Competence" for local authorities, due to become statute in the forthcoming Decentralisation Bill, and I would sincerely hope that I am not wrong to do so.  But only the other day in conversation a (very) leading property developer dismissed it as "smoke and mirrors", which I found a little alarming.  I didn't argue with him at the time (well, you don't) but it got me thinking.  Having managed to get a number of projects away through the principle that you - ahem - "fake it until you make it" (Paddington being a prima facie example of this) I am quite a believer in "smoke and mirrors" really.  I guess any local authority worth their salt which can tell a good story, demonstrate it has the support of the community (and stakeholders and service providers), invoke its powers (planning and what-have-you) and - better still - offer up some land, has all to play for.  Call it smoke and mirrors if you like, it would imbue confidence. 

 It might be helpful to look at examples of proactive local authorities already in action, even now (perhaps, especially now).  Regeneration projects are still being delivered though PPP in places like Lambeth of course and another excellent example of a local authority playing in its assets to great effect is at South Kilburn, where the London Borough of Brent is currently master-planning an extraordinary turnaround. 

We've now had the transcripts of the final hearing of the Select Committee on Regeneration last week. Needless to say we've pored over every syllable and we're very happy. Clive Betts has done an admirable job as Committee Chair, in what could have been all doom and gloom. We ended on a very upbeat note.

This is what Grant Shapps said about UKR (ooooh I am so proud): "On Friday we saw a very significant announcement from UK Regeneration of a pilot scheme of £150m, backed by Barclays Capital, which will go to help to regenerate. This is absolutely the kind of thing that we want to see. It is a very exciting development, and very timely considering the work that you are doing."
 
Well, call me a toady if you like, peeps, but gawd bless that minister! I'll touch the hem of his garment any day.  He went on to say: "UK Regeneration have a network, they help to promote the lessons learned. They publish a very good bi-weekly newsletter that you should all get hold of.  And they are saying that they have the potential to regenerate 20,000 homes by 2020."
 

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).

Nice to get feedback.

A good mate of mine, who is indeed a very fine public servant (as I've just told Veredus, if you're reading this, Blondie) contacted me with a little anecdote on the subject of ghost busters.

Her ex-husband was a housing estate manager in Hull (as it happens, in the NDC area there) way back and had to go and see a tenant one day who had been bitterly complaining about noises and creaks and problems with her house.

No one could find anything wrong. She wanted a transfer to get away, adamant there was a poltergeist in her house; a transfer to another property was the only solution she would accept.

So he makes his appointment, tramps over there to see her, gets a full blown story about all the things the poltergeist has been doing - the usual smashing of plates, noise making and throwing of water routine.

When pushed on what makes her so sure it's supernatural, she says she knows who it is. "Oh", says the ex-husband, "and who is it?" "My eight year old son" says the lady, "oh no", cries the ex-husband "I am so sorry to hear that, it's terrible", etc etc... attempting now to comfort her and gaining more understanding of why she might want to move....

I am in spear-carrying mode again (dear old Jim Barham at Rialto Homes used to refer to me as "Boadicea" in Paddington days; I do not think he intended this as a compliment).

In my role as chair at the South Kilburn Partnership (SKP), it was my pleasant duty to draft my introduction to the 2009/10 Business Plan today. Regular readers of this blog will know there has been considerable pain in South Kilburn and, from what I understand, we were not alone among the 39 New Deal for Communities (NDC) programmes (set up by the forebears of Communities and Local Government in 2000) many of whom have suffered similar dissonance.

But - as South Kilburn residents will loudly affirm - the past is another country and we must move onwards and upwards. So I am proud to be able to say that we have been one step ahead of the other NDC programmes in South Kilburn in setting up our legacy vehicles with the establishment of the over-arching South Kilburn Partnership (SKP) and its delivery arm, the South Kilburn Neighbourhood Trust (SKNT) - and I chair both bodies (there is just no limit to how many hats can I wear at once!).