LDN Weekly – Issue 38 – 18 July 2018

THE (E)STATE OF PLAY 

With the London Assembly and Parliamentary recess just around the bend, we started the week here at LCA thinking that it would be a relatively quiet one – and were very much mistaken. That’s London for you.

This edition covers the revelation of the Tories’ longlist of prospective candidates for the 2020 Mayoral elections and their efforts to grapple with their ‘London problem.’

In the sphere of planning policy and development, we take a look at the Mayor’s final policy guidance for balloting estate residents affected by regeneration projects, Haringey Council putting the last nail in the HDV’s coffin and the Government’s new Estates Strategy. We also juxtapose two Labour-run boroughs’ seemingly contradictory approaches to balloting estate residents, as well as key planning decisions in a third.

Finally, we’ve thrown in some key people moves and the lowdown on a number of recent reports and events, which anyone interested in London politics and planning should know about.

As always, we’d love to hear your feedback and do follow us on Twitter @LDNComms if you don’t already.

WHITHER THE LONDON TORIES?  

The local elections in May did not result in absolute disaster for the Tories and, indeed, the party showed remarkable resilience. But the election did serve to highlight the party’s weaknesses and its much talked about ‘London problem.’ Beset by internal divisions over Brexit and other key policy areas, weakened by a natural process of attrition after eight years in government and undercut by major demographic and socioeconomic shifts across the country, the party’s campaign strategy is in need of a radical overhaul. This week saw one of the first signs of a concerted effort to diagnose and address the party’s weaknesses in London and beyond, with the launch of a new report focusing on perceptions of the party among Black and Ethnic Minority voters. The report was commissioned by Onward, a Conservative ‘campaigning think tank,’ and drew on polling by Populus – all of which can be accessed in full here.

The report concludes that ‘the Party’s challenge amongst BAME voters is as great as amongst 18-24 year olds’. Of BAME voters polled, 24% said that the Conservatives are ‘on their side’, compared to 53% for the Labour Party, while amongst all 18-24 year olds, Labour leads the Conservatives by 54% to 29%. The research was presented at an event this past Monday, whose speakers included former Mayoral advisor Kulveer Ranger and AM Shaun Bailey – both of whom have declared their ambition to run as the party’s Mayoral candidate in 2020. On that note, is worth highlighting that Conservativehome has now published the full list of ten candidates longlisted for the party’s nomination to run for the London mayoralty. These ten candidates will now be interviewed, after which three finalists will be chosen as the shortlist put to a vote of Party members in London, with enough time to announce them at Conference at end-September.

HDV LATEST 

Haringey Council’s new Labour administration has voted to cancel the Haringey Development Vehicle (HDV) programme, in so doing ending its £2bn joint venture with developer Lendlease. The cabinet, making its decision last night, appeared to be unswayed by letters sent to the council by Lendlease, or a deputation from Lendlease chief executive officer for international operations and Europe Dan Labbad. Labbad arrived with an offer of ‘flexibility’ that had already been outlined in letters sent, and a commitment to the council’s own agenda. Even had more favourable terms been agreed between Lendlease and Haringey, council leader Joseph Ejiofor had stated in cabinet papers published prior to last night that any new arrangement would not change the ‘fundamental approach’ that the new administration disagreed with – this position was maintained during the meeting. While Lendlease appeared willing to cede some authority to Haringey Council through more conducive HDV terms, the new administration upheld their position set out in this May’s manifesto, resolving instead to pursue a council-owned housing delivery model. Lendlease now has recourse to mount legal action and Haringey Council must pay the developer £520,275 to cover its 50% share of the costs incurred thus far by the project. The council has already spent £2.5m on the HDV, largely in the form of legal costs.

THE BALLOTS BOTTOM LINE  

From today, any developer looking to undertake major estate regeneration schemes in the capital, with the benefit of City Hall funding, must now ballot residents. In a press release, the Mayor also states that he wants councils and housing associations to commit to balloting residents for schemes where his funding is not involved, and where he has no power to insist on one. Detailed guidance published by the GLA today underlines the requirements that investment partners such as developers, housing associations or local authorities must consider when balloting residents.

WHAT ABOUT BALLOTS IN REAL TIME?  

As noted previously in LDN, London’s boroughs have greeted the advent of ballots for tenants affected by estate regeneration with mixed reactions. Developments on the eve of the policy’s formal launch have only served to confirm this.

As highlighted by Inside Housing, the Labour-led North London borough of Enfield appears set to make the demolition and redevelopment of the Snell’s Park and Joyce Avenue estates dependent on a residents’ ballot. According to papers submitted to its 4 July Cabinet Meeting, council leadership will seek Cabinet approval for the relevant regeneration proposals in September [sic] ‘albeit dependant on a resident ballot’.

But in South London, another Labour-led council is evidently far more reluctant to implement ballots. Lambeth council will tonight be debating a motion by opposition councillors of the Green Party ‘to ballot residents on the Cressingham Gardens Estate, the Fenwick Estate and the Central Hill Estate’. But the council’s Labour group has submitted an amendment to the motion, which aims to delete the references to balloting residents on these estates. It replaces them with noncommittal statements of support for ‘placing residents at the heart of the decision-making process’ deferring the implementation of the estate regeneration ballots policy to a time when Labour is in control of Whitehall and ‘when councils would have the funding, flexibility and powers to build and refurbish social housing that is denied to them by this Conservative government’. The original motion and proposed amendments can all be found in full here.

GREENWICH SAYS NO 

Further along the south bank of the Thames, the 9 July meeting of Greenwich Council’s Planning Board struck down two major housing schemes. Rockwell’s Charlton Riverside plans would have delivered 771 new homes (35% affordable) in 11 buildings of up to 10 storeys, while JMH Group’s Harrow Manorway plans foresaw 272 new homes (40% affordable) in buildings of up to 17 storeys. Councillors cited a mismatch between Rockwell’s scheme and the Charlton Riverside masterplan, particularly as regards building height, the provision of family-sized homes and design. Other critics of the two developments who spoke at the committee session, including residents and former Council Leader Councillor Denise Hyland, took issue with their affordable homes offering, the impact on the area’s existing creative workspaces, the nuisance caused by construction crews, and the lack of needed transport infrastructure. Relevant reports by Estates Gazette and OnLondon highlight the fact that the schemes are situated in Opportunity Areas, have council officers’ recommendation for approval, and had been amended by developers in response to previous criticism. But it may not all be over for the plans as, considering the number homes they would deliver, they could be subject to a Mayoral call-in. But Sadiq, as is often the case, is caught between a rock and a hard place - should he side with Labour councillors and dissenting locals, or should he side with private sector developers, with a view to deliver his housing numbers?

PEOPLE MOVES  

• Sir Craig Mackey, the Metropolitan Police’s long-serving Deputy Commissioner, has announced his intention to retire in December after more than 34 years.
• Gill Steward, the Chief Executive of Bexley Council since 2016, will be stepping down on 31 August ‘due to a change in her personal circumstances’. Paul Moore, currently the council’s Deputy Chief Executive, will take over the role on a temporary basis.
• Matt Bell has left the Berkeley Group where, as Group Head of External Affairs, he led a major shift in their approach to placemaking and to building communities, as well as developing youth employment programmes such as Street Elite.
• While the Cabinet’s merry-go-round of resignations and appointments dominates the headlines, we were particularly interested to see a familiar face making something of a comeback. As first reported by Guido Fawkes, former Tory MP for Enfield North Nick de Bois has been appointed Dominic Raab’s new chief of staff at the Department for Exiting the EU, replacing Stewart Jackson. De Bois has since confirmed his appointment.

GOVERNMENT ESTATES STRATEGY 

The Cabinet Office has released its revised Government Estates Strategy, which according to Cabinet Office minister Oliver Dowden ‘marks a new chapter’ in how the government estate is managed. Building on the department’s previous strategy in 2014, which saw 180 government-owned buildings in central London reduced to 68, it now plans to consolidate the government estate down further to only 20 buildings by 2030. Many voices in the London development sector have speculated that the likely sale of some of these buildings could provide sizeable opportunities for redevelopment of some of the capital’s most iconic buildings. The former War Office building in Whitehall, one such building, was sold to UK-based Indian conglomerate Hinduja Group and Spanish firm OHL for £350m in 2014 as part of the government’s estate rationalisation. Elsewhere, the strategy also sketches out long-term plans to improve public realm around the Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square and Parliament Square area by the end of this Parliament.

BTR BOOM

It’s been yet another bumper week for the build-to-rent (BTR) sector. Oxford Properties, the property arm of a major Canadian pension fund, has teamed up with British developer Delancey to form a new BTR-focused co-investment platform called Delancey Oxford Residential (DOOR). The new joint venture, which has an initial capital commitment of £600m, will take ownership of a 39% stake in BTR developer Get Living (previously held by Delancey’s DV4 fund), alongside current shareholders Dutch APG (39%) and Qatari Diar (22%). Boosted by fresh funds, Get Living now aspires to develop more than 12,000 BTR homes in London and other major cities across the UK. Meanwhile, yet another major collaboration in the sector is likely in the works, following news that developer Telford Homes has hired Savills to help secure a dedicated investor partner for its BTR push in London. Finally, LCA client Quintain continues to charge ahead with a number of projects, most recently awarding Wates Construction a £161.5m contract to deliver 633 new homes at Wembley Park by 2020 – 347 of which will be BTR properties, to be managed by Quintain’s Tipi business.

A MIXED BAG  

A new report, prepared by GVA, Architecture 00 and Real Urbanism, and supported by Centre for London, has assessed the capital’s capacity to provide flexible workspace alongside residential development in mixed-use schemes. Though new protections for strategic industrial land (SIL) are being introduced in the new draft London Plan, smaller scale industrial workspace (i.e. ‘maker space’) is being squeezed and is reflected by the continued fall in industrial land vacancy rates to below healthy levels. To remedy this, Places that Work makes a series of recommendations to position mixed-use development as a more central part of planning consideration. These include the establishment of a revolving Londonwide Commercial Space Investment Fund to directly support the provision of mixed development, and establishing area-based Local Economic Growth Companies that would purchase, hold and manage employment space for purposes of bringing forward mixed-use schemes. These schemes, the report argues, should be targeted towards Opportunity Areas (OAs) as outlined in the London Plan where there is the greatest potential for mixed-use development at scale.

BUILDING COUNCIL HOMES FOR LONDONERS PROSPECTUS 

Having published the Building Council Homes for Londoners’ programme’s funding prospectus in May, City Hall this month published an addendum to the original document, setting out how local authorities can bid for a slice of an additional £500 million in Housing Revenue Account (HRA) borrowing headroom through the programme. While the overall cost-effectiveness of City Hall’s effort to spur council housebuilding remains to be seen, London Boroughs of all political stripes will undoubtedly be relieved that they have the opportunity to have access to funding and technical support that will enable them to take a more active role in the delivery of affordable homes – an eagerness reflected in an event held today by the Centre for London, on which you can find out more below. Through helping councils develop key in-house expertise, access more affordable housing grant, ring-fence Right to Buy receipts and manage additional HRA borrowing headroom, Building Council Homes for Londoners aims to support delivery of 10,000 new council housing starts by March 2022.

BOROUGH BUILDERS

LCA today attended the launch of a report by Centre for London on housebuilding by the capital’s boroughs. The 150 attendees were presented with the report’s key findings, as well as talks by host architect Paul Karakusevic, Deputy Mayor for Housing James Murray, as well as a panel consisting of Waltham Forest’ Leader Clare Coghill, Lewisham’s Mayor Damien Egan, Chief Executive of Brick by Brick Colm Lacey, the Bartlett School of Planning’s Visiting Professor Dr. Janice Morphet and CfL Chair Liz Peace. The report usefully provides an overview of what London boroughs are doing on direct delivery of housing, with 14 delivering programmes – i.e. using in-house teams – with 10,900 homes in the pipeline over the next five years, while 17 boroughs currently have active wholly-owned development companies – i.e. separate commercial companies – with 12,700 homes in the pipeline over the same period. However all speakers emphasised the need for more funding and planning reforms that will allow councils to develop and deploy the necessary capacity.
 

SUPER SEWER

LCA client Tideway features in a three-part documentary which charts the progress on construction of the super-sewer over the past three years - giving TV viewers insight into the construction of one of London’s biggest infrastructure projects. The first episode of ‘The Five Billion Pound Super Sewer’ was aired on BBC2 on Tuesday 17 July at 9:00pm, and if you missed, it you can still watch it here!
 

LCA IS HIRING

The research function lies at the heart of LCA’s work and we are now on the lookout for a new Research Assistant. This represents a great opportunity for somebody who has been working in research or politics for a short time (ideally at least 12 months) to develop and expand their skills. We are especially interested in hearing from candidates with a good understanding of – and a passion for – local government and politics, as well as policy areas such as planning, housing, development, transport and health. If you would like to hear more about the job description, or know of someone who would be, please see more details here.
 

LCA prides itself on its intelligence-led approach to PR and communications and our dedicated research team monitors London politics, news and issues as it happens. If you would like to know more about LCA or anything in this edition of LDN – London in short please get in touch. 

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LDN is put together by a dedicated team at London Communications Agency. The content for each edition is developed from news drawn from the last week from every London local paper as well as the regional and national press, from intelligence gathered by monitoring local, regional and national government activity and from the insight and expert knowledge of the entire LCA team.

If you would like to know more about anything covered in this or any other edition of LDN or if you would like to know more about LCA please contact Duncan Hepburn on 020 7612 8480 or dh@londoncommunications.co.uk.

We strive for balance and accuracy at all times; however, if you feel we have made a mistake, omission or have misrepresented a story or issue please alert the team by contacting Duncan using the details above.