Planning in London issue 126 JULY-SEPTEMBER 2023

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Regulars

LEADERS page 5

FINCH page 7

MALLETT page 14

¡PILLO! page 31

PLANNING PERFORMANCE 32

ROGERS page 53

THIS IDEA MUST DIE: “AI WILL OUTSMART THE HUMAN RACE” Professor Anna Korhonen p15; Foster in Paris reviewed by Paul Finch page 73; London’s ageing population: Alex Child of McCarthy Stone page 21; LONDON PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT FORUM including ‘design in planning’ led by government head of architecture Sarah Allen page 36; London Office Crane Survey Summer 2023 Deloitte page 54; Book: The Exploding Galaxy by Jill Drower p66

The Journal of the London Planning & Development Forum

SHAPING THE WORLD

CONTENTS

CLIPBOARD

Best new buildings in London page 28

Page

5 LEADERS

Hunting the unattainable

A new unfair burden for planners

7 PAUL FINCH

What we should design for

8 NLA TALL BUILDINGS SURVEY 2023

14 OPINION: LEE MALLETT Don’t smash it, fix it

OPINIONS

15 Artificial Intelligence | Anna Korhonen

16 Affordable housing | Simon Corp

17 Affordable housing & viability | Simon Ricketts

20 Problems with planning | Dexter Moren

21 London’s ageing population | Alex Child

23 Affordable housing thresholds | Andrew Golland

27 BRIEFING

Long delay for refreshed NPPF; High-rise office boom as report claims City is ‘busiest it has ever been’; Terry Farrell has set up a £4.6m centre in Newcastle; Up to 125,000 planned London homes face major delays due to two staircase rule; Homes England's new strategic plan more "place-based”; Best new buildings in London; Labour government would rethink the planning system and tackle the taboo of green belt development;

31 ¡PILLO!

No need for huge dollops of cash - just modest dollops of common sense; London’s air is cleaner than any time in living memory; Ofsted-style ratings for housing developments; Landline, a major new work by artist Sean Scully RA

32 PLANNING PERFORMANCE

PLANNING PERFORMANCE page 32

Latest planning performance by English districts and London boroughs: planning applications in England between January to March 2023: numbers of applications and decisions continue to fall sharply

Continues next page >>>

Foster in Paris reviewed by Paul Finch page 73

36 LONDON PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT FORUM

Design in planning Led by Government Head of Architecture

Industrial and logistics uses in London

Examples of multi storey mixed use and flexible buildings

53 ANDREW ROGERS

Rampant Acronymania Deters All Readers

FEATURES

54 London Office Crane Survey Summer 2023

56 Public Rental Homes | Peter Bill

59 Inclusive communities | Daniel Leon

62 Community led infill development | Tom Noble

BOOKS

65 Play the Game How the Olympics came to East London | Michael Owens and Ralph Ward

66 The Exploding Galaxy by Jill Drower

ISSN 1366-9672 (PRINT)

ISSN 2053-4124 (DIGITAL)

Issue 126 JULY-SEPTEMBER 2023 www.planninginlondon.com

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LEADERS

Hunting the unattainable

You’ve seen the stories about redundancies in major architectural practices. And read those about the biggest fall in house prices for eleven years. That metric is going to get a lot bigger while central banks around the world, but particularly in the west, continue the battle against inflation, especially while employment markets remain buoyant post-Covid. Perhaps not for much longer.

Covid, Putin, Trussonomics, the outrageous, prolonged evisceration of Thames Water by a procession of cynical owners and shareholders. What has this economic, political and regulatory macro backdrop to do with planning in London?

“It’s the economy, stupid,” was coined by James Carville, a strategist in Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign – another recessionary era. The other phrases in that campaign were “change vs. more of the same” and “Don’t forget health care.” A useful concatenation for anyone involved with planning and its policies.

This is because that fall in house prices, driven by the interest rate rises ignited in the UK immediately following the Kamikwasi mini-budget last year, which then had the petrol of Putin’s invasion poured on, has burnt out viability from every single scheme that is in pre-app mode, or removed it from every scheme that has a recent longed-for and so expensively-won approval, and that would now be economic suicide to build.

That’s why architects are firing, not hiring. The prospect of prolonged higher interest rates, perhaps hovering around the 6 per cent mark for another 18 months, which is what markets are predicting, is going to make that necessity more profound. It is better to cut sooner and deeper to avoid greater pain later. It’s a Darwinian moment.

If planners expect “more of the same” in terms of wider benefits approvals for scheme might provide, they won’t get it. And if we, as a society, wish to see investment made in things like the NHS and our utilities, we need to nurture the investment that brings growth and opportunity.

What the Conservatives have failed to do, and in the process undermined the economic achievements of their neo-liberal economics policies, is to regulate bad behaviours effectively. We are – again – contemplating paying the price. It’s unlikely voters will stand for it.

Planning authorities are a regulator, using policy and, in extremis, law enforcement. Policy needs to flex to accommodate what is happening economically. Otherwise we will get a lot more of the same for several years – ie a much reduced amount of affordable homes delivered through private sector development or contributions to off-site provision. And fewer tax receipts from the economic activity that all development underpins.

In regeneration, delivery is all. In development, viability is all. In planning, pragmatism is useful, especially if you agree (to whatever extent) with James Carville. n

In regeneration, delivery is all. In development, viability is all. In planning, pragmatism is useful

A new unfair burden for planners

The Building Safety Act, among other things, requires architects to set out a statement of their fire design approach to a building project. Unfortunately, instead of this being a matter to be dealt with by building control once permission has been granted, it has to be part of the planning application. Yet another burden for hard-pressed planning departments, whose officers have not been trained to deal with fire design.

What are the planners supposed to do? Send statements across to the building regs folk to get a view? But why should the latter take on something which government has now decreed is the province of planning rather than regulation, which will in any event kick in later? It seems likely that architects will need to produce 'fire statement' which have been drafted, written or at least endorsed by an independent third party, ie fire engineers.

Local authorities may feel obliged to employ similar consultants to vet the statements being submitted. So more boutique consultants, more cost, and longer lead times for projects. Is this the best way to run a railroad? Moreover, once you remove direct responsibility for a particular design element, the less likely it is that the profession formerly responsible will think about it in quite the same way - responsibility will lie with the consultant whose name endorses the proposition.

It is now common for architects' professional indemnity insurance policies to exclude fire design, particularly in respect of facades and tall buildings. Cue more de-skilling when government wants the reverse.

There is another problem, which is the lack of any single profession or professional qualification in respect of fire design. Plenty of people have knowledge and skill, from the fire departments of engineering consultancies to the fire brigade, to building control. To whom, exactly, do you have to defer?

This magazine has always argued that matters which are to do with regulation and/or calculation should be dealt with by building control, and that planning should be about location, use, mass, form, materials and design (not at all the same as aesthetics).

Increasingly, planners are being required to make judgements about matters in which they have no particular expertise, and indeed there is no reason why they should have it. Planning is tough enough as it is, without the imposition of inappropriate extra load.

This element of safety legislation should be rewritten. n

Planning is tough enough as it is, without the imposition of inappropriate extra load

FINCH

What we should design for

Without collaboration, we have nothing, says Paul Finch

Exactly what are the duties, responsibilities and liabilities of the architect/engineer/designer? And perhaps more important, exactly to whom do they apply?

A complicated question, which is one reason why design and construction is a matter of interest to lawyers. But it is one which involves more than the letter of the law, since it may concern ethical and moral issues which, if you are lucky, may not arise over the course of a professional career. On the other hand . . . .

One conventional answer embracing all of the above is that the first duty is to the client. After all, it is the client who pays the fee and sets or agrees the programme. If you don’t like that programme, then walk away. If you undertake it, then the implication is that you are happy with what is being proposed.

This is why various practices decline to work, for example, on prisons, nuclear power stations, or houses for very rich people. Sometimes this extends to avoiding work for particular countries or political/religious regimes. In a free country you can pick and choose.

Having chosen to work for a particular client on a specific project, is that the end of the story? Not really, for a variety of reason. First come the demands of your professional institution or registration board. These generally refer to obligations to wider society rather than simply the person or organization paying your fee. Such obligations may be quite specific, or more general, especially in respect of (these days) having regard to the environmental implications of what it is that you are designing.

These are not contractual obligations as such, but they do raise a fundamental point about the relationship between designers and what you might describe as the ‘real’ client for the outcome of a project. That client is, of course, the users who occupy or make use of the building or facility provided over, potentially, decades or even longer.

I describe that relationship as being the ‘unwritten contract’ between designer and users the design-

ers have never met. The fact that is unwritten does not make it unimportant, far from it, because it has greater significance for a far greater number of people than that initial client. Even where the client is a company or public body, the formal client will be the people who sign off on the design. The users will be other people, sometimes in their thousands, or in the case of infrastructure projects, millions.

While a family house may see a close relationship between client and user, at least for a period of time, most other buildings or infrastructure projects affect people who had nothing to do with their creation. A developer creates an office building on behalf of commercial investors, but the users comprise the office workers who will occupy the space for decades. Doesn’t the architect have a duty to these people as well as the formal client? What about the users of a rail station or airport or shopping mall?

Who cares about office workers, passengers or shoppers, you may say. But suppose the project is a school with a site bisected by a busy road and the project is to provide new accommodation on both sides. Is it acceptable to force children to cross that busy road if they need to use a particular classroom or facility? Or would it be safer and more appropriate to build a bridge? The latter is more expensive, but the risk of an accident involving pupils is eliminated. What should the designer recommend, and possibly resign over?

This is not just a question for the designer. However, there may be the occasional moment in a professional career where moral and ethical considerations outgun the prospect of a commission and a fee. Think about that potential road accident involving children: it won’t be the contractor who gets blamed, or the engineer who designed the road crossing. It will certainly be the architect and possibly the client (who will probably have moved on).

Professional indemnity insurance exists because of a cultural assumption that professional decisions are not identical to those of a purely commercial nature. There is rarely a requirement for contractors

to be insured – this is an observation, not a criticism. It does, however, point to a different lexicon of priorities which apply to the various parties involved in the creation of our buildings and infrastructure.

These days, priorities in respect of carbon emissions, health and safety and future-proofing carry far more weight than a few decades ago, when there was a greater emphasis on efficiency of form and operation, reduction of structural strength to the minimums set in building standards, and scant regard for the retrofit potential of what was being created.

Today’s design priorities can be summed up in that splendid admonition in respect of what we should design for: ‘long life, loose fit, low energy’. Coined in 1972 by the then president of the RIBA, Alex Gordon, it is as valid today as it was then, and remarkably prescient.

When it comes to priorities, the biggest mistake public clients make is to assume that you have to make a choice between quality and quantity, especially in relation to housing. You need minimum space, volume and insulation standards, then designs which are excellent examples of working to a realistic if tight budget given the numbers required. Expensive buildings are not necessarily well designed, but cheap ones can and should be.

Synthesis is the name of the game in respect of the balancing of priorities which, we should always remember, are not simply a matter for the design professions.

Without collaboration, we have nothing. n

First published in Design Intelligence Quarterly

Paul Finch is programme director of the World Festival of Architecture and joint publishing editor of Planning in London

When we started our annual survey of tall buildings in 2014, we selected 20 storeys as our measure of tallness because that was the approximate height of most council-built towers and, thus, a recognisable benchmark for the general public.

At that time, we were keen to get an idea of the scale of development of tall buildings. Mayor Boris Johnson had claimed that his need to deliver 42,000 homes did not mean 'towers will be popping up all over the place'. We thought it did. So we looked at the whole pipeline — those in the planning system and under construction — and managed to count 236, which was surprising to many and caused quite a stir. The Skyline Campaign, backed by the Architects’ Journal and The Observer, was set up by Rowan Moore and Barbara Weiss, who took the position that many of the tall buildings planned for London were ‘grossly insensitive to their immediate context and appearance on the skyline’.

They suggested that existing planning and political regimes failed to protect the valued qualities of London or to provide a coherent and positive vision for the future. But within a few years, the size of the pipeline had grown to over five hundred, this time with hardly a murmur from the press or even social media. Nevertheless, the doughty Barbara Weiss continued her campaign, and the London Forum of Amenity Societies grumbled away.

For the first few years of the survey, activity focused on the central boroughs and Opportunity Areas, but then we started to see a shift in the number of applications for outer London. Towers arriving in the backyards of suburbia were met with growing resistance as the number of homes targeted by Mayor Sadiq Khan grew to 66,000. Then along came Robert Jenrick, Secretary of State for Housing Communities and Local Government and his preference for ‘gentle density’.

In his response to the draft London Plan in 2020, Jenrick suggested there were areas of London where tall buildings did not reflect local character and directed the Mayor to ensure they were only brought forward in ‘appropriate and clearly defined areas, as determined by the boroughs’. The end result is a definition of a tall building that can be as short as six storeys, or 18

metres to the floor level of the top storey, and an assessment of what is tall based on a building’s context.

So this year’s survey is different to previous ones where the headline has been the size of the pipeline and responds not just to the changes in the London Plan but also to policies and attitudes around sustainability. Today the first question about a tall building proposal tends not to be ‘How high is it?’ but ‘How green is it?’.

Peter Murray OBE, Co-Founder, NLA

SETTING THE SCENE FOR HIGH-RISE DEVELOPMENT

This year’s tall building survey finds the sector in a mixed mood. On the one hand the City of London planners are “the busiest they’ve ever been” dealing with a plethora of proposals for commercial skyscrapers; while residential development is more subdued, thanks to the suppressed housing market across the capital.

But as tall building development flickers into life in some parts of the capital at least, development priorities for planners are shifting. Higher demands of sustainability, including a reduction in carbon footprints, and a focus on wellbeing and continually unfolding building safety legislation, adds up to a challenging time to design and build tall.

As Craig Tabb, director at DP9, notes, “As recently as five years ago, if you were to go to a planning meeting with a borough about almost any building, but particularly a tall building, things like sustainability, carbon lifecycle, fire safety, servicing, and emergency planning would have been very low on the agenda. Now they’re front and centre.” All are points we pick up later in this essay.

Reconciling these demands while ensuring financial viability is very much a developing science. Critics argue that measured against a yardstick of reduced carbon emissions, towers inevitably struggle—squaring that circle practically defies the laws of physics. Sustainability and wellbeing is another area of tense debate and one of the key themes explored in this report.

High-rise developers have had to navigate choppy waters and much uncertainty in the past 12 months, and that turbu-

Published by NLA in May this annual publication provides the latest data and analysis on how tall buildings contribute to a denser, more compact and sustainable London.

It is part of the NLA Tall Buildings programme, bringing together industry experts and the public to discuss one of the capital’s most debated topics

annual survey of tall buildings

This year’s comes at a time of uncertainty and transition — a subdued residential market, evolving legislation and more stringent environmental and building safety demands are challenging both financial viability and how towers are designed. Over four main sections we explore the trends and the talking points taxing those involved in this building typology and explore evolving solutions and case studies.

The London Plan gives a requirement for Local Plans to define tall buildings. It set a default height of 18 metres to the floor level of the top storey or six storeys as a ‘tall building’. The projects presented in this report’s showcase follow this definition. The data represent developments of 20+ storeys in the planning system in 2022. For the first time, NLA has worked in partnership with the GLA, providing data from the Planning London Datahub.

Of the developments in planning in 2022:

London Boroughs are still drawing up Local Plans — with some adopting the Mayor’s definition of a tall building as six storeys or 18 metres to the floor level of the top storey, the same height as in the Building Safety Act, and permitted heights largely negotiated on a site-by-site basis

lence looks set to continue in the months ahead.

The economic fallout of price inflation and interest rate rises, has put the brake on London’s housing market, stymieing new starts. Many schemes have been rendered unviable by the surge in construction costs.

According to the National House Building Council (NHBC), which provides warranties for 80 per cent of all new homes, figures for new homes registered to move into planning in the final quarter of the year fell in 10 out of 12 UK regions against the previous quarter. London suffered the worst with a 63 per cent drop suggesting there will be further decline in residential site activity in 2023.1

The rise in interest rates has not only suppressed demand but has made it harder for clients, including housing associations, to borrow money to make their sites viable, notes Roger Holdsworth, partner at Pollard Thomas Edwards.

That said, land values and scarcity of sites mean that developers will continue to build tall. This, despite observations from those interviewed about the growing public scepticism of the value and appeal of towers, which appears to in turn be dampening enthusiasm from the boroughs, who are being a little less vocal about their plans. Tabb remarks: “There’s still an appetite to go upwards because there's a strong economic basis for optimising and pushing density in London. But it’s never been easy promoting a tall building.”

Stuart McDonald, operations director at Mace, is optimistic. “Despite the challenges in the market, the increase in demand, in particular for green offices spaces, is steadily growing.” Mace is working on several high-rise schemes in London — two of them outside London Bridge station. These schemes are student accommodation and the high-profile scheme for the EDGE London Bridge, which claims to be the greenest tall building in the capital. McDonald points to greater surety of supply of raw

Commercial schemes are gearing up again after construction costs and interest rate rises slowed development

New high-rise residential for sale has declined but a shortage of rental property in London is fuelling growth in BuildTo-Rent (BTR) in midheight high-rise

There is a strong argument for the sustainability of tall buildings, based on the idea of a compact city, whereas the amount of embodied carbon could work against them. To achieve a sustainable skyline, progress is being made through performance-based design, retrofit and collaboration between sectors

After the Grenfell Tower fire, new building safety legislation is coming in and is welcomed. Even though it has created initial uncertainty, it should ultimately boost public confidence in tall buildings

materials, and more stable tender prices as providing greater market confidence.

The uplift is apparent across the river in the City where Gwyn Richards, planning and development director at the City of London Corporation, reports that both planning applications and construction of tall buildings—defined in the City as those over 75 metres—could not be busier. There have been six consents in the last two years for tall buildings (between 75 metres and 309 metres). In addition, there are two live applications currently, and possibly even another four before the end of 2023, with a couple more at very early discussion stages. “It's a hugely vigorous pipeline at the moment, probably close to the busiest we've ever been. The evidence increasingly suggests there is an under supply of top grade A office space,” he explains.

Richards also notes a growing trend to retrofit and adapt existing tall buildings as pressure grows to reduce embodied carbon—a point picked up later in this report’s sustainability section.

While mortgage rate increases have harmed the for- sale market, rents in London have seen the biggest rise on record. Tenants in the capital saw rent increases of 14.8 per cent during 2022, a figure equating to a leap of an average rent from £1,752 to £2,011 per month, according to a survey published in January by rental specialist Ocasa.2 Accordingly, while the construction of pure residential towers for sale, with a portion of affordable housing, has stalled, there is a new wave of high-rise residential blocks taking shape for private rent and co-living.

Stuart Baillie, partner and head of town planning at Knight Frank, who chairs the NLA’s Expert Panel on Tall Buildings, says that the survey’s residential towers and those currently in planning are mainly 20–25 storeys high. Past this height, it gets proportionately more expensive to build and financially extremely

More research is needed to better understand how high-rise buildings perform, with particular focus on maintenance and affordability issues and the perception and wellbeing of their inhabitants.

We bring you some excerpts from the report courtesy NLA whose members have full access to it

nla.london | #NLATallBuildings © New London Architecture (NLA)

risky, because the tower will need to be completed before flats can be occupied, unless there is more than one core. Also, the number of contractors who can build above that height is limited. Built-To-Rent developer Greystar, which has large- scale rental housing developments in four areas ofLondon— Greenford in west London, Sailmakers in east London, Nine Elms in central London and Croydon in south London—is committed to high rise. But Gary McLuskey, managing director of global design at Greystar, explains that their development plans expand deeper into the suburbs, where the schemes are more likely to be mid- rise blocks, the usual form in North America.

“We like to design buildings of around 300 apartments. That balances the operational costs with the number of units and makes it more manageable. However, in some instances, we may go higher, sometimes up to 450, and occasionally up to 600 depending on the specifics of the project. So, if we've got a mid-rise building, we can rent the left-hand side of it as the builders are finishing the rest of it. Whereas with a tower, you have to wait until almost the whole thing's complete, which means that you're bringing a lot of apartments to the market all at the same time. With a 600-unit tower that can work fine if it has two separate cores, so each can be released separately.” McLuskey says.

Colin Wilson, head of regeneration Old Kent Road at the London Borough of Southwark, where some 40-storey- plus towers are being built, agrees the financial crisis and construction cost inflation has forced a reassessment of height but as yet no real move away from towers.

BUILDING TALL IN A CHANGING MARKET

The London Plan 2021 places onus on London’s borough to adopt local tall building definitions and identify locations where tall buildings might be appropriate in principle, together with heights deemed suitable for those locations.

However, as those we spoke to told us, many local planners don’t have the resource to draw up detailed masterplans, and developers and architects we interviewed expressed concern over the lack of GLA oversight. The reality is that acceptable heights are still being negotiated on a site-by-site basis.

The lack of a firm policy line on height does have some advantages. Having the flexibility to negotiate height can be beneficial for both sides. For example, boroughs can potentially lever more affordable housing into a scheme if developers can go higher to help viabilities.

Steve Jackson, regional director—London at Faithful + Gould, collates publicly available information about the London boroughs’ planning policies. He says that their approach is hugely varied. “Some are very prescriptive about height; others will say a tall building is whatever is in keeping with its surroundings, which is much more what the London Plan says.

”Jackson reports that the average height for those that have defined tall buildings is between 25 and 30 metres (8–10 storeys).

Like Jackson, Knight Frank’s Baillie has also noted the lack of local policy definitions from boroughs. His view is that because the GLA has set the de facto height of a tall building at 18 metres to the floor level of the top storey, it’s harder for boroughs politically to justify setting the definition any higher.

Some boroughs are sticking to definitions that they have had for some time. For example, the London Borough of Brent defines tall buildings thus: “Buildings or structures that are more than 30 metres in height or significantly taller than surrounding development. ”Brent’s Tall Building Strategy goes on to say: “A standard residential storey is about 3 metres, so 30 metres is about 10 storeys high. The Local Plan identifies locations suitable for tall buildings which include tall building zones, town centres and intensification corridors. Opportunities for 10+ storey buildings are in the borough’s Growth Areas where major growth and high density are expected, e.g. Burnt Oak/ Colindale. Wembley, South Kilburn, Staples Corner, Neasden and Alperton. In intensification corridors, town centres outside conservation areas and areas of distinctive residential character developments of around 15 metres (5 storeys) in height are suitable.”

Harrow’s Local Plan also defers to the Mayor’s definition. Inside the Harrow and Wealdstone Opportunity Area, the definition is 30 metres or 10 storeys. Outside that area there is no definition of a tall building other than that the default definition in the London Plan’s Policy D9, namely 18 metres to the floor level of the top storey or six storeys. The new Harrow Local Plan will provide a local definition, and identify areas potentially suitable for tall buildings—but this was only formally commenced quite recently and is not expected to be adopted until the later part of 2025.

Alfredo Caraballo, partner at Allies and Morrison, is one of those who takes the view that the debate around sustainability should not be just related to carbon but should encompass social and economic sustainability and what tall buildings can do for the city at large. “If cities are investing in transport infrastructure, then to pay for the transport infrastructure that benefits the whole of the city, you want to have the highest density possible around it to make the best use of resources.” He says that more emphasis also must be placed on longevity. Allies and Morrison itself has opted for long-life brick facades at the Keybridge Estate in Vauxhall including on the tall residential tower.

Colin Wilson, head of regeneration Old Kent Road at the London Borough of Southwark, concurs, pointing out that “those who live in a tower on the Old Kent road, next to 10 bus routes, and potentially in the future a Tube stations, are taking

The policies that shape London’s tall buildings

The Mayor’s London Plan (adopted March 2021) provides a policy framework for delivering Good Growth through good design. This London Plan is fundamentally about taking a holistic approach and utilising all the levers we have in London to shape our city for the better, built around the needs, health and wellbeing of all Londoners. This is particularly the case for the approach towards tall buildings in the London Plan.

Tall buildings that are of exemplary architectural quality, in the right place, can make a positive contribution to London’s cityscape, and many tall buildings have become a valued part of London’s identity. However, they can also have detrimental visual, functional and environmental impacts if in inappropriate locations and/or of poor- quality design.

As well as ensuring that local plans are underpinned by robust characterisation studies, the

London Plan empowers boroughs to use the analysis of building heights to define what is considered a tall building for their area as well as to identify locations where tall buildings may be an appropriate form of development in principle, subject to meeting the other requirements of the Plan. This should ensure that tall buildings are properly planned as part of an exercise in place-making, informed by a strategy for the future of growth of a place.

Whilst the planning system requires all planning applications to be assessed against the development plan as a whole, the Mayor’s tall building policy (D9) will enable public consultation at the plan- making stage on where tall buildings are appropriate and what height is acceptable.

To support London Boroughs, the Mayor has published draft Characterisation and Growth Strategy London Plan Guidance which sets out a

process for defining within their development plans what is considered a tall building locally and identifying areas where tall buildings may be appropriate and where they are not. This is available on the GLA’s website here. The final guidance will be published later in 2023.

Since adopting the London Plan the Mayor has supported a number of Boroughs in the process of reviewing their Local Plans. A number have already successfully adopted new development plan documents, with many more in train, meaning that new, clear local tall building policies in line with Policy D9 are now becoming commonplace across the capital. Whilst most of the pipeline of existing tall buildings planning permissions were determined prior to this new policy approach, moving forwards this new plan- led approach will help to provide greater certainty to the local community and developers.

up proportionately a smaller part of the Earth's resources because they're taking up only a small bit of land.”

“So yes, being sustainable involves counting embodied carbon, but there is also the carbon footprint issue. In terms of use of resources, how do you compare living in a flat in Canada Water to living in a detached house with a garden where you're taking a half a hectare, and you have to drive everywhere?”

CONCLUSIONS AND NEXT STEPS

Housing targets, land values and the needs of Grade A offices will continue to provide an appetite for tall buildings. However, building costs and market volatility are having a significant impact, and we can expect to see a fall in housing numbers in the coming year and an accompanying decline in affordable homes built as well.

With viabilities in residential squeezed by inflationary hikes and changes to regulations including the need for two staircases for buildings over 30 metres, there is a feeling in the sector that something has to give. It could be a reduction in the percentage of affordable housing, or it could be even higher densities, which in turn requires more amenities. There is a sense too that uncertainties over requirements to meet new building safety regulations will settle down and become business as usual and won’t present a barrier to building tall. They should also help boost public confidence in tall buildings too.

As London grows upwards, there is rising acknowledgement that more research and debate is needed concerning the environmental impact and the wellbeing of residents. While the experience of living in towers is only beginning to enter the debating chamber, the discussions over environmental sustainability and the contribution towers can make to London’s net zero ambitions are getting louder.

From an energy perspective, it won’t be easy for tall buildings to meet net zero requirements both in terms of their operation or their embodied carbon, without an acceleration in the

Tall buildings policy across London boroughs

Tall Buildings Policy pre-dates London Plan (2021)

Some guidance but no specific adopted or emerging tall buildings policy

Currently reviewing Local Plan, including emerging tall buildings policy

Emerging policy with a tall buildings threshold the same as the London Plan

Emerging policy with a tall buildings threshold higher than the London Plan

Up to date adopted policy with a tall buildings threshold higher than the London Plan

pace of innovation. Clients have been turning to offsetting to ensure their new developments are carbon neutral. However, their efficient use of land, and the fact that towers tend to be built around transport hubs, provide strong counterarguments to the problem of their high embodied carbon content. The call to look at sustainability through a wider lens of economic and social sustainability also has strong merit.

But the confluence of policy and market sentiment, with occupants clamouring for strong ESG credentials, will inevitably mean that in the commercial sector we can expect to see adaptation and retrofit in the ascendancy.

As was also noted at the recent NLA tall building round table, planning policies do not provide enough flexibility to encourage exemplary design. The situation is not helped by clashing requirements in regulations which are making it harder for developers and architects to do their job.

There seems to be a general feeling that there should be less ‘dictating’ and more oversight in terms of a London strategy for sighting tall buildings. Adding to the challenge is the ad hoc nature of many borough planning departments—caused, to be fair, by their lack of resources required to draw up local masterplans and smooth the path towards more straight-forward planning permissions. It remains to be seen whether the development of Local Plans which define height ambitions and locations for tall buildings happens at in the way the GLA is hoping for. London will continue to build tall. The typology often provides the only way of meeting the required densities in housing to meet targets. The debate is then between planners and developers about what is acceptable – and this we all know has to be about more than housing numbers. Safety and the environment are now high on the agenda as they should be. Can amenities, longevity, cost of maintenance and general wellbeing move front and centre next? At the very least, more research into this area to provide the foundation for serious and well informed debate is long overdue.

Future tall buildings need to do more with less – here’s how

The conversation around embodied carbon has gained incredible momentum in recent years. With new buildings now producing less operational carbon, the impact of embodied carbon has become a greater part of the overall sustainability picture—a shift that is reflected in the ambitious targets set by the RIBA, LETI and many others.

This presents a design challenge for tall buildings in particular; they typically require more structure, have deeper basements and a larger surface area (and therefore more façade) per square metre than low-rise buildings. As an essential part of our urban fabric, it’s clear that future tall buildings need to do more, using less. But how can this be done?

At Gensler, we firmly believe that low embodied carbon design is the future of architecture—as a large, global architecture and design firm, we have a wealth of projects, experience, and original research to draw upon to push the boundaries with low embodied carbon design. Here are three ways we’ve been putting that knowledge into practice.

In London, there’s almost always something that can be retained on any site. Even if we can’t repurpose a whole building or its superstructure, we can usually reuse elements of its substructure or basement, and there are almost always materials from existing structures that can be creatively integrated into any new proposal.

Cargo in Canary Wharf is a good example of this. We radically transformed this dated office building into a new ‘front door’ for Canary Wharf through a vibrant new mixed-use ground floor experience. This bold intervention in the base of the building meant that the upper levels could be largely retained with only minor updates.

Structural elements like large trusses and beams have a high carbon cost –

reducing structural spans can make a huge difference to the embodied carbon of a tall building. Understanding future tenants and how spaces will be occupied is vital to optimising layouts for minimised structural spans, whist planning for future flexibility.

At Gensler, we’ve found that around 25 per cent of the embodied carbon in a typical office building is a result of the basement and foundations. Minimising new basement construction can not only reduce embodied carbon but decrease construction costs and improve speed to market too.

The key here is to ensure that these principles are part of the design from the very beginning. For a project with Landsec in London, we started with a focus on a low carbon structural layout from day one. This enabled us to achieve the complex form of the building in a highly efficient way, aiming to achieve LETI’s 2030 embodied carbon target of 350kgCO2e/m2.

Reduce your impact

It’s important to use renewable and lower carbon materials wherever possible. Timber is a structural material that does not require the energy-intensive production processes of steel or concrete. It also has the advantage of storing carbon as it grows. While it’s not possible to substitute all structure for timber in tall buildings, it’s worth considering CLT floor slabs as an alternative to concrete.

For Gensler’s London office, in addition to working with an existing building, we used CLT wherever we could to lower the carbon impact of new construction. Not only did this serve a valuable environmental function but it also contributed to the unique aesthetic of the space.

Low embodied carbon design is the future of architecture. This will bring with it its own challenges but also opportunities to think differently about how we can construct tall buildings for a more sustainable future. n

Don’t smash it, fix it

A critical head of steam has been growing for planning to be sped up, to approve more new homes and for a “threadbare” system worn out by budget cuts to be better resourced, as The Times put it recently,.

Not really news if you’re familiar with the system, or planner-bashing commentary on it. But the increased support for more radical reform in places like The Economist, the Financial Times, the Daily Mail (even) and the Guardian, has become noticeable in the last year or so.

The Times’ headline was “Housing crisis ‘to worsen’ unless planners are given more funds”. You can hear the cheers in planning departments – presuming that any planners read such a balanced medium.

It kicked off quoting “official figures” from the DLUHC (too tedious to spell out that department’s clunky, politicised title) which show the proportion of major applications decided within eight weeks has halved from 70 per cent in 2014-15 to 36 per cent in 2022-23. Those decided within 13 weeks has more than halved, from around 58 per cent to 19 per cent .

What most planners will know, because their professional institute the RTPI has analysed this, the funding of planning offices fell by “55 per cent in real terms from £1.07 billion to £480 million between 2010 and 2021.”

Imagine the outrage if those cuts in funding and performance were hinted at for the NHS. “Only one in ten local authority planning departments is fully staffed” the article adds, and reminds Michael Gove, our latest housing secretary, wrote to ten councils in May threatening to take over their planning role unless they improved. Ha!

The most remarkable thing about this is the tiny number of planning departments on the receiving end considering the starvation diet, this most central of local government functions, has been forced to exist on. Is that why all those local plans are unfinished? Don’t smash it, fix it

How to explain the stark consequences of this to a knackered rump of an anti-planning

Government? Or indeed to its hapless replacement, soon to be strapped into the electric chair of economic circumstance? Labour too has been making noises about reform.

Let’s put it this way. If you don’t build enough homes, you will be toast. If you don’t get levelling up working, the UK might be toast. If you don’t get enough wind turbines built, we will all be toast.

The nail we are in want of is a planning system that a) plans, and b) decides efficiently what gets built where in a timely fashion while delivering some sense of egalité and fraternité.

Yet the Tories cravenly ditched their 300,000 homes target. Only 200,000 a year are being built. A figure falling as you read this because viability has evaporated, yet it is unlikely that our system is flexible enough to reflect this soon enough. Our inflation is worse too because we are far from selfreliant on home-spun renewable energy while our planning system keeps saying “no” to new onshore wind farms.

If that isn’t off-pissing enough, should you be unable to afford a new mortgage and need to extend or alter your existing home, you will find that the 70 per cent of applications for minor works approved within eight weeks a decade ago has also halved, to 35 per cent . Yet, a total 87 per cent of all applications, large or small, were approved over the past year, a proportion that has remained constant for ten years. If they are mostly being approved, why the hold-up?

In the same period, it has become easier for people with non-planning degrees to become planners. Some feel this desperado move has diminished the profession. Lack of competency is a frequent complaint.

If you can’t organise a nation without properly resourced central and local planning, how can you possibly do it with cuts of such sustained magnitude? “The sky is dark with the wings of chickens coming home to roost,” Denis Healey once told the House of Commons.

There is talk of further increasing application fees to solve recruiting and resources in planning

departments. If you speak to those paying, the extra paid for Planning Performance Agreements, can produce patchy results. And PPAs bring with them a dubious convergence of interests requiring proper separation.

You will meet few applicants opposed to paying for development control, provided that’s what the money is spent on, that it is affordable, appropriate to the scale of project, and does not act as a deterrent. They will agree there should be a balance between the financial demands placed on local authorities to police development and the amounts received from those benefitting.

But there is so much more to planning that controls and guides the potential of communities to grow and offer opportunity. That is the most precious aspect of planning as an art and science, and a tool for levelling up. The function most diminished in forty years of neo-liberal policies prioritising the private market’s visioning role.

The financial tithes paid to a planning system that grants value when desirable development is proposed, is used to fund local improvements that new development and existing communities rely on. But it could also be used to enhance the sustainability and functionality of the underlying system that any civilised state needs and preserve its independence.

Planning needs to create exciting and accessible stories about future places – which takes substantial resources. We need a functional development control system that balances individual and collective interests to deliver the vision. Otherwise, things fall apart. Our system is based on that ideal, but the reality of it needs fixing. n

Planning needs to create exciting and accessible stories about future places, says Lee Mallett

Lee Mallett is a founder editor/publisher of PiL and urban regeneration consultant/writer

This idea must die: “AI will outsmart the human race”

Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator, Alicia Vikander in Ex Machina, and Hugo Weaving in The Matrix: sci-fi movies have a lot to answer for when it comes to our perception that artificial intelligence will come to replace human beings. And while I cannot say that there is no way that machines will ever outsmart humans, I can categorically say that there is no hint of consciousness in any of the AI mechanisms currently out there – or on the horizon of our research.

Media headlines like “ChatGPT bot passes law school exam” and “Will AI image creation render artists obsolete?” reinforce the idea that there are no limits to what AI can do. Yes, ChatGPT can create poetry or pass exams, but it is only repeating back knowledge that already exists. And although it uses a degree of human supervision so it appears more tailored in its response, it cannot empathise or replicate the human experience of the social and physical world.

Then there is the fear that “AI is coming for white-collar jobs”. While AI will replace some jobs, the World Economic Forum recently forecast that it will create many new jobs. This technology can also be used to improve the quality of people’s work.

No one would argue against the use of machines in dangerous jobs, and there is great potential to use AI to maximise human potential and minimise risk.

As Professor of Natural Language Processing, I am careful with the words I use, and I don’t like saying never! We are our own worst enemy and our greatest fear is that we create another entity who can turn against us. But I am happy to say that from a technical standpoint there is no basis for the current hype around AI outsmarting humans or taking over. We are still far from human-level AI.

In fact, the positives surrounding AI seem limitless: it can help us address the huge challenge of climate change – by improving climate predictions and helping us identify ways for reducing energy consumption; it is being used to great effect in healthcare and education; and my colleagues are using AI right now to solve really big scientific issues in biomedicine. It seems clear that it’s a very useful tool that, properly applied, benefits humanity.

The technology that allows us to work with artificial intelligence did not come out of nowhere. People have been working on it for decades, but recently the combination of Big Data and greater

computing power have led to a series of leaps forward.

We are very nearly at a stage where we are using all the internet knowledge available in the world to build programs. The question is, what do we do then? The opportunity is huge, but the machines still lack the world experience, creativity, empathy, values and social skills of humans.

And AI is not available to everyone. The performance of programs like ChatGPT falls away very rapidly when you move beyond English. If we want AI to benefit humanity we should be actively working towards making it available to all of the world’s population.

Of course, the technologies can also be used for malicious purposes, be that financial fraud, toxic language, fake media and misinformation. So the suggestion that AI will take over from the human race is not the biggest current risk – that it will perpetuate global inequalities and increase the threat to privacy and security are just a couple of examples that are of more pressing concern. In a world where AI is widely available, we need regulation in place. It is up to us to create a responsible ecosystem within which the creators and users of AI operate.

At the moment, the field is undergoing a “big bang”. We are experimenting with many things, and we expect to keep on improving the applications. We urgently need to address the regulation and to ensure that we develop AI to a responsible and inclusive direction. But what makes us uniquely human is currently missing from the human artificial intelligence, and I expect the science to stay that way for a long time to come. n

This article first appeared in CAM (Cambridge Alumni Magazine) issue 98, lent term.

WORDS SARAH WOODWARD ILLUSTRATION GEORGE WYLESOL

Professor Anna Korhonen says AI is a long way from replacing the core elements that make us uniquely human

Anna Korhonen is Director of the Cambridge Centre for Human-Inspired Artificial Intelligence (CHIA) and Professor of Natural Language Processing.

Affordable housing needs more players

Over recent months we have seen more potential mergers in the affordable housing sector including announcements from Network and Sovereign and Abri and Silva. This continues a trend for affordable housing to be delivered by a smaller number of larger national and regional providers. There are of course good commercial reasons for these mergers - to reduce the cost base and maximise business efficiency. However, these moves typically shift development focus away from smaller s106 schemes and sites to larger development opportunities where the provider controls the land acquisition, design development and delivery. The change is driven by the need to hit number driven targets and scale up development, but potentially this will be at the cost of diversity in the sector.

The roots of Housing Association movement lie in small community-based organisations and specialist providers who understood the needs of their local area and provided an alternative to the large scale municipal council housing building programmes. Up to the advent of the ‘for profits’ provider programme the numbers of these type of organisations were shrinking and the diversity in the sector was being lost.

We have seen the impacts of this direction in our work providing viability assessments for landowner and developer clients to agree a viable allocation of affordable housing provision which does not threaten the delivery of the development and, through our affordable housing agency services, placing the resultant affordable housing with Registered Provider

clients. Where the affordable housing provision in a s106 agreement is less than 10 dwellings it can be difficult to find any interest from Registered Providers, particularly in the capital, and often the obligation is converted to a financial contribution so much needed affordable housing is lost.

The Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 introduced the concept of “for profit” providers of affordable housing to generate more diversity in the sector and encourage the flow of private capital into the sector. Working as a viability consultant in the early 2010’s it was already apparent there was little appetite from the traditional housing association sector for small scale s106 housing requirements, with most turning down opportunities of less than 10 homes and the planning obligation was “lost” to a commuted sum payment. The lack of interest in small scale s106 provision from the traditional providers and the desire to see planning obligations deliver housing on the ground were the main drivers for me forming and achieving registration for St Arthur Homes in 2013. This was one of the first for profits providers of affordable housing with a business model of acquiring small scale s106 requirements on open market developments.

In this model the affordable housing was delivered as shared ownership so a large proportion of the capital employed to deliver the development would be repaid by the initial shared ownership sale, with the residual balance of debt serviced by the rental payment on the unsold element of the property. The rent element is usually charged at up to 2.75% of the

capital value of the unsold equity per year. The GLA income cap for shared ownership is £90,000pa but many authorities in London are concerned this is not affordable to many of their residents who are unable to access the market and often introduce much lower income caps in s106 requirements with income caps at £40,000-50,000pa not being uncommon which reduces the value of the affordable housing.

For profits providers don’t just deliver shared ownership homes, larger for profits providers are delivering rented homes making use of institutional capital often through pension funds where the cost of capital reflects the stable and relatively low risk nature of an affordable housing product.

I managed the process of registration for St Arthur Homes and Malins Affordable Homes back in 2013 when the for profit providers numbered just 25.  There are now some 69 for profit providers, many of them in the sub 1,000 homes category. These formations are helping bring back diversity to the sector with an increasing number of smaller providers focusing on particular locations or specialist sectors. So, in a way, the for profits providers are taking the sector back to its roots with a much needed increase in the number of smaller and specialist providers.

This can only be a good thing – placing community focus back at the heart of schemes and diversifying a sector so that we are not only reliant on the big players.

There’s a place for both of course, in a sector with increasing need we need more players, more innovation and new and innovative models. n

Rapleys is an action-oriented property consultancy with a national reach, offering building consultancy, commercial, planning and residential property services to clients across the UK.

Will smaller providers provide much needed diversification in affordable housing asks Simon Corp

Simon Corp is a partner at Rapleys

New draft London guidance on affordable housing/viability

Simon Ricketts sets out the new draft London guidance on affordable housing/viability out for consultation

The GLA released consultation drafts of its new London Plan Guidance (LPG) on Affordable Housing and on Development Viability in May. The consultation closes on 24th July 2023.

There is a huge amount of detail to take in. I am very grateful indeed to my Town Legal colleague Susie Herbert for what follows.

The updated LPG documents will replace the GLA’s 2017 SPG on Affordable Housing and Viability. The new LPG comprises two documents with one covering Affordable Housing and the other covering Development Viability.  The Affordable Housing document covers the threshold approach, tenure, grant funding and build to rent while the Development Viability document covers the viability assessment process, principles for undertaking viability assessments, viability assessment information, inputs and sense checking, the review mechanisms and the formulas.

While much of the draft is similar the 2017 SPG with updates to reflect the 2021 London Plan and and to incorporate other guidance that has been released in the interim (such as the 2018 Practice Note on Public Land), some of the proposed changes are of more substance.

These include much more detailed guidance on the process for and the inputs to viability reviews covering a wider range of inputs which suggests a more prescriptive and standardised approach, including more emphasis on optimising the viability of the development including exploring different testing alternative uses; a suggestion that financing costs should be treated differently for different types of developer, and an exclusion of risk items of development costs such as Rights of Light costs or asbestos removal.  It is also made clear throughout the guidance that any public subsidy should be included in the development value but that the target return should not be applied to any public subsidy.

There is also more prescriptive guidance on section 106 agreements and to monitoring requirements for both applicants and LPAs with information to be reported to the Planning London Datahub.

There is a more prescriptive approach to midterm reviews which are now expected for schemes over 500 dwellings as well as those expected to have a build programme of more than 5 years or for estate

regeneration schemes.  Any surplus return identified in a mid-stage review is expected to be used to deliver affordable housing.

In respect of early stage reviews, the draft guidance effectively rules out force majeure clauses so that the early stage review will apply whatever the reason for delay.

Turning to eligibility criteria, there is a greater emphasis on provision for key workers and the consultation also states that the GLA is considering raising the £60,000 threshold to £67,000 and comments are invited on this.

While the threshold approach remains in place, there is a change in respect of scheme changes which will allow schemes which were originally subject to viability review to follow the fast track route in respect of additional dwellings if there additional dwellings include enough affordable provision to meet the relevant threshold.

While co-living will generally be subject to viability review, there is the potential for it to be assessed under the fast track route if it provides affordable housing meeting the internal space standards and the requirements of policies H5 and H6.

The consultation questions generally ask for comments on and suggestions for improvement for the various sections although there are some specific questions in particular in respect of income caps for intermediate housing.

Affordable Housing Document Threshold approach

The “threshold approach” first set out in the 2017 SPG remains.  This means that the Fast Track Route (FTR) is available for schemes with the minimum of 35% or 50% for public-sector land and industrial sites where there would be a net loss of industrial capacity although the 35% no longer states that it has to be achieved without public subsidy.

There is a change compared to the 2017 SPG in respect of scheme changes for developments that did not qualify for the FTR.  Previously any changes would also be subject to viability review but the draft LPG now suggests that if the proposed change is to increase the number of dwellings and that increase would include enough affordable housing meet the relevant threshold, then the FTR is available for the

From Simon’s blog at simonicity.com/author/simonicity/ Personal views, et cetera

application to make the change to the scheme (paragraph 2.8.3).

The list of applications for which the FTR is specifically expressed not to be available and which must be subject to the Viability Tested Route (VTR) has also been expanded compared to the 2017 version to include co-living (large-scale, purpose-built, shared-living accommodation (LSPBSL) (in accordance with Policy H16) and also applications “where other relevant policy requirements are not met to the satisfaction of the LPA or the Mayor” which reflects Policy H5 C 3).  There is further guidance on this at Appendix 2 of the draft LPG which does allow for the possibility of the FTR for co-living if it provides sufficient affordable housing.

Tenure

The draft LPG states that the Mayor’s preferred affordable housing tenure for low-cost rented homes is Social Rent and not London Affordable Rent as only Social Rent homes are eligible for grant funding under the London Affordable Homes Programme (AHP) 2921-26.  This is slightly different from the London Plan 2021 which lists both Social Rent and London Affordable Rent as preferred affordable housing tenures (para 4.6.3).

Eligibility for intermediate housing

In terms of eligibility for intermediate housing which is currently subject to a maximum income cap of £60,000, the consultation survey states that the GLA is considering raising the income cap to £67,000 in line with changes to median incomes in London since 2017.  Consultees are asked whether they agree with this and to provide comments.

The London Plan requires that intermediate housing is provided for a range of household incomes

Simon Ricketts is a partner with Town Legal LLP

below the maximum caps for the first three months of marketing. The survey states that the GLA is considering setting out income levels below the maximum level which would apply where the relevant local planning authority has not published local income levels and the survey asks for views on whether this would be a helpful addition to the guidance.

LLR

The section on London Living Rent (LLR) states that rents should not be increased above the rate of the CPI including housing costs within tenancies and that on re-let the rent should revert to the LLR (or lower).  It also states that if no tenant has purchased their current home within 10 years, the RP may sell the home to another eligible purchaser on a shared ownership basis.

Key workers

The draft LPG also “strongly encourages” local authorities and housing providers to prioritise key workers when setting eligibility and prioritisation criteria.

Affordability

The guidance covers the new model for shared ownership (SO) homes introduced by the Government in 2021 (which allows for the initial share to be a minimum of 10% rather than 25%) and confirms that only the new SO model homes will be funded by the AHP 2021-26 so the Mayor will expect SO homes to be provided on that basis.

Service Charges

The draft LPG contains a section on service charges which states that Applicants, LPAs and affordable housing providers should ensure that service charges are affordable for residents, and that they do not exceed the cost of the services provided. It also states that applicants should consult with affordable housing providers at an early stage to minimise service charges as part of design and management strategies.

The LPG also states that residents of affordable housing should be given the same rights of access to amenities and facilities within the scheme as occu-

piers of market housing at no additional charge other than service charges. If an LPA agrees that access to a facility would make service charges unaffordable for residents of affordable housing, this should be excluded from standard service charges and they should be given full optional rights of access at a fair and reasonable charge.

Key features document

A key features document should be provided to potential tenants and purchasers at the start of the marketing period. This should include detailed information on the tenure of a property and the length of any lease, as well as the full range of potential costs, including any expected service charges, permission fees and any other charges (including those relating to resales).

Grant

The draft LPG describes how the Mayor’s grant funding powers work alongside the threshold approach and describes the AHP 2016-23 and 2021-26.  In terms of maximising delivery, the FTR is available where an applicant commits unconditionally to provide at least 40 per cent affordable housing with grant (or 50% on public or industrial land).  However, if the s106 will allow for a lower level of affordable housing than the relevant threshold if grant is not available, the scheme must follow the VTR.

If grant is not available at the application stage but grant funding subsequently becomes available, the S106 should require that the level of affordable housing proposed in the grant application is provided.

Build to Rent

The BtR section has been updated and reflects the London Plan 2021 Policy H11.

Securing delivery

There is a new section on securing delivery which sets out what a section 106 agreement should include such as restrictions on occupation and ensuring that affordable housing is not concentrated in final phases.  It states that the affordable housing should be sold to an RP on a freehold or long (990 years) leasehold basis.  The section 106

agreement should secure obligation in line with the LPG and the Mayor’s standard section 106 clauses such as eligibility, affordability and review mechanisms.  The section 106 should also provide for the recycling of subsidy in the event that a home is no longer provided as affordable housing.

Monitoring and implementation

There is also a section setting out the applicant’s and the LPA’s responsibilities in respect of monitoring and implementation. The applicant should submit information on the affordable housing to be provided and the outcome of any viability review in a standardised format specified by the GLA.

The section also expands on the requirement under London Plan Policy H7 for boroughs to have clear monitoring processes with annual publication of monitoring information.  It is strongly recommended that this monitoring is undertaken by specialist officers or teams wherever possible and the costs of this should be met by applicants.

Development viability

Principles for undertaking viability assessments

The guidance in Section 3 on the principles for undertaking viability assessments is significantly more detailed than the equivalent sections in the 2017 SPG.

There are also additional sections on:

(a) how viability assessments should be objective and realistic with requirements for assessors;

(b) modelling sensitivity testing of assumptions and inputs and value growth and cost inflation;

(c) optimising the viability of development with detail of how applicants should demonstrate that the proposed scheme optimises site capacity through a design-led approach which may include testing different residential typologies such as BtR and build for sale; and

(d) sense-checking.

The consultation survey asks whether the approaches set out in these sections are practical and will help to ensure that viability assessments are robust.

Viability

assessment information, inputs and sense-checking

Again there is further additional detail on the

inputs for the viability review compared with the 2017 SPG including on affordable housing values.  This section also includes new detailed guidance on sales values, investment values, commercial property, grant and public subsidy, development programme, finance costs and other development costs. There is also a further section on sense checking.

Review mechanisms

Early Stage Reviews

In respect of Early Stage Reviews, there is a new paragraph on substantial implementation which makes it clear that provisions that seek to delay the trigger date for an Early Stage Review should not be included in the section 106 agreement. The reasoning is that the review is intended to secure additional affordable housing where viability allows, regardless of the reason development may have been delayed.  This means that force majeure clauses which had sometimes been agreed to in light of the disruption caused by the pandemic will no longer be accepted.

There may be more flexibility on the definition of substantial implementation as the paragraph now makes clear that the description of works is an example of substantial implementation rather than a definition of it.

Where a payment in lieu of on-site affordable housing is made following an ESR, the guidance states that this can be included as a cost in subsequent reviews.

Mid-Term Reviews

The 2017 SPG stated that LPAs should consider mid-term reviews for larger developments that will be built out over a number of phases.  This is expanded in the draft LPG.  The draft guidance states that Mid-Term Reviews should be provided for larger phased schemes including those that propose 500 or more residential units (or for mixed-use schemes, the equivalent amount of development in floorspace) and that there may be other circumstances where Mid-Term Reviews are required for example where the construction programme is five years or longer or for estate regeneration schemes.

The timing for Mid-Term Reviews is to be agreed with the LPA or the Mayor as applicable. For outline or hybrid schemes it may be appropriate for reviews to take place as part of reserved matters applications to enable affordable housing to be included within the design of the relevant phase or future phases.

Mid-Term Reviews should assess the scheme as a whole, taking into account actual values and costs for earlier phases, and estimated figures for subsequent phases.  They will not be conditional on reaching a specific level of progress by a trigger date.

Terms of viability review mechanisms

This section sets out more detail on the terms of VRMs to be included in s106 agreements.  This includes that any public subsidy is included in the development value figures but that the target return should not be applied to any public subsidy.

For Mid-Term Reviews, the guidance states that it is most appropriate that they follow Early Stage Reviews in that any surplus return should be applied to the delivery of affordable housing.  For Late Stage Reviews it may be acceptable for an element of surplus return to be retained by the applicant but not exceeding 40%.

There is also an additional requirement to ensure reporting of information to the Planning London Datahub on the number and tenure of affordable housing by unit and habitable room secured in the application and the outcome of reviews including additional affordable housing, changes in tenure and any financial contributions.

The Formulas

Formula 1a – this is unchanged except for a note which states that the review GDV and build-costs figures should include the commercial component where relevant.

Formula 1b – the note now clarifies that the application and review stage GDV figures should include any public subsidy that is available at the time of the assessment but this should be excluded when calculating developer return.

Formula 3 on late stage reviews contains additional guidance on how the assessment should be adjusted for BtR if they were originally assessed as build for sale.

There is a new Formula 5 for Mid-Term Reviews based on Formula 2 but using actual values and costs for completed parts of the development at the time of the review and estimated figures for the rest of the scheme.

There is also a new Formula 6 for converting affordable housing to a more affordable tenure.

The specific BtR formulas from the 2017 SPG (Formulas 5 and 6) are not included.

In terms of viability deficits, the draft guidance states that deficits should not normally be accounted for in review mechanisms and should only be allowed exceptionally where agreed by the LPA (and the GLA). Deficits should not be included in reviews for schemes that have followed the FTR.

The extent of any deficit should be determined by the LPA and the Mayor. A breakeven appraisal can be undertaken at application stage to assess the level of GDV and build costs at which the RLV equates to the BLV. The breakeven GDV and Build Costs should replace the application-stage GDV and build cost figures in the formulas. n

Control of uses, lack of resources and lack of vision

Why are authorities still gripped by the land uses of a past era? asks Dexter Moren

In expressing my opinion of the current planning system I make the caveat that my comments are limited to my experiences as an architect. I am sure those within the planning disciplines have their own issues, but I write in the hope that my three observations may help drive a change which will benefit us all.

The first regards what I refer to as planning apartheid: the strict application of land uses, which fail to acknowledge our evolving use of buildings.

In 2021, the Stirling Prize for the best building was awarded to The Townhouse of Kingston University. It was lauded for engaging with its neighbourhood by creating substantial public facilities including food and beverage outlets, a library and dance studios.

The question is what land use is attributable to such a building? It surely transcends educational and would be more accurately identified as mixed use.

The same is true of the new generation of hotels, which feature co-working, leisure and even retail alongside traditional food & beverage. So it is for coliving, co-working, BTR, student and pretty well all buildings as hospitality becomes ubiquitous in a mixed-use land model.

Why then are authorities still gripped by the land uses of a past era?

Investors have long since migrated from single use, a trend accelerated by Covid. The office-heavy

City of London was largely deserted, whereas neighbourhoods with a successful mix of living, shopping, working and recreating fared better.

Some years ago, on completion of Studio Moren’s award-winning Vintry & Mercer hotel, (see image) our client, noticing the largely empty office building next door, approached the City with a view to extending his property. He was rebuffed with the comment that The City, seeing itself as London’s premier office destination, only supported office use.

This view has evolved. CoStar news of 14th June 2023 reported that “The City of London is to consider relaxing the Square Mile’s strict planning requirements that protects existing offices”. While it was further stated that this was “to encourage alternative uses for secondary buildings increasingly at risk of obsolescence” it did not go as far as to encourage mixed use. It is a positive move, nonetheless.

However, while The City is embracing change, other local authorities are not. Last year we were refused change of use from 100% office to mixed use in an obsolete building in Holborn. Similarly, within Camden we face refusal to construct hotels adjacent to one of greater London’s biggest tourist attractions, Camden Market, because of a limited town centre corridor where such uses are designated. This makes no sense and equally overburdens TFL’s infrastructure to the point where the tube station often has to be closed due to overcrowding. Surely it is obvious that tourist facilities and accommodation should be prioritised at primary tourist destinations?

Class E is a move in the right mixed-use direction but with our use of buildings now a more liberal mix of staying, living, working, retailing and recreating is it not time for a broader dismantling of dinosaur land use designation planning apartheid? Class E for Everything!

My second observation regards the increasingly protracted planning process.

In Property Week, 19th May 2023, Ian Fletcher, Director of Planning, British Property Federation, blamed the inadequacies of the process on a lack of funding.

It is possible that a lack of resources stems from lack of allocation to planning departments, but planning is no longer strictly dependent on capped plan-

ning submission fees.

I would argue that the proliferation of planning performance agreements and multiple pre-application meetings for which authorities can, in a monopolistic manner, charge totally unregulated fees (which often seem in excess of associated resource expenditure) means that local authorities have access to significant additional funding. This perhaps needs ring fencing for the planning process, but one cannot deny its existence.

My third observation relates to the lack of broader vision when facing conflicting and limited agendas. Recently, when presenting a planning proposal to a disability group, they spotted that the opportunity of unimpeded universal access was being hampered by a dominant conservation agenda that sought no change to a Grade II listed building and its setting – note not even Grade II*. While policy direction is that changes should be permitted to listed buildings or their settings to enhance and ensure their future viability, limited, often individual, agendas are impeding progress.

In conclusion, as an architect, the protracted planning system is seriously impacting my practices’ resourcing and level of employment. It increases the time and resources needed to assist our clients at a time when these resources are stretched to the limit.

As it stands, planning is taking years, not months and risks destabilising investment in property and therefore the economy of the UK at a time when developer holding costs are being burdened by high interest rates.

We need radical transformation or I fear UK development and economic growth will be permanently stunted. Projects we embark on in other parts of the world seem far more simply expedited and, post Brexit, we need to actively encourage not discourage development. n

Dexter Moren is principal at Studio Moren

Meeting the needs of London’s ageing population

London is often thought of as a city for young people, but its fastest growing demographic is those in later life. By 2035, the number of over-60s in London is expected to increase to almost two million; a 48% jump.

It’s also a fallacy that all older people want to move to the coast or the country. In reality, many want to stay close to family, friends and the community they know if the right housing options are available. Yet when the family home is no longer right and they need somewhere better suited to their needs, there are a lack of properties in London that serve this role. London needs more and better housing options for its ageing population.

Despite this, the London Plan has made the delivery of housing for older people more challenging. The adoption of the new London Plan in 2021 and the GLA’s affordable housing policy requirements, have made it harder than ever to build new retirement developments in the capital. The new policies do not reflect either London’s affordable housing needs or the viability of older people’s

Images are of McCarthy Stone later living developments BELOW: Elles House, Wallington, Sutton

housing, forcing providers to have to follow the route of viability modelling, which causes delay and adversity. For instance, in setting London’s policy requirements, there is no recognition of the higher build costs required for retirement housing, its higher accessibility standards, the need for large communal areas for customers to socialise in, or its longer sales periods, given residents are typically aged in their 80s.

The adoption of these policies has made it more difficult to bring forward new retirement communities. In 2015, we submitted six planning applications in London. In 2018, this dropped to one. In 2022, there were none. Of the 15 applications we have submitted in London in the past eight years, only three were granted permission by the boroughs. We took eight schemes to appeal, and six were approved by the Planning Inspectorate and all proceeded to development. The 75% appeal success rate confirms that planning authorities took an unduly negative stance in considering the schemes, which is all the more frustrating given the delays

and costs for all concerned arising from having to appeal.

This is just our experience. The 2015 London Plan introduced new benchmarks to inform local targets for specialist housing for older people but the latest Annual Monitoring Report advises that a dashboard showing specialist housing for older people is currently in development. We do not know how delivery is performing against these targets. It is highly likely that there remains a gross undersupply.

This is not just an issue in London. The UK only builds c.7,000 new units of this type of housing per year, compared to demand of 30,000. This shortfall means that there are thousands of older people who are stuck in housing that does not suit their needs. Nationally it typically takes us a year to get a decision, in contrast to the 13-week statutory period.

A report by Knight Frank in July 2022 noted that more than a third of local plans currently make no provision for either policies or site allocations for older people’s housing, and just 23% have good policies for older people in place. This is despite Government stating that local authorities must consider the needs of older people when planning for new homes.

The result is that hundreds of thousands of older people are unable to benefit from housing that specifically meets their needs. There are over 3 million older people in the UK who would like to downsize to somewhere better suited to their needs but can’t, leaving them stuck in larger, often family-sized homes, where they are unable to receive the support they need. If all those who wanted to were able to move into retirement housing, not only would they be able to receive better support to help maintain and improve their independence, health, and wellbeing, they would also free up millions of homes for younger people and families.

Alex Child is Head of Planning at McCarthy Stone

Planning reform is essential to meet the needs of London’s ageing population, says Alex Child

RIGHT::

Randolph House, Harrow

A supportive planning environment is fundamental to addressing these issues and it is imperative that specialist housing for older people features in wider Government planning policy. Our industry was therefore delighted that the Government launched its taskforce on older people’s housing last month. It has the potential to play a crucial role in helping our sector meet the needs of older people.

The taskforce should consider recommending changes to the planning system which could unlock the potential of our sector and make the benefits of retirement housing more widespread. For example, the National Planning Policy Framework could include a clear requirement for local authorities to calculate and meet the need for older people’s housing in their local areas. Councils should also be required to ensure that a minimum of 10% of all new housing is for older people, and 10% of Homes England and the GLA’s housing fund should be for specialist housing for older people.

The launch of the taskforce means we have a unique opportunity to make genuine progress. We hope the GLA and its boroughs take notice. n

BELOW: Liberty House, Raynes park, Merton

BOTTOM: Lewis House, Upper Norwood, Croydon

Planning and affordable housing thresholds

The retreat of the government in the face of NIMBY pressures is now becoming very evident. Recent press reports state that 55 local planning authorities have abandoned housing targets, with over half this number appearing to be doing so on the basis that their local plans are up to date, and hence a substitute or proxy for an identified five year land supply.

This is a precarious situation for planners and housing developers alike, not least because even a constant mechanism like the five year land supply was always subject to being blown off course by the housing market. Removing those requirements, and assuming that local plans are a realistic alternative to such a flexible supply mechanism is a very dangerous game when supply is so highly needed.

It all means that affordable homes, which pretty much everyone agrees are needed, are now even less likely to be delivered. This is because the most viable way of way of delivering them is through the release of larger sites, particularly green field and specifically in the South of England, where prices are highest. If this source of supply is choked off, or severely constrained, it means pressures now fall on smaller, brown field and what are generally perceived to be ‘difficult’ sites.

There is a problem with Affordable Housing ‘thresholds’. The term (Affordable Housing) ‘threshold’ is fairly clear (although is confused in the London Plan where the Mayor appears to conflate trigger points with targets) and should flag up the minimum number of dwellings required before a local planning authority can require an Affordable Housing contribution.

In principle, the lower the threshold set by a local authority, the greater the capacity it has to deliver Affordable Housing. And hence removing thresholds nationally and across the board would in theory allow an opportunity to maximise the delivery of Affordable homes through the planning process.

Instead of this happening, we have ended up with a mess. National planning policy sets thresholds at 10 units. There is no evidence whatsoever for this threshold being a point at which schemes change from ‘viable’ to ‘unviable’. Some members have clearly instructed their officers to develop policies which follow this arbitrary policy. It is assumed that this

exempts smaller land owners from Affordable Housing, although there is no systematic evidence that smaller sites are less viable than larger ones. Other authorities have followed this unevidenced position and have set up ‘sliding scale’ policies where larger sites attract a higher Affordable Housing target than smaller ones.

In fairness there is some evidence that smaller sites are more difficult to deliver than larger ones. Often existing use values are higher (commercial, conversions, demolitions of existing dwellings etc) and in these cases Section 106 is often very challenging to deliver.

However, scheme or site viability is far more sensitive to location as a single variable, than it is to

I have flagged up elsewhere the gargantuan sums that will be required under IL, but also the fact that the quasi-IL – the current CIL (Community Infrastructure Levy) has not been adopted in many areas of the North and Midlands – largely on viability grounds.

But, if local authorities are to adopt the IL, then to be consistent with current policy on Affordable Housing thresholds, then surely there will be some relief within the IL for smaller sites? I suggest these dots have probably not been joined; and certainly won’t be when those promoting the policy realise that you can’t just assess viability on the basis of a single variable.

What happens next? Unfortunately we are in situation of delivering less housing, fewer Affordable homes and inadequate infrastructure.

scale of development. Large sites in the North and the Midlands remain undeveloped because they simply are not viable to deliver any sort of housing, let alone development including affordable homes. Whereas even very small sites in the South will viably deliver Affordable Housing.

To be fair to local planning authorities, setting these thresholds is difficult due to sites which prove anomalies. However, they need a steer from higher level; and in this respect it is incumbent on a national government, genuinely intent on delivering housing for poorer households to have another look at the way this policy is pitched.

There are wider implications of a better evidenced threshold policy on emergent policy. It is proposed that the IL (Infrastructure Levy) will take money from developers, land owners and other site promoters largely on the basis of gross development value. It is further proposed that Affordable Housing contributions be included as part of the IL.

In part, it’s because past policies have not been fine-grained enough to deal with market subtleties and locational volatility. This comes back to viability, where plans are simply not detailed enough, or actually don’t make any sense in viability terms. But lack of housing, and of the right type, is also down to the current paralysis in national planning and this is unlikely to go away without a change in government.

The current system of Section 106, with its reliance to some extent on viability, works broadly well. It is fair, it is reasonably flexible and it gives members an opportunity to demonstrate that developers and land owners have been pushed as far as possible to deliver a proportion of betterment.

What is now needed is more information, data, analysis and policy which can make the current system more efficient and fair. Looking again at Affordable Housing thresholds would be a good start in helping many less well-off households to gain a foothold in the housing system. n

Dr Andrew Golland is principal of Andrew Golland Associates

A government in retreat creates a a precarious situation for planners and housing developers, says Andrew Golland

It all means that affordable homes, which pretty much everyone agrees are needed, are now even less likely to be delivered.

WHY DO WE EXIST?

We believe that London's future must be shaped by contemporary culture as well as its rich and layered history

WHAT WE DO

Celebrate and enjoy the capital’s culture and architectural history. Debate how we plan a future that is beautiful, sustainable and fair

HOW WE DO IT

Engage Londoners with how the capital is designed and planned through tours, walks, talks and debates

FIND OUT MORE

www.londonsociety.org.uk

The Aim of the Society is to stimulate a wider concern for the beauty of the capital city, for the preservation of its charms and the careful consideration of its developments

The next meeting of the London Planning & Development Forum will be on the 21st September at London Centre, Guildhall, City of London

Peter Murray of NLA will open a discussion on “Urban rooms - every city should have one”

Full agenda will be posted at www.planninginlondon.com > LP&DF

please email planninginlondon@mac.com and jm@axiomarchitects.co.uk

BRIEFING BRIEFING

Long delay for refreshed NPPF

The government is to delay its proposed revisions to the National Planning Policy Framework until at least the autumn, housing secretary Michael Gove has said.

Gove is reported to have made the admission earlier this month at a local government conference, with the department later stating that the revisions will not be published until after the much-delayed Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill (LURB) becomes law.

High-rise office boom as report claims City is ‘busiest it has ever been’

Published earlier this month by New London Architecture (SEE pages 8-13), the 2023 Tall Buildings report said four schemes above 75m are expected to enter planning in the City before the end of the year. Two have already been submitted recently. “At the moment, [it’s] probably close to the busiest we’ve ever been,’ said City of London planning and developer officer Gwyn Richards”.

The NLA research said growing demand for more sustainable offices was one reason for the boom in tall office buildings in the Square Mile, with several tall buildings already under construction.

Separately, according to Deloitte’s Summer 2023 London Office Crane Survey, (SEE pages 5253) the number of office refurbishments across the capital hit a record high in the period between October 2022 and March 2023.

The ‘spectre of obsolescence’ - with the letting of commercial space with an EPC rating below E becoming unlawful – prompted 37 new retrofit schemes, providing nearly 300,000m2 of workspace. This is the highest number of refurbishment jobs since Deloitte began tracking activity in 2005.

The NLA’s annual snapshot of the capital’s skyline, which looks at buildings over 20 storeys, claims at least six new skyscrapers in total

Terry Farrell has set up a £4.6m centre in Newcastle aiming to demystify the overblown language of architecture

Architects are notoriously bad communicators. They have a tendency, while attempting to stride the multiple disciplines of construction, philosophy, sociology and art, to speak an opaque private language that is legible to none. Planners can be just as bad. They casually throw around meaningless subjective terms like “in keeping” and “overbearing”, observes Oliver Wainwright in The Guardian.

A new centre in Newcastle wants to change this. In a bid to knock down the wall between the people who make our cities and those who live in them, the distinguished architect Sir Terry Farrell has established a place to put the public at the centre of the urban debate. The £4.6m Farrell Centre, operated and funded by Newcastle University, with a £1m donation from Farrell, aims to be a welcoming and neutral arena where development proposals can be discussed, and the city’s past, present and future explored.

“I see it as a cross between Sir John Soane’s Museum and the Haçienda,” says the centre’s director, Owen Hopkins, describing an unlikely fusion of the hallowed repository of architectural fragments and the former Manchester nightclub. “It’s a place of research, learning and, we hope, bold experimentation in terms of what we do and how we do it. At the same time, it’s deeply embedded in the culture of its place and brings people together and fosters debate in ways very different to those one might expect.”

(including the two already in the system) could have been submitted to the City by the end of this year alone. This compares with six schemes in the City of London above 75m approved in the past six years.

Chairman of the City of London Corporation’s planning and transportation committee, Shravan Joshi, said in a statement to the AJ: ‘The City is experiencing an unprecedented number of applications for tall building schemes, underlining the continued confidence in the City from investors and developers.

‘Four consented towers are currently on site being built out, with others about to commence with very healthy pre-let figures, demonstrating the growing demand for high quality office space.’

When the schemes do reach planning, they will have to comply with a new City of London advisory planning notice, which asks developers to show alternatives to demolition.

Although not mandatory, the City has previously told the AJ that all projects will be assessed against the guidance amid growing calls

for retrofit and backlash over controversial proposals by Sheppard Robson and Diller Scofidio + Renfro for the former Museum of London site.

Recently released figures by Industry analyst Glenigan said planning approvals on detailed office schemes in the past three months were eight per cent up on the beginning of the year, and 31 per cent on last year, in a sign that nonresidential projects had not seen a slowdown.

‘Major projects (£100 million or more) increased almost five times against the previous quarter to total £730 million,’ the report added, noting that London was ‘the most active area of the UK for office project starts, accounting for 55 per cent of the total value during the three months to April, despite the value decreasing 25 per cent compared with the previous year’s levels’.

The NLA report adds: ‘Higher demands of sustainability, including a reduction in carbon footprints, and a focus on wellbeing and continually unfolding building safety legislation, adds up to a challenging time to design and build tall’.

CLIPBOARD

Outside of the City, East London made up most of the completed and future tall buildings across the capital, the NLA report said, with 20 developments received, under consideration, approved or refused in 2022 (compared with 12 for central London).

Many of those schemes were mixed-use residential projects that have been subject to the introduction of a two-staircase mandate on residential schemes above 30m by the Mayor of London since February.

In the past 12 months, a rise in mid-rise buildto-rent schemes has come while the number of rental tower schemes entering the planning system has fallen.

The report noted that the wait for a national mandate on staircases was causing uncertainty in the design process, and that there is also a concern that a new Building Safety Regulator will lack resources and therefore cause delays in the planning process.

The NLA said increased fire safety was broadly welcomed by the industry, however, and that, in the wake of Grenfell tragedy, improved fire safety can restore public trust in tall buildings.

Under the London Plan, boroughs can set their own ‘tall building’ height, although many have followed the Greater London Authority, putting it at 18m. – Gino Spocchia writing in the Architects’ Journal

Up to 125,000 planned London homes face major delays due to two staircase rule

Analysis by LSH and Connells says fire safety rules for high-rises could ’completely mothball’ 243 building schemes, reports Housing Today.

New fire safety regulations for high-rise buildings in London mean plans to build almost 125,000 homes may be scrapped, according to consultants Lambert Smith Hampton and Connells. A pipeline of 243 buildings in planning with the potential for providing 123,632 homes in the capital may be returned to the drawing board or abandoned, the analysis by LSH and Connells sug-

gests. It said the schemes were “under threat of significant delay, or even being completely mothballed” because of the new rules.

London mayor Sadiq Khan announced in February that the government’s proposal that second staircases be included on all new 30m buildings across the UK would apply in the capital with immediate effect. This is despite the England-wide regulations having yet to come in.

The aim of the new regulations are to provide to a secondary means of escape for residents in the event of a fire. As a result of Khan’s immediate adoption of the policy, plans for new buildings above 30m in London must have two stairwells before being signed off by the Greater London Authority.

Developers have put a string of major schemes on hold so they can be redesigned to accommodate this new regulation which comes in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire, with Wates and Havering Council pausing work on a 1,380-home estate regeneration scheme. Berkeley and Peabody are among the developer to have also talked publicly about how their development pipelines are likely to be affected.

“Given the tragic circumstances that led to the revision of fire safety regulations, there are few plausible grounds on which to oppose their implementation,” Mary-Jane O’Neill, head of planning at LSH, said in a statement. “But all of us involved in the process of development do need to process their implications and come up with some pragmatic solutions as a priority.”

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities proposed the mandate on second staircases on 23 December 2022 to “make buildings safer”.

Khan’s decision to expedite the implementation of the government’s proposal in London followed calls by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and the Chartered Institute of Housing for the threshold at which the rule kicks in to be lowered further to 18m. Khan’s deputy mayor Tom Copley says that the GLA wouldn’t rule out lowering the threshold.

Second staircases were not recommended as part of Judith Hackitt’s review of building

safety regulations conducted in the aftermath of Grenfell. However, in response to Hackitt’s report in 2018 the RIBA said all high-rise buildings should have more than one means of escape.

At the time, RIBA recommended second stairwells on buildings of 11m or higher. The government estimates the new fire safety measures will cost £1.6bn UK-wide over a decade.

Delays caused by the regulations may hit building targets in local authorities with a large number of high-rises pending, such as Tower Hamlets, Southwark, Greenwich and Newham. “There is no silver bullet on the horizon that will unlock the uncertainty surrounding tall buildings,” O’Neill said. “Housebuilders are unlikely to go back to the drawing board on these schemes until there is much more clarity around the required design standards. In the meantime, local authorities need to maintain a dialogue with developers and work with them to optimise existing sites and potentially release more land and opportunities.”

Regarding the threshold of 30m, Tom Copley, London’s deputy mayor for housing, says: “There needs to be a lot more work done on the evidence between 18 and 30m. We certainly wouldn’t be ruling out a lower threshold.”

Homes England's new strategic plan more "placebased"

Housing-led, mixed-use regeneration and new settlements will focus on the places that new homes sit in.

The Government’s housing and regeneration agency Homes England has unveiled its next fiveyear Strategic Plan, setting out how it will support communities and families by enabling the delivery of more quality, affordable homes alongside the regeneration of towns and cities across England. • The Strategic Plan 2023-2028 builds on the commitments set out in the Levelling Up White Paper. The strategic plan commits Homes England to working in a more place-based way – tailoring its powers, funding, expertise and technical capacity to

Best new buildings in London

The John Morden Centre by architect Mæ (pictured) has been named the best new building in London at this year’s RIBA regional awards for the capital.

The scheme in Blackheath is a day care centre for residents of Morden College, a grade I-listed retirement home originally founded in 1695 to house bankrupt shipping merchants.

The centre, completed in 2021, brings together facilities previously spread across the college site to tackle social isolation among college residents.

It topped a list of more than 50 RIBA London Award winners, including Park

the specific challenges faced in different parts of the England. This will build on Homes England’s strategic place partnership with Greater Manchester, and a stream of similar partnerships the Agency will be establishing over the following months, including in the West Midlands

The plan says: "In order to thrive, places need an integrated and sustainable approach to developing the housing, jobs, transport, amenities and green space that people need."

Homes England’s £16.418 billion of funding is comprised of multiple programmes. Examples of these include the Levelling Up Home Building Fund, the Affordable Homes Programme (2021-26), the Home Building Fund, the Housing Infrastructure Fund, the Land Assembly Fund, the Single Land Programme, First Homes and Help to Build.

With "sustainability, decency and good design at its heart", and underpinned by over £16 billion of Government funding, the updated plan is both a call-

Central West and East by AHMM, the City of London Academy at Shoreditch Park by FCBS and the London School of Economics’ Marshall Building by 2021 Stirling Prize-winners Grafton Architects.

Hawkins Brown notched up two awards for the Royal College of Surgeons and for Waltham Forest Town Hall.

Other schemes handed a gong include Tonkin Liu’s Swing Bridge, Henley Halebrown’s Taylor and Chatto Courts, Hopkins’ Pears Building, Haworth Tompkins’ Theatre Royal Drury Lane, PRP’s Chobham Manor and the National Youth Theatre by DSDHA.

to-arms and an offer to the entire housing and regeneration sector. It sets out how, working with its partners, the Agency can deliver a revitalised built environment across England that serves the needs of all communities.

Chair of Homes England, Peter Freeman, said: "There is no doubt that housing plays an enormous role in the wellbeing and prosperity of our country. As an Agency, we firmly believe that affordable, quality homes in well-designed places are key to improving people’s lives. And our updated strategic plan has been designed to enable us to deliver against that.

Over the next five years, we will continue to work with housebuilders of all shapes and sizes to boost housing supply. But we will also focus on the places those homes sit in, working ever more closely with local leaders and other partners to build communities as well as housing, be it through housing-led, mixeduse regeneration or new settlements.

This is a pivotal moment for Homes England as

we reaffirm our role as the Government’s housing and regeneration agency and go even further in helping to create the thriving places of the future."

The Agency’s revitalised mission is underpinned by five objectives:

• Support the creation of vibrant and successful places that people can be proud of, working with local leaders and other partners to deliver housingled mixed-use regeneration with a brownfield-first approach.

• Facilitate the creation of the homes people need, intervening where necessary to ensure places have enough homes of the right type and tenure.

• Build a housing and regeneration sector that works for everyone, driving diversification, partnership working, and innovation.

• Promote the creation of high-quality homes in well-designed places that reflect community priorities by taking an inclusive and long-term approach.

CLIPBOARD

• Enable sustainable homes and places, maximising their positive contribution to the natural environment and minimising their environmental impact.

In a further announcement, Sir Michael Lyons, Chair of The English Cities Fund (ECF), a public-private partnership developer, says £200m Fund has more major deals in pipeline

ECF is a long-running regeneration joint venture between Homes England, Muse and L&G and is set to significantly expand its output, Housing Today reported with a number of major deals in the pipeline.

The ECF, which has been behind major publicprivate regeneration schemes in Newham, Salford, St Helens and Plymouth over the last 20 years, last year committed to deliver 6,500 homes over the next 10 years.

ECF says is has signed a deal with Bradford Council for a 1,000-home redevelopment of a large city centre site, had a number of such deals in the pipeline and was now looking to go beyond the 6,500-home target. n

Labour government would rethink the planning system and tackle the taboo of green belt development

The shadow housing secretary has vowed to overhaul the UK’s housebuilding model and end the ‘cowardice’ that has led to a shift from “bricks to benefit”.

Lisa Nandy, addressing the Chartered Institute of Housing’s annual conference in Manchester, accused the Conservative of presiding over a system “defined by cowardice, that has failed, for 13 years, to support the foundations of a decent, secure life”.

Describing her view of the current system, she said: “Politicians who are so afraid of the taboo around the greenbelt and in fear of backbench revolts they would rather sit it out and watch housebuilding plummet to its lowest level in a generation with a £17bn hit to the economy who lack the will or imagination to take on a system rigged

John Lewis says it plans on building 10,000 built-to-rent homes in the next decade and that ‘many’ of the new homes its Bromley and Ealing schemes would be ‘affordable and targeted at key public sector workers’. The retailer says they’re now ready to submit planning applications designed by Assael Architecture and Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands (LDS), after scoping applications were submitted earlier this year.

Assael’s plans for the Bromley store includes changes such as reducing the height of a 14-storey shoulder building to 12-storeys in response to concerns about size. The plans provided 353 homes and a new Waitrose store in the Assael scheme, rising to 24-storeys on the taller element. For LDS’s West Ealing development, a different coloured brick treatment has been introduced on the front, middle and rear of the taller buildings. Should the plans be approved, residents of both schemes will have options for short and long-term tenure. The homes would be furnished by John Lewis.The company is due to take on management of existing residential schemes.

Plans for a Reading scheme are due to be unveiled later this year. ‘Our ambition is that 35 per cent of the properties are affordable housing with a focus on provision for key workers,’ John Lewis said.

against first time buyers seeking a home, in favour of cash-rich speculators. And a land market that inflates prices, incentivises speculation over productive investment and allows money to bleed out of the system.”

Nandy said a Labour government would rethink the planning system and tackle the taboo of green belt development, saying it would release “poorquality ex-industrial land and dilapidated, neglected shrubland” that is classed as green belt to build more housing.

She reiterated Labour’s plan to reverse Michael Gove’s changes to the National Planning Policy Framework, including reintroducing local housing targets. She said: “We’ll replace the current chaos with a plan across England.

“Our government will require every area to have a plan for that place. A local growth plan which includes housing delivery, will reverse many of the changes to the NPPF made in December last year and will reintroduce local housing targets because the decision to abandon them was the very definition of political cowardice, weakness in the face of backbench hostility.”

She said Labour would reform compulsory pur-

chase orders, removing ‘hope value’ – which she said has allowed (landowners) “to sit on land in expectation of large, unearned profits while housing need goes unmet”.

Nandy also pledged to create local development corporations, accountable to communities “replacing a reactive and overly adversarial approach to new housebuilding with a partnership, where communities, state and business work hand in hand”.

She said Labour supports the Right to Buy, under which council tenants can buy their home with a discount but is against the loss of social housing stock. She repeated a pledge to extend home ownership through a new state-backed mortgage insurance scheme.

Nandy also pledged to boost social house building and said Labour would not tolerate council housing being a “dirty word.”

She said: “We don’t believe that there is any way to grow the economy without building significant numbers of houses in this country.

And we don’t believe that you can build significant numbers of houses in this country without substantial programme of social house building, but we carry on.” – BDonline n

Assael's housing consultation scheme for John Lewis Bromley Source: Assael

¡ PILLO! PILLO!

No need for huge dollops of cash - just modest dollops of common sense

Make UK, the manufacturers lobby group, asked me to chair a debate on industrial strategy - or the absence of one - at the start of the month. Another measure would be planning. The system remains sclerotic.

Rishi Sunak's U-turn on top-down housing targets last year and levelling up secretary Michael Gove's interventions on individual schemes show we are a long way from any respite.

Planning matters far beyond housing. It can take ten years to get permission for wind turbines. The National Grid is going to need to build five times more electricity transmission infrastructure in the next seven years than it has in the past 30.

Tie all that together with a strategic view of which exceptional cases - such as Tata's gigafactory - are going to require state aid and you might have a more fertile backdrop. Jeremy Hunt says he gets it. He has asked Lord (Richard) Harrington to come up with suggestions on a new industrial strategy. It wouldn't take huge dollops of cash - just modest dollops of common sense.

– Oliver Shah in The Sunday Times

London’s air is cleaner than any time in living memory

Sadiq Khan is running into troubles with his Ulez zone similar to those in Bristol and Oxford, because it’s hard for him to deny that the air is cleaner than at any time in living memory.

I turned 50 last weekend. In my lifetime, nitrogen oxides levels have fallen by 78 per cent, PM10 levels by 75 per cent, PM2.5 by 81 per cent and sulphur dioxide by 98 per cent.

If the Mayor of London regards this as a crisis, I’m not quite sure what word he’d use to describe the last couple of centuries.

– Fraser Nelson in The Telegraph

(More than once I was sent home from school in Blackfriars because the air was going to kill us. Fraser has a good point; it seems the air quality in Central London now is the best in two Centuries. –Ed.)

Landline, a major new work by artist Sean Scully RA, was unveiled in April to mark the formal completion of Hanover Square, one of the oldest and most important civic spaces in London, following its redevelopment after the building of Crossrail. The work will be the artist’s first permanently installed sculpture in London. The sculpture brings together layers of coloured marble into a single compressed tower that reflects the deep layers and sediments of history and lived experiences of the diverse people that Hanover Square and London’s West End represents. The selected marbles translate the layered landscape of Hanover Square itself, the new gardens and surrounding buildings – the grey, sand and ochre of the footways and buildings, and the greens and blue-greens of the trees. Compressed together they create a chord that reflects the musical history of the area – the Hanover Music Rooms and Handel’s connections with Brook Street and St George’s Church. – New West End Company

Ofsted-style ratings for housing developments

Michael Gove has backed a proposal to give housing developments Ofsted-style quality ratings as they pass through the planning system.

Under the system, developed by right-wing think tank Policy Exchange, local authorities would assess schemes against a checklist of more than 50 attributes, giving them a score out of 100 which would then be translated into a one-word score that would factor into planning decisions.

The housing and communities secretary described the procedure, dubbed ‘The Matrix’, as “brilliant” and said there was a need for “beautiful, inviting neighbourhoods that foster a sense of community”.

Introducing Policy Exchange’s ‘ Better Places’ report by architect/journalist Ike Ijeh, Gove said: “If we can move beyond the poor quality developments that still blight too much of our urban environment, we can increase public confidence in both our planning system and placemaking design standards.

“That will make it easier to boost our housing supply. For too long, quality has been viewed by many as a planning impediment.”

development, with the checklist including everything from where litter bins are located to the size and style of buildings.

A score of 70% or more would be rated Outstanding, while 60% would achieve Good, 50% average. Anything lower would receive a Poor score. – BDonline n

photo©David Levene

Latest planning performance by English districts and London boroughs: planning applications in England between January to March 2023

OVERVIEW

Between January to March 2023, district level planning authorities in England:

• received 96,000 applications for planning permission, down 13% from the same quarter a year earlier;

• decided 87,200 applications for planning permission, down 9% from the same quarter a year earlier;

• granted 75,000 decisions, down 11% from the same quarter a year earlier; this is equivalent to 86% of decisions, down one percentage point from the same quarter a year earlier;

• decided 89% of major applications within 13 weeks or the agreed time, up three percentage points from the same quarter a year earlier;

• granted 8,400 residential applications, down 9% from the same quarter a year earlier;

• granted 1,700 applications for commercial developments, down 10% from the same quarter a year earlier; and

• decided 46,600 householder development applications, down 14% from the same quarter a year earlier. This accounted for 53% of all decisions, down from 57% a year earlier.

In the year ending March 2023, district level planning authorities:

• granted 327,600 decisions, down 12% from the year ending March 2022; and

• granted 34,800 residential applications, down 8% from the year ending March 2022.

Planning applications

During January to March 2023, authorities undertaking district level planning in England received 96,000 applications for planning permission, down 13% from the same quarter a year earlier. In the year ending March 2023, authorities received 395,600 planning applications, down 14% from the year ending March 2022.

Planning decisions

Authorities reported 87,200 decisions on planning applications in January to March 2023, down 9% from the same quarter a year earlier. In the year ending March 2023, authorities decided 376,900 planning applications, down 11% from the year ending March 2022.

Applications granted

During January to March 2023, authorities granted 75,000 decisions, down 11% from the same quarter a year earlier. Authorities granted 86% of all decisions, down one percentage point from the same quarter a year earlier. In the year ending March 2023, authorities granted 327,600 decisions, down 12% from the year ending March 2022. Authorities granted 87% of all decisions, down one percentage point from the year ending March 2022

Applications on hand

Authorities reported that they had 138,500 applications on hand as at 1 January 2023, down 7% from the same date a year earlier. This is 59% above the number of decisions made during the quarter. The corresponding figure for the same quarter a year earlier was 55%.

Historical context

Figure 1 shows that, since about 200910, the numbers of applications received, decisions made and applications granted have each followed a

similar pattern. As well as the usual within-year pattern of peaks in the Summer (July to September quarter) and troughs in the Autumn and Winter (October to December and January to March quarters), there was a clear downward trend during the 2008 economic downturn, followed by a period of stability. There was a large dip in 2020 following the start of the pandemic and a subsequent recovery in early 2021, including a particular peak in applications received, and since the peak there has been an ongoing downward trend.

Regional breakdowns

Table 1 shows how numbers of applications received, decisions made and decisions granted varied by region. It also shows how the percentage of decisions granted varies widely by region, from 79% in London to 93% in the North East.

Table 2 like Table 1 shows how numbers of applications received, and planning decisions made, varied by region. It also shows the percentage change in number of applications received and decided compared to the same quarter a year earlier. The percentage change in the number of applications received

Planning decisions by development type, speed of decision and local planning authority. All tables and figures can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/49tcvn4e

Source: DLUHC/ONS

For the performance of individual planning authorities go to https://tinyurl.com/7hmdk28u

varies widely by region, from -19% in the North East to -9% in London, and National Parks.

Decisions granted

Figure 2 summarises the distribution of the percentage of decisions granted across authorities for major, minor and other developments using box and whisker plots. The ends of the box are the upper and lower quartiles, meaning that 50% of local authorities fall within this range, with the horizontal line in the centre of the box representing the median. The whiskers are the two lines above and below the box that are 1.5 times the size of the box (the interquartile range) with the dots representing outliers. Figure 2 shows that the range between the whiskers for the percentage of applications granted is widest between authorities for major developments (40% to 100%), followed by minor developments (52% to 100%) and other developments (73% to 100%).

Speed of decisions

In January to March 2023, 89% of major applications were decided within 13 weeks or within the agreed time, up three percentage points from the same quarter a year earlier.

In the same quarter, 83% of minor applications were decided within 8 weeks or within the agreed time, up three percentage points from the same quarter a year earlier.

Also in the same quarter, 88% of other applications were decided within 8 weeks or within the agreed time, up three percentage points from the same quarter a year earlier.

For more information on major, minor and other developments please see the PS1 and PS2 district planning matter guidance notes.

Figure 3 shows that range between the whiskers for the percentage of decisions made in time this quarter for major developments was (50% to 100%), for minor developments it was (60% to 100%) and for other developments it was (67% to 100%)

Use of performance agreements

‘Performance agreement’ is an umbrella term used here to refer to Planning Performance

Agreements, Extensions of Time and Environmental Impact Assessments. Between January to March 2023, 45% of all planning application decisions involved a performance agreement. Major developments were more likely to involve a performance agreement compared to minor and other developments with 75% of major decisions involving a planning agreement, compared with 54% of minor decisions and 41% of other decisions (Reference Table 2, PS2 Dashboard).

Figure 4 shows, from April 2010, the numbers of decisions on major, minor and other developments made involving a performance agreement, compared with numbers without a performance agreement. Notwithstanding definition changes, there has been a marked increase in the use of agreements since early 2013 (see Technical Notes for more information). This longer upward trend has been driven by both the additional scope for recording them and their additional use.

Performance of individual district level local planning authorities

The existing approach to measuring the perfor-

mance of authorities was introduced by the Growth and Infrastructure Act 2013 and is based on assessing local planning authorities’ performance on the speed and quality of their decisions on applications for major and non-major development. Where an authority is formally designated by the Secretary of State as underperforming, applicants have had the option of submitting their applications for major and non-major development (and connected applications) directly to the Planning Inspectorate (who act on behalf of the Secretary of State) for determination. See Improving planning performance: criteria for designation for more information.

Speed of decisions

The designation thresholds, below which a local planning authority is eligible for designation are:

For applications for major development: less than 60% of an authority’s decisions made within the statutory determination period or such extended period as has been agreed in writing with the applicant;

For applications for non-major development: less than 70% of an authority’s decisions made

within the statutory determination period or such extended period as has been agreed in writing with the applicant.

Quality of decisions

The threshold for designation on applications for both major and non-major development, above which a local planning authority is at risk of designation, is 10% of an authority’s total number of decisions on applications made during the assessment period being overturned at appeal.

Residential decisions

In January to March 2023, 11,800 decisions were made on applications for residential developments, of which 8,400 (72%) were granted. The number of residential decisions made was down 6% from the same quarter a year earlier, with the number granted down 9% from the same quarter a year earlier. 1,000 major residential decisions were granted, down 16% from the same quarter a year earlier and 7,400 major residential decisions were granted, down 8% from the same quarter a year earlier (Live Table P120A, PS2 Dashboard).

In the year ending March 2023, 48,000 decisions were made on applications for residential developments, of which 34,800 (73%) were granted. The number of residential decisions made was down 6% from the previous year, with the number granted down 6% from the previous year. 4,200 major residential decisions were granted, down 11% from the previous year and 30,600 minor residential decisions were granted, down 8% from the previous year.

Residential units

The figures collected by the Department are the numbers of decisions on planning applications submitted to local planning authorities, rather than the number of units included in each application, such as the number of homes in the case of housing developments. The Department supplements this information by obtaining statistics on housing permissions from a contractor, Glenigan.

The latest provisional figures show that permission for 269,000 homes was given in the year to March 2023, down 11% from the 302,000 homes granted permission in the year to March 2022. On an ongoing basis, figures are revised to ensure that any duplicates are removed as far as possible, and also to include any projects that local planning authorities may not have processed: they are therefore subject to change, and the latest quarter’s provisional figures tend to be revised upwards. For the previous eight quarters, the year to figures have been revised upwards by 2% on average. These figures are provided here to give contextual information to users and have not been designated as National Statistics.

Commercial decisions

In January to March 2023, 1,900 decisions were made on applications for commercial developments[footnote 5], of which 1,700 (87%) were granted. The number of commercial decisions made was down 7% from the same quarter a year earlier, with the number granted down 10% from the same quarter a year earlier. 400 major commercial decisions were granted, down 12% from the same quarter a year earlier and 1,300 minor commercial decisions were granted, down 9% from the same quarter a year earlier.

In the year ending March 2023, 8,100 decisions were made on applications for commercial developments, of which 7,200 (89%) were granted. The number of commercial decisions made was down 6% from the previous year, with the number granted down 7% from the year ending March 2022. 1,600 major commercial decisions were granted, down 5% from the previous year and 5,600 minor commercial decisions were granted, down 8% from the previous year.

Trends in numbers of residential and commercial decisions

Historically, numbers of residential decisions

dropped sharply during 2008 (particularly for minor decisions) then increased from 2012, before decreasing since about 2018 (major decisions) and 2019 (minor decisions).

Numbers of commercial decisions also decreased sharply during 2008 and then stabilised at around 2,100 per year for major and 10,000 per year for minor commercial decisions, but have undergone some further decreases recently, to around 1,700 and 7,000 decisions per year respectively.

Trends in the percentage of residential and commercial decisions granted SEE Fig7 next page.

Householder developments

Householder developments are those developments to a residence which require planning permission such as extensions, loft conversions and conservatories (see Definitions section of the Technical Notes).

The number of decisions made on householder developments was 49,600 in the quarter ending December 2022, accounting for 54% of all decisions, down from 58% of all decisions made in the quarter

ending December 2021. Authorities granted 89% of these applications and decided 88% within 8 weeks or the agreed time (Reference Table 2, PS2 Dashboard).

In the year ending December 2022, 217,800 decisions were made on applications for householder developments, accounting for 56% of all decisions, down from 60% of all decisions made in the year ending December 2021. Authorities granted 90% of these applications and decided 88% within 8 weeks or the agreed time.

Major public service infrastructure development decisions

Since August 2021, major public service infrastructure developments broadly defined as major developments for schools, hospitals and criminal justice accommodation have been subject to an accelerated decision-making timetable.

Separate figures on major public service infrastructure development decisions have been collected on the quarterly PS2 return with effect from October 2021. During October to December 2022 there were 13 decisions, of which all 13 were granted and 13 were decided in time

Permission in Principle/Technical

Details consent decisions

Since April 2017, local planning authorities have had the ability to grant permission in principle (PiP) to sites which have been entered on their brownfield land registers. Where sites have a grant of permission in principle, applicants have been able to submit an application for Technical Details Consent (TDC) for development on these sites. In addition, since June 2018, it has also been possible to make an application for PiP for minor housingled development as a separate application, independently of the brownfield register. Where a site has been granted PiP following an application, it is possible to apply for a TDC.

Figures on PiP/TDC decisions have been collected on the quarterly PS2 return from January 2020. During October to December 2022, local planning authorities reported 86 PiP (minor housing-led developments) decisions, 14 TDC (minor housingled developments) decisions and zero TDC (major developments) decisions. The totals for the previous quarters have been similar.

Householder developments

In the year ending March 2023, 210,000 decisions were made on applications for householder developments, accounting for 56% of all decisions, down from 59% of all decisions made in the year ending March 2022. Authorities granted 90% of these applications and decided 89% within eight weeks or the agreed time.

Permitted development rights

Planning permission for some types of development has been granted nationally through legislation, and the resulting rights are known as ‘permitted development rights’ (PDRs). For certain permitted development rights, if the legislation is complied with, developments can go ahead without the requirement to notify the local planning authority. Hence no way of capturing this data exists and these are not accounted for in this report. In other cases, the permitted development right legislation requires an application to the local planning authority to determine whether or not prior approval is required and to determine as appropriate.

Between January to March 2023, 6,000 applications were reported, of which prior approval was not required for 3,100, permission was granted for

1,600, and 1,400 were refused. This resulted in an overall acceptance rate[footnote 6] of 77%. Large householder extension accounted for 57% of all PDR applications reported, with 27% relating to all others, 7% relating to agricultural to residential, and 5% relating to commercial, business and service to residential (Live Tables PDR1/PDR2).

In the quarter to March 2023, 900 permitted development right applications were made for changes to residential use, of which 500 (63%) were given the go-ahead without having to go through the full planning process.

Overall during the 36 quarters ending March 2023, district planning authorities reported 306,400 applications for prior approvals for permitted developments. For 172,900 of them prior approval was not required, 70,900 were granted and 62,700 were refused n

BRIEFING |

PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT FORUM

Design in planning  Industrial and logistics uses in London

Examples of multi storey mixed use and flexible buildings

Account of Forum meeting on Monday 5th June at HTA Design LLP 75-89 Wallis Road E9 5LN

Minute by Riette Oosthuizen and Michaela Oberhube of HTA Design also at planninginlondon.com > LP&DF

DISCUSSION TOPICS

1 Design in planning

Led by Government Head of Architecture Sarah Allan.

Role of design in national policy and national guidance

NPPF

• Chapter 12 of the NPPF focuses on achieving well-designed places. It includes three crucial clauses.

• Para 127 emphasizes the need for clear design vision and expectations in planning applications. Para 128 encourages planning authorities to develop design guidance and codes consistent with national design guidance. And Para 134 permits the refusal of schemes that do not align with local design policies and national design guidance.

• The NPPF also refers to the national design guide, which outlines ten principles for well-designed places and highlights the importance of prioritising local character and context.

National Design Model design code

• The national model design code, published in 2021, provides detailed guidance for preparing design codes. It advocates for a departure from traditional site-specific codes, instead encouraging local authorities to adopt a broader scale approach, such as neighbourhood-wide design codes or design codes for a whole authority area as well as being able to focus on smaller plots and coding potentially to a prescriptive level.

• The code outlines a three-stage process: analysis-understanding the place, developing a clear vision, and establishing detailed design parameters. Community and stakeholder engagement is essential throughout this process.

Design code measures in Levelling Up and Regeneration

• The Levelling Up Regeneration Bill, introduced in 2021, mandates local authorities to produce design codes for their local authority area.

• These codes can be included in the local plan or as supplementary plans, which carry the same weight as a local plan.

Meeting held on Monday 5th June 2023 hosted by HTA

Moderator

Brian Waters (BW)

Attendees

Judith Ryser

Laura Elias (Segro)

Nicola Dale (Enfield Council)

Rob Wellburn (LB Waltham Forest)

Luke Tozer (Pitman Tozer Architects)

Celeste Giosti (GLA)

Jennifer Gutteridge (Enfield Council)

Jorn Peters (GLA)

Jennifer Offord (Enfield Council)

Jolyon Drury (CLFQP/CILT)

Nigel Abbott (Tetra Tech)

Tom Young (Deloitte LLP)

Mark Willingdale (Willingdale Associates)

Sarah Allan (DLUHC)

Rosie Nicolson (Thurrock Council)

Brian Waters (LP&DF)

Morgan Wild (City of London Corp)

Riette Oosthuizen (HTA Design)

Molly Harris (Lambeth Council)

Nigel Moor online

Nicola Rutt (Studio Multi)

• Local authorities are also encouraged to prepare design codes at smaller scales of their local plan, supplementary plan or as neighbourhood plan.

• The bill emphasizes the importance of planmaking principles and proposes clear policies at the national development management policy level.

• The design measures in the Bill will be incorporated into a revised NPPF after it has received Royal Assent. Once the Bill has received Royal Assent, Government will run a full consultation on a draft NPPF.

Design Code Pathfinders

• The Design Code Pathfinder Programme, initiated in 2021, engaged with 14 local authorities to test aspects of the process and content of the draft national design code. The program aimed to understand the challenges and priorities of different areas in implementing design codes.

• The testing programme provided valuable insights into the process. Key findings include the time and resources required for design codes, the need for diverse skills, the significance of a well-prepared brief, and the value of community engagement. Peer-to-peer learning and roundtable sessions were instrumental in facilitating knowledge sharing among participants.

Examples from the Pathfinder Program

• The pathfinders presented various examples at different stages of their design code development. These examples highlighted the early stages of setting out area types, engaging stakeholders, and defining design priorities.

• Some participants focused on encouraging walking and cycling between settlements, while others aimed to maintain the character of existing buildings or address the challenges of specific areas.

• Community engagement and involvement played a pivotal role in shaping the design codes.

AGENDA

DISCUSSION TOPICS

1 Design in planning led by Government head of architecture Sarah Allan.

• Role of design in national policy and national guidance

• Design code measures in Levelling Up and Regeneration

• Emerging learning from design code pathfinder programme

UPDATE on last December’s Forum discussion CLFQP/CILT Kerbside progress notes by Jolyon Drury

2 Industrial and logistics uses in London ref NLA report https://nla.london/topics/industrial-logistics; & scope for multi level mixed and flexible use buildings.

Led by Jörn Peters MRTPI Principal Strategic Planner, London Plan & Growth Strategies Team, GLA; Rob Wellburn, Planning Policy for Place - Principal Officer,  Regeneration, Planning and Delivery, LB Waltham Forest – who leads on the industrial land policies at Waltham Forest; He will give a short presentation about the approach in the new local plan and on how this is translating to schemes coming forward on the ground.  and Laura Elias Associate Director, Planning Development at SEGRO.

3 Examples of multi storey mixed use and flexible buildings. Presentation by Nicola Rutt Founding Director Studio MULTI, drawing on her experience at Here East / Printworks and her research. !"#"$%&'$$

National Planning Policy Framework Chapter 12

Plans should, at the most appropriate level, set out a clear design vision and expectations, so that applicants have as much certainty as possible about what is likely to be acceptable. Design policies should be developed with local communities so they reflect local aspirations, and are grounded in an understanding and evaluation of each area’s defining characteristics.

To provide maximum clarity about design expectations at an early stage, all local planning authorities should prepare design guides or codes consistent with the principles set out in the National Design Guide and National Model Design Code, and which reflect local character and design preferences. Design guides and codes provide a local framework for creating beautiful and distinctive places with a consistent and high quality standard of design.

Development that is not well designed should be refused, especially where it fails to reflect local design policies and government guidance on design, taking into account any local design guidance and supplementary planning documents such as design guides and codes.

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Conclusion

• In conclusion, design policy in the NPPF, along with the national design guide and the national model design code, emphasizes the significance of well-designed places.

• The Levelling Up Regeneration Bill mandates local authorities to produce design codes, and the Design Code Pathfinder Programme has provided valuable insights into the challenges and priorities associated with implementing these codes.

• The program highlights the need for a range of skills, community and stakeholder engagement, and effective knowledge sharing. These efforts contribute to creating better-designed places and promoting sustainable development practices.

The National Design Guide

•Sets out 10 characteristics of well-designed places (right)

• Well-designed places have individual characteristics which work together to create its physical Character. The ten characteristics help to nurture and sustain a sense of Community. They work to positively address environmental issues affecting Climate. They all contribute towards the cross-cutting themes for good design set out in the National Planning Policy Framework.

Planning Practice Guidance

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Lessons identified by NMDC testing pilot teams

Herefordshire: guidance for NP codes Hyndburn: coding for garden village

•The Testing Programme (2021) was designed to test aspects of the process and content of the NMDC in a range of contexts working with 14 local authorities.

•We learned that:

•Producing a design code takes time, skills and resources, particularly when engagement is required

•Some places are more challenging and complex than others and require different approaches

•Understanding viability at the start of the process is critical

•Community knowledge is a valuable resource

Rural authority-wide

Large sites and extensions

Portsmouth: Toolkit for estate renewal Southwark: Coding for opportunity area

Town centres and neighbourhoods

City centre regeneration

Design Code Pathfinders

• The programme offers support and funding to local councils to produce local design codes which will ensure that communities will benefit from beautiful homes in well-designed neighbourhoods.

• Working with 25 areas in England to help them set their own standards for design locally.

•The Design Code Pathfinder Programme aims to empower communities to have their say on the development of new homes, buildings and amenities, such as shops and workspace, in their area and help restore people’s pride in the places they live.

•The design codes will be used as examples that local authorities across the country can draw on to produce their own.

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How have we been engaging with the Pathfinders

Skills, capacity and consultants

Community engagement

Support package

o Held monthly catch-ups to discuss progress.

o Monthly questionnaires to maintain regular updates including questions from the wider Planning Directorate too on topics such as PDRs, consultant support and funding use.

o Held quarterly roundtable sessions grouping pathfinders allowing for a dialogue between Pathfinders.

o Encouraged peer-to-peer learning outside of the organised sessions.

Beauty and Placemaking

Context, area types and planning for change

Engaging landowner, developers and understanding viability Climate mitigation and adaptation

Active travel, transport and coding for streets

Nature and green infrastructure

Digital design codes

Health and wellbeing

Design codes in practice

Education, health and loneliness

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Monitoring and Evaluation: Interim Findings

Understanding the context of a code is crucial

You need a broad range of skills and backgrounds

A clear and well-scoped brief is important

Community engagement is always difficult

Stakeholder engagement needs to be strategic

The NMDC and other content can do more

UPDATE on last December’s Forum discussion

CLFQP/CILT Kerbside progress notes

by Jolyon Drury

• TfL’s Cargo Bike Action Plan published on March 31st indicates that a proactive shift to cargo bikes could reduce van mileage in central London by 17% by 2030

• The Kerbside Group are interested in planning for the 83% of goods vehicles necessary in keeping a vibrant London running over the next seven years and beyond.

• The Kerbside Group is alarmed at the increasing erosion of delivery access as a result of post Covid street scape and some London boroughs recently published planning policies promoting cargo bikes serviced from double handling microhubs but completely ignoring the bulk daily re-supply delivery

requirements.

So, what are we doing?

• As a result of a number of physical observations CILT/CLFQP are about to launch a comprehensive kerbside survey for stakeholders to provide a sound evidential base for future planning to share with TfL, DEFRA, DfT and the Parliamentary Transport Select Committee.

• An outcome to be shared with similar professional bodies might provide a Supplementary Planning Document for adoption by TfL, London Boroughs and others for Area Delivery Service Plans to be required by the planning process to validate projects.

• We issued our report to NLA and had a Teams meeting with Catherine Stallard to be invited to sup-

port the expert panels: we await a response. Similarly, we submitted our report to the City of Westminster’s public realm consultation. We have reached out to Lambeth, Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Camden and Barnet and a number of BIDs.

• We continue discussions with CRP on their multimodal program for which we are very keen and with them on the DEFRA clean air program.

• We are working with Chalmers University in Gothenburg on EU-wide kerbside research, a followup of the CityLab program with the Universities of Westminster and Southampton.

• We hope that through this evidential research, the re-supply delivery model and operational design guidance can be incorporated into placemaking design proposals, as familiar as planning landscaping and hard surfaces. >>>

2 Planning for Industrial Land in London

Led by Jörn Peters MRTPI Principal Strategic Planner, London Plan & Growth Strategies Team, GLA.

NLA report https://nla.london/topics/industriallogistics; & scope for multi level mixed and flexible use buildings

• NLA report had a wide range of views on planning for industrial logistics. It provides a good basis for discussion and further discussions in the corresponding NLA expert panel helps partners in the sector and LPAs to explore this topic further.

Overview: Activities related to industrial land

• London Plan (March 2021) includes policies on industrial land (Policies E4-E7).

• The GLA is working closely with London Boroughs on their local plans to assess general

conformity with London Plan Polices and to look at ways to facilitate the delivery of industrial development.

• Aim to provide further clarity and consistency when it comes to applying London Plan policies.

• Industrial demand and supply evidence is becoming outdated as it is from 2017.

• An update to the evidence on industrial supply has recently been completed.

• Research into updating the demand for industrial land is still missing but this piece of work will hopefully start later this year, as current evidence is from 2017.

• A few headlines on the supply side were presented:

• Continuing reduction in supply of industrial land; quite a consistent reduction over last 20 years. Lost 1000 hectares (18%) of industrial land over that period.

• Significant loss in B2 uses, so general industry (B8 as well)- fastest and most significant reduction.

Supply Study

• The GLA undertook this as a desk-based exercise also focussing on the designated Strategic Industrial Locations in London. The study compiles the characteristics of those 55 strategic industrial locations across London covering aspects from the proximity to the strategic road network to plot ratios, and uses, within those areas.

• Continuing reduction in supply of industrial land; quite a consistent reduction over last 20 years. Lost 1500 hectares (18%) of industrial land over that period.

• Significant loss in B2 uses, so general industry, fastest and most significant reduction.

• The supply study is the starting point for discus-

sion with LPAs.

• The vacancy rate is a strong indication for the supply and demand of industrial land. Vacancy rates have reduced over the last 20 years with the fastest reduction occurring between 2015-2020.

• The vacancy rate is approaching 5% which is considered a healthy rate to allow for some changes to happen and the GLA will consider this in developing their guidance.

Scope of London Plan Guidance on Industrial Development

• GLA will continue developing the guidance throughout the year.

• The guidance will include a supply and demand checklist by use class and sector.

• The circumstances for industrial development have changed. New sectors requiring industrial land including data centres, life sciences, or film and TV production need to be factored into the demand and supply.

• The introduction of use Class E is a concern for maintaining industrial land because there is the possibility within this use class to change from light industrial to another non-industrial E Class use. This would mean the loss of industrial land and should be factored into local supply considerations. The guidance could be helpful in assessing and addressing class E risks to industrial provision.

• Industrial intensification is likely to increase traffic and other nuisances and so only works in certain locations that are not too close to sensitive uses such as housing. What are potential criteria for where and how to do intensification and colocation?

• One aspect is also to highlight opportunities that industrial intensification and co-location may bring, such as access, boundary treatment, and urban greening improvements to an industrial

Planning for Industrial Land in London

ACTIVITIES RELATED TO INDUSTRIAL LAND - OVERVIEW

•Policy – London Plan published in March 2021 including policies on industrial land (Policies E4-E7)

•Local Plans – Assessment of general conformity with London Plan - ongoing

•Evidence – Industrial Land Supply study – recently published

•Guidance – work on London Plan Guidance on industrial underway, consultation on draft later this year

•Evidence – Industrial Land Demand study – scoping starting later this year

LAND IN INDUSTRIAL USE IN LONDON

London Industrial Land Supply Study 2020 - London Datastore INDUSTRIAL LAND RELEASE

FOCUS ON STRATEGIC INDUSTRIAL LOCATIONS

area, as well as additional employment.

• Age and condition of existing stock is an important factor. If the buildings are relatively old, it would be quite a good opportunity to redevelop and intensify. The criteria in the guide could inform assessing whether intensification is feasible.

• Indicative standards for intensification and colocation should highlight the opportunities industrial development may bring when it comes to things like access to an industrial area.

• Open to ideas and suggestions as the guidance should be relevant to all stakeholders.

SEGRO presentation

Led by Laura Elias Associate Director, Planning Development at SEGRO

• SEGRO is a FTSE 100 listed company specialising

SCOPE OF LONDON PLAN GUIDANCE ON INDUSTRIAL

Industrial evidence for local plan making and decisions

1.Supply and demand checklist (by use class and sector)

2.Sector-specific sources and monitoring

3.Locational policy advice

Industrial intensification / co-location in planning process

1.Criteria-based screening guidelines

2.Guidelines for a plan-led or master planning approach

3.Indicative development standards

If there is anything you think that specifically requires strategic guidance within this scope please contact me at jorn.peters@london.gov.uk

in industrial and warehouse space.

Challenges SEGRO experiences with planning in London

Pressure on housing

• One of the case studies presented was Hillingdon, Segro Park, Hayes:

• Joint venture partnership arrangement with Barrett London, who are delivering 1,400 homes, and about 40% of those are affordable.

• SEGRO delivered 240,000 sqm of warehouse space across four units, three of which have been occupied by a mix of wholesale food distribution, logistics and TV production.

• The main challenge in mixed-use projects is to make sure that the masterplan delivers high-quali-

ty housing and sustainable employment space at the same time. How has SEGRO been able to achieve this?

• The scale of the site is important and the ability to separate the different uses.

• Masterplan comprehensively for both uses, with the partners being joint partners.

• Integrate subtle design features which tie the site together.

• Another example is the SECRO v Park Grand Union. The masterplan includes nearly 3,500 homes constructed by St George.

• Thanks to the GLA’s well-written policies, all of the industrial uses are concentrated in smaller blocks of four–six floors in self-contained business units.

CORE INDUSTRIAL LAND VACANCY RATE

•Overview of economic function, character and role of all 55 designated SILs

•Snapshot of most relevant desk-based data including land use, nature of stock, access, property, and designations

• They contain shared office spaces, goods yards, car parking, etc.

• The plot density is 180% compared to the traditional product which is around 50 to 60% coverage. This a very positive example in terms of making efficient use of space.

• The space is expected to be popular with light industrial use.

Climate Change

• Commitment to achieve net zero by 2030 after which any shortfall in terms of carbon emission and embodied carbon will need to be offset.

• SEGRO are interested in making buildings more efficient and ensuring that renewables are the main energy source and trying to retrofit where possible.

• Completed refurbishment at Greenford.

• Use of roof lights to illuminate buildings and to

maximise natural daylight.

• PV panels are a big feature for refurbished and new buildings. Smart building technologies, EV charges and renewables are useful measures to help keep building costs down. Some of SEGRO’s customers have achieved cost savings of 30% by monitoring and tracking usage.

• Densely built-up environments such as London bring challenges relating to natural light which can

impact PVs and daylight.

• The grid has its limitations and there are issues in relation to connecting to the network which need updates. These shortcomings also limit the amount of electricity that can be exported to the grid.

• Energy requirements vary hugely depending on the use/customer.

• Nature-based solutions are challenging on warehouse sites, particularly when retrofitting, but green walls and green roofs on different structures such as office areas or cycle storage are a good solution.

• Creating different habitat features and insect hotels or pollinator pathways.

Placemaking

• Interaction between public and private spaces is vital to create safety.

• Trying to utilise old features for architectural expression and character. An example of this is Nestle in Hayes.

• Reuse of existing materials such as brick can help tie the industrial development into the surrounding character. Segro Park Wapping used recycled

brick in commercial and residential buildings reflecting the dock-style buildings such as the Tobacco Dock.

• Allowing space for community artwork can strengthen the sense of community.

• Brian W mentioned a use class which was brought in 1984 for “high tech” buildings. It can be used to get permission for any number of uses in the same building for 10 years. BW has experience using it for listed buildings – e.g. museums, restaurants and also used for marketing buildings (medical, education).

This use class was the forerunner of Class E.

Local Strategies for Industrial Intensification in Waltham Forest

Led by Rob Wellburn, Planning Policy for PlacePrincipal Officer, Regeneration, Planning and Delivery, LB Waltham Forest – who leads on the industrial land policies at Waltham Forest.

Waltham Forest has two strategic industrial locations (SIL) in London: Blackhorse Lane and the

Leigh Bridge Gateway.

• RW highlights the opportunity to extend the central east side business area around Meridian Water to the North Circular, creating a SIL concentration of industrial activity; a sealed strategic industrial location around the North Circular.

• There has been decline of industrial land in London over the past two decades, driven by changing consumer habits and the rise of e-commerce.

• The need for additional floor space for logistics, estimated at 36,000 square meters over a 15-year period, is emphasised. This need is mainly driven by e-commerce and next day deliveries and the distribution hubs needed to execute the deliveries.

• The required floor space for the distribution hubs is the equivalent of five football pitches.

• The proposed approach to accommodate this demand involves industrial intensification and rationalisation, optimising land use, and improving efficiency in areas such as shared yards and access points.

Lea Bridge Gateway SIL

Local Plan

• Progress has been made on the local plan, although it has taken longer than desired. The importance of strong protection for existing industrial land is stressed, with a focus on no net loss and minimum reprovision.

• RW indicated support for co-location of industrial and other uses in appropriate locations, aligning with the London plan's innovative approaches.

• Various studies, audits, and visioning documents have been conducted to inform the local plan and land use decisions. The development of an industrial intensification supplementary planning document (SPD) is mentioned, which will provide additional guidance and be subject to future consultation.

• Three industrial locations are presented: Lee Bridge, Blackhorse Lane, and the North Circular. Lea Bridge is described as requiring protection and small-scale intensification, involving rationalisation, mezzanine additions, and improved site utilisation.

North Circular SIL

Savills: “Out of town retail park units have the most potential for conversion to urban logistics units due to the similarity of design but also proximity to suburban populations”

Industrial & Logistics: Can London Deliver, NLA

Blackhorse Lane SIL

• Blackhorse Lane is highlighted as a site aligned with London Plan Policy E7 for co-location. The stage 2 masterplan responds to what is happening on the ground: artisan makers and creative enterprises alongside residential uses.

• Plan-led approach- evidence-based redesignation of the SIL through Local Plan Examination.

• Blackrock/NEAT planning application for mixed-

use, the industrial first scheme at Uplands (SIL/LSIS)

• Segro pre-application enquiry in remaining and intensified SIL

Lea Bridge Gateway SIL

• The Lea Bridge Gateway site requires extensive land use engagement, considering industrial protection and reprovision while ensuring compatibili-

ty with residential neighbourhoods.

• Establish a robust employment baseline to secure an uplift in overall industrial/logistics provision.

• Consider holistically the potential for any areas of change. Look beyond the boundaries of industrial land.

North Circular SIL

• The North Circular, currently a retail park, has been designated as a strategic industrial location and offers the potential for multi-story industrial development to meet logistics demands.

• The presentation concludes by stressing the need to adapt industrial visions and find new floorspace solutions, particularly in response to the decline of out-of-centre retail and the growth of e-commerce.

Examples of multi-storey mixed-use and flexible buildings Led by Nicola Rutt- Founding Director, Studio MULTI

• Nicola used to be at Hawkins Brown before she left and set up Studio Multi a couple of years ago.

• She explained that the projects discussed are mixed-use, not residential but in a residential setting.

• She introduced two projects: Here East at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and the Printworks at Canada Water. Additionally, Nicola mentioned research she conducted called industrial rehab, in collaboration with JLL whilst at Hawkins\Brown.

• Three themes from the research were highlighted: volume, versatility, and value. Refurbished industrial buildings attract tech communities and startups due to their location, affordable rents, and potential for diverse uses.

• Here East located at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park was discussed next. There the Broadcast Centre and Media Centre were repurposed as an innovation campus with a focus on collaboration and technology. Specific tenants at the briefing stages included BT Sport, Infinity (data centre), and Loughborough University. The design aimed to bring natural light, flexibility, open and active frontages, and engaging landscapes to the buildings.

• Parallels with the original Innovation Building,

Building 20 at MIT, known as the "Magical Incubator," which inspired the concept of flexibility and adaptability in the design were drawn. Here East accommodates various uses, including choreography studios, UCL's robotics and advanced prototyping space and Plexal innovation hub, with shared values of using technology in the pursuit of innovation.

• The concept plan for Here East, featuring a core and crust approach was explained. The core is the central area with limited natural light, while the crust is the perimeter with more granular spaces and atria serving as entrances and collaboration areas. The building's flexibility allows for individual units and larger spaces, fostering an ecosystem where start-ups are supported by established companies.

• They discuss the gantry, a steel frame running along the north edge of the building. Initially planned for removal, it was repurposed to accommodate affordable creative studios for which a design code was developed in collaboration with LLDC. The code set out the important parameters such as size, location and fire strategy but left the

design open, allowing tenants to personalise their units.

• The landscape design aimed to create a non-corporate, engaging environment. There are spaces for collaboration, such as the pods and atriums with screens and ventilation, available to book for all tenants.

• The importance of a diverse range of amenities in attracting people to work in these innovation campuses spaces was discussed, citing examples like beekeeping and rooftop yoga.

• The old Harmsworth Quays building/Printworks was briefly touched on. The aim was to create a workplace-led space with an emphasis on maximising roof terraces and sustainability. Also part of a masterplan, so design had to consider adjacent future residential development.

• The presentation concluded by providing examples of similar projects in other countries, such as New Lab in New York City and RDM in Rotterdam,

highlighting the inclusion of tech spaces, laboratories, and light industrial uses.

Mark Willingdale Presentation/Discussion

• Mark discussed a client which is located in the Leaside Industrial Estate and is involved in clothes manufacturing, specifically hangers production.

• The client wants to combine design, procurement, and distribution in one building and proposes adding design studios above the existing space.

• The structural engineering plan involves using a portal-framed shed, slicing it to create two decks, and incorporating floor trusses for efficient use of steel.

• The building will have solar panels, roof lights, and a green roof for sustainability.

• The project has received planning resolution with 27 conditions from LB Haringey and is expected to add another deck in the future.

• The neighbouring storage company, Shurguard,

has obtained planning consent for a tall storage unit, which encourages the client to seek additional height for their building.

• The focus is on mixed-use commercial spaces rather than residential development.

• The discussion highlights the challenges of securing funding and addressing segregation issues in mixed-use buildings.

• The idea of reshoring is brought up, with a focus on additive manufacturing (3D printing) and highquality design.

• The conversation touches on the importance of placemaking, the integration of distribution by rail and road, and the use of dark kitchens for delivery services. n

Next Meeting 21st September at London Centre, Guildhall, City of London

Mark Willingale’s client wants to combine design, procurement, and distribution in one building and proposes adding design studios above the existing space.

ABOVE: elevations

ABOVE RIGHT: ground floor plan

RIGHT: sections

Rampant Acronymania Deters All Readers

So I was trying to understand an online news report about building houses on BMV land. I read it through twice, but nowhere was the acronym BMV - unknown to me - explained. After further research I discovered that BMV is of course an ALC designation.

IMO the use of acronyms is getting out of hand. Lots are in normal usage, often as abbreviations in emails - LOL, TBF, FOI, PIN, etc (and have been for many years - eg TTFN, SWALK), but in the planning world there are many that are usually taken as read (ie not explained) and are unlikely to be known by the general public. Others are often can be confusing, such as PC - which has several meanings (see the Glossary below).

The most common planning world acronyms are are TCPO, LPA, TPO, UCO, EIA, GPDO, BREEAM, CPRE, EH, NPPF, NE, and so on. But government

GLOSSARY

AI: Artificial Intelligence

ALC: Agricultural Land Classification

ARS: Antiques Road Show

acronym (n) a word formed from or based on the initial letters or syllables of other words, such as radar. acronymania (n) a craze for forming acronyms - The Chambers Dictionary

and planning authorities have a notorious record, spanning from LCC, GLA, PSA and DOE right through to the ugly and unmemorable DLUHC. There is of course also the memorable but maybe illogical PINS, which is not strictly an acronym in the traditional sense (see also RADAR).

FTR we also have several acronyms that seem to have become words. Apart from Radar, Nato, etc we now have Defra, which is usually these days written or spoken as a word rather than an acronym. Plus a few that only seem to work with

ATE: Active Travel England (a statutory consultee in the LURA)

BMV: Best and Most Versatile

BNG: Biodiversity Net Gain

BPEO: Best Practical Environmental Option

BREEAM: Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method

BTW: By The Way

CCA: Climate Change Act (2008)

CLA: Community Land Auction

CPRE: Council for the Protection of Rural England

DEFRA: Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs

DLUHC: Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities

DOE: Department Of the Environment

EH: English Heritage

EIA: Environmental Impact Assessment

ETS: Emissions Trading Scheme

EWHC: England and Wales High Court

FOI: Freedom Of Information

FTR: For The Record

GDV: Gross Development Value

GLA: Greater London Authority

GPDO: General Permitted Development Order

HIGNFY: Have I Got News For You

IDS: Infrastructure Delivery System

IMO/IMHO: In My Opinion / In My Humble Opinion

INTBAU: International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture & Urbanism

lower-case letters included, such as PiL, TfL and UKREiiF.

BTW, legal and planning jargon has a new plethora of acronyms - and it’s going to get much worse. There’s LURB (soon to be LURA), NDMP, BNG, ETS, LNRS, BPEO, CCA, RBMP, PCPA, ATE, CLA, GDV, IDS, and PDBR (not to mention the PSED) - all to be overseen by the EWHC.

IMHO things have gone too far. We have had news about INTBAU but without explanation of the acronym. And when the space rocket that recently exploded almost immediately after takeoff, the event was classified in USA as an RUD. And on our television screens we now see WILTY and HIGNFY written up: we never had OFAH or OFITG - but we are at least spared ARS.

Will it all end with AI? Nobody knows - but keep taking the PiL!

LCC: London County Council

LNRS: Local Nature Recovery Strategy

LOL: Lots Of Love / Laugh Out Loud

LPA: Local Planning Authority

LURB/A: Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill/Act

NDMP: National Development Management Plan

NE: Natural England (a statutory consultee recently in the news)

NPPF: National Planning Policy Framework

OFAH: Only Fools And Horses

OFITG: One Foot In The Grave

PC: Politically Correct / Post Card / Public Convenience

PCPA: Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act (2004)

PDBR: Principal Designer for the Building Regulations

PiL: Planning in London

PIN: Personal Identification Number

PINS: Planning INSpectorate

PSA: Property Services Agency

PSED: Public Sector Equality Duty

RADAR: RAdio Detection And Ranging

RBMP: River Basin Management Plan

RUD: Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly

SWALK: Sealed With A Loving Kiss

TBF: To Be Fair

TCPO: Town and Country Planning Act

TfL: Transport for London

TPO: Tree Preservation Order

TTFN: TaTa For Now

UCO: Use Classes Order

UKREiiF: United Kingdom Real Estate investment & infrastructure Forum

USA: United States of America

WILTY: Would I Lie To You

Andy Rogers is a planning consultant and former director in architects

The Manser Practice

Spectre of obsolescence stimulates refurbishment

Theme 1: Development

"Developers seem to be quietly optimistic about the future of London’s development pipeline. Positive signs include the almost 80% increase in the volume of new starts over the previous survey and the highest volume of refurbishment starts on record.”

Sophie Allan, Director, Real Assets Advisory

• The volume of new starts is up by almost 80% over the Winter 2022 survey.

• This survey has seen the start of the highest volume of refurbishment schemes on record.

• West End new starts are up for the second consecutive survey while the City has seen a reduction in activity over the last two survey periods.

With 4.4 million square feet (sq. ft.) of new construction starting across 50 schemes, there is a notable increase in the number and volume of new starts compared to the previous survey period. The average new scheme size rose to c.88,000 sq. ft. from c.79,000 sq. ft. in our previous survey. It is important to note that Citigroup's 900,000 sq. ft. owner/occupier refurbishment of 25 Canada Square represents approximately a fifth of the total volume of new starts. Excluding this scheme, the Summer 2023 survey records 3.5 million sq. ft. of new starts across the remaining 49 schemes, still a substantial c.43% increase over the 2.5 million sq. ft. of new starts recorded in the Winter 2022 survey.

This could partly be attributed to pent-up demand caused by supply chain issues, labour shortages and the time taken to complete the planning process. It could also be partly driven by the increased pressure to refurbish space that is under the threat of obsolescence. Continued letting of commercial space with an EPC rating below E became unlawful as per the latest minimum energy efficiency standards (MEES) regulations which came into effect in April 2023.

Occupier demand for best-in-class space is still a key driver in the leasing market. This continues the disparity that we have long highlighted between "The Best" and "The Rest" in the London office market.

Theme 2: ESG

“At a time when many of the traditional drivers of development activity are lacking, a combination of positive ESGrelated opportunities combined with downside stranding risk means there is strong stimulus for renewal.” – Philip Parnell, Partner, Head of Valuation and Real Estate Climate & Sustainability Lead

• Developers are seeking further clarity around net zero but are eager to achieve it.

Feedback from developers on the drive towards net zero is

consistent with recent surveys. They want greater clarity about net zero targets and the measures needed to achieve them. This is in line with our observations about the continuing wait for a common methodology defining net zero. The work in this regard led by the UK Green Building Council is eagerly anticipated.

With the expected tightening of the MEES regulations, developers and building owners are now under pressure to ensure that their buildings achieve a minimum of EPC B by 2030. Given this requirement to upgrade, developers are also targeting wider ESG standards (such as BREEAM, NABERS, WiredScore, etc.) and promoting their benefits.

The stakes are high in that the anticipated 2030 deadline means that a significant proportion of London office stock is exposed to value erosion risk and potential “stranding”. With the current lack of clarity around the path to net zero, developers are having to make their best educated guess on transition strategies. Nonetheless, when asked when they think their developments will reach net zero, their responses ranged, for the most part, between now and 2030. This raises the question of whether a standard can be targeted without a clear understanding of what it means. But it does reflect the underlying intention to meet the ultimately agreed net zero standard while upgrading buildings to meet the MEES deadline.

Theme 3: Investment

“At a time when occupational demand is focused on the highest-quality space, the viability of development projects remains very challenging, primarily due to inflation and the sharp rise in the cost of finance.” – Tony McCurley, Senior Advisor, Real Estate

• Developers are quietly optimistic about the future of London’s development pipeline.

• Delays in completion mean that over 10m sq. ft. is now projected to deliver during 2023.

Rarely can the job of the London developer have been trickier but, despite the structural and cyclical headwinds, developers are again embarking on many new London schemes says the Deloitte London Office Crane Survey for Summer 2023

• 2023 is still on track to be the “Year of the Catch-up” and 2025 will be the “Year of the Investor.”

Delays in completion now mean that over 10 million sq. ft. is due to complete in 2023 which is shaping up to be the "Year of the Catch-up". With that said, due to delays in the supply chain along with shortages in labour and materials, it is highly likely that a significant proportion of this figure will be pushed out to 2024 and beyond.

Central London office take-up totalled less than 10 million sq. ft. in 2021. If 10 million sq. ft. were to complete in 2023, this oversupply could dilute market demand for premium office space. Any further delays in completion, however, could prove positive for the leasing market. Delayed completions reduce supply and would enable landlords to retain a robust negotiating position, stimulating rental growth prospects.

Looking further forward, as the real estate industry navigates macroeconomic and geopolitical headwinds and as the value of secondary stock declines in the face of impending MEES dead-

lines and wider stranding risks, the relative paucity of Grade A supply is creating a wave of opportunity for investors. We therefore expect that 2025 will be the 'Year of the Investor'.

Theme 4: Cost

“Sustained higher interest costs continue to impinge upon project viability. While inflation remains a concern, expectations for any rate cuts have once again shifted further into the future” – Chris Holmes, Partner, Head of Real Estate Debt Advisory

• Cost is still the leading challenge to construction according to UK developers, with material and labour costs the main drivers.

• Project finance costs have remained elevated since our last survey. Lower debt advance rates against project costs are largely a result of lower projected cashflow ratios at stabilisation.

• Tender pricing expectations over the next 12 months are lower than in our previous survey n

https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en.html

Peter Bill is a former editor of Building and Estates Gazette. He is the author of Planet Property and co-author of Broken Homes: Britain’s Housing Crisis

Public rental homes: fresh perspectives

Ten years ago, 255,000 households were waiting on a council home in London. Today the list of families hoping to be accommodated stands at 301,000.

A queue containing perhaps half a million men women and children. Over a decade, 275,000 new homes have been added to the capital’s stock. Yet waiting lines have lengthened, not shortened. A pitiable record, giving the constant political push to supply ‘affordable’ homes. The fact is very few homes tagged ‘affordable’ can be afforded by those on waiting lists. Only a minority are leased out at ‘social rent’ or what Sadiq Khan calls London Affordable Rents. Affordable because they are capped at about half the local open market rent.

Forty years ago, 57,000 out of the 66,000 ‘affordable’ homes built in England were leased at ‘social rent’ levels. In 20/21 just 8,000 of the 52, 000 affordable homes were in the ‘social rent’ category - including a creditable 2,100 in London. (See Table 1).

The ‘affordable’ regime clearly needs rebalancing, if only to make what’s build affordable by the poorest quarter of the population. A ‘nice idea’ notion that will be fought to a standstill by those looking to protect land values. So, what can be practically done to provide more homes for those who can only afford half market rents?

Why not build a new generation of council homes in cooperation with the private sector? A politically neutral plan I put together with regeneration expert Jackie Sadek. Public Rental

Homes: Fresh Perspectives was published in late February by housing think tank Localis and the Housing Finance Institute, headed by the late, great, Bob Kerslake. Basic idea: use site-by site appraisals (see tables) to figure out the number of PRH homes that can be subsidised from private sales.

Currently, councils negotiate with developers to determine the percentage of affordable homes a scheme can provide, based on the total private unit sales. ‘Affordable’ can mean 70 per cent, 80 per cent or 90 per cent of market rents. Subsidised sales are even included in the percentages. Long battles are fought to determine the question: what percentage of ‘affordable’ can the developer really afford – and does that percentage meet our rules? The PRH model flips the thinking, simply asking ‘what percentage of private homes are needed to produce sufficient PRH homes for our need. Done on a site by site basis with no fixed percentages.

Under the PRH model local authorities would be responsible for identifying sites that might meet PRH criteria and initiate discussion with developers. For their part, developers would assume 100 per cent of the risk – but take a 20 per cent margin on both the PRH homes as well as their own private units. Why should the developer get out of bed for the standard 6-7 per cent they are graciously allowed to add to ‘affordable’ homes in residual land value appraisals. The sale might be guaranteed. But the financial, time and construction cost risks remain.

Social rent homes used to account for 85 per cent of new affordable homes, other variants 15 per cent. A position now reversed.

Source: ONS

How PRH might work in London

The Borough identifies possible PRH plots, more likely smaller brownfield sites with little or no residual land value. A 5/10year strategy to house at least X number of households on the waiting list is drawn up. The size and mix of the PRH homes on the identified sites should reflect the needs of those on the waiting list.

If half the households on the list need at least three bedrooms, then half the PRH homes should contain three bed homes. The percentage of PRH homes on each site should be left up to the council within wide bands, not dictated from above. Site by site deals are struck with the private sector. The council receives the freehold of the PRH units with rented in perpetuity covenants.

The key that unlocks sites for PRH homes is financial viability. If the experts say the numbers will never work, go no further. Find a willing private developer on those that look to be viable. Negotiate a deal that lets them take 100 per cent of the risk in return for that 20 per cent margin. The concept is ‘loose fit’ – the land for PRH sites could come either from the council, the state, or from a private owner. Land subsidies or grants may form part of the appraisal. The principle remains the same, which is one of mutual reward for council and developer.

The Public Rental Homes (PRH) concept is just a fresh way of looking at existing challenges. Plenty of JV’s exist between councils and developers across the UK, and in London between major developers and TfL for example, as Professor Janice Morphet shows in her annual survey of local athorities (see overleaf). The PRH model simply conceptualises a way to add to, rather than supplant existing arrangements. Done without the requirement for legislation or changes to the planning system.

Done without the need for grinding political battles. Done to appeal to both main parties. Done in partnership with the local authority acting as a prime promoter, perhaps supplier of land and giver of permissions. Done to match the needs of local families waiting for homes.

The traditional model…

The residual land value is the ‘bottom line’ produced by appraisal studies, used to both value land and to indicate a competitive price to those competing for a site.

Opening the doors to allow ‘affordable’ homes at costlier rents has tended to increase GDV and thus the residual land value. Economic forces tend pull the GDV up and away from providing too many homes at social rents. Political forces tend to push for higher numbers of smaller units rather than what those on waiting lists need. The result in London: High rise flats.

The PRH model…

Done by flipping the viability model, working out how many PRH can be built from the set number of homes allowed on the site. Done on a site by site basis. Based on the needs and pockets of those on the waiting list. The principle being this: If the viability study shows a positive land value agreed by all, then fine.

If negotiations on the number of PRH units drives the land value into the red, then that red figure forms the basis for negotiations on land input figures, government loans, or grants. n

Public Rental Homes: New Perspectives can be found here: https://localis.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/052_PRH _PRF5-1.pdf

Localis Vox Studios, V.311 1-45 Durham St London, SE11 5JH info@localis.org.uk. localis.org.uk

The Housing & Finance Institute 3 Bunhill Row London, EC1Y 8YZ

Embracing the power of civic architecture

Earlier this month shocking news surfaced that thousands of public buildings constructed in Britain from the 1950s to the 1990s may be at risk of collapse. The culprit? 'Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete' (RAAC), a cheap substitute for concrete widely used in these structures. With a lifespan of only around thirty years and a susceptibility to disintegration when exposed to moisture, RAAC raises concerns about the quality, sustainability, and longevity of our civic buildings.

The RAAC controversy sheds light on a disheartening trend. Over the past few decades, Britain has treated many of its civic buildings as disposable objects. Many of these structures have gained notoriety for their poor construction and lack of aesthetic appeal. Consequently, a significant number of them are now earmarked for demolition, while others, like the ill-fated Marble Arch Mound, have already collapsed under their own (physical and financial) weight.

The problem is manifold. First of all, the vicious cycle of construction, refurbishment, and eventual demolition comes at a staggering environmental cost. Secondly, unsuitable and ill-judged public architecture can cause a sense of alienation among the urban populations who have to exist in and alongside them. Finally, ill-designed and cheaply built structures can drain once vibrant areas of their community life and impact our mental wellbeing. We must get back to building for the future – in an environmental, aesthetic and communal sense. Cheap and disposable public buildings may seem like a cost-saving measure, but they are a false economy, exacting social, environmental, and financial tolls. Renewed focus on creativity, beauty, and quality in civic design

would vastly improve the lives of people across London.

Building for a better planet

It is a widely known fact that construction is responsible for 40 per cent of the world’s energy usage, 25 per cent of water usage and around 33 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions1. London’s sprawling cityscape presents a significant challenge in this regard. The capital’s vast urban footprint, with its multitude of residential, commercial, and public structures, accounts for a substantial portion of the whole country’s carbon emissions. Inefficient energy use, reliance on fossil fuels for heating and cooling, and inadequate insulation all contribute to the carbon footprint of buildings. The scale of the issue is amplified by London's population density and the high demand for energy. Retrofitting existing buildings is one obvious solution. Another is to approach new builds with a conscious attempt at improving the city’s environmental impact. This goes beyond adhering to sustainable regulation but showing true ambition by using architecture to actively improve our environment. Choosing local, highquality materials, investing in innovative insulation technology, and embracing biophilic designs which add to the city’s green lung are just some of the actionable options available to architects, planners, and developers in order to build towards a net-zero future.

One of our own design proposals, for the Woodside Park Synagogue in Finchley (Pictures 1 & 2), aims to turn a rather tired 1960s hall building in this community complex into an inviting and environmentally friendly space. Using local materials not only

Daniel Leon is CEO of SquareFeet Architects

Daniel Leon looks at the value of building stronger and more inclusive communities

reduces the environmental cost of construction, but also connects the structure to its area and creates a link to both the built and natural surroundings. The modern design provides an open, bright, and inviting space for prayer, community events and functions, as well as flexible learning facilities.

Using large windows and state of the art insulation technologies provides light and airy interiors, while saving both electricity and heating costs in the process. Communal buildings such as these can therefore play a dual role – that of providing a welcoming space for a specific community and neighbourhood, while actively benefiting London’s environment and energy use.

Creating civic pride through regeneration

Architecture shapes the way we perceive and experience our surroundings. Well-designed structures, rooted in the local context and reflecting the needs and desires of the people, foster a sense of belonging and attachment. They become the backdrop for cherished memories, encapsulating the stories and experiences of generations. They create spaces where families thrive. By approaching the built environment with care and consideration, architects can nurture deep civic pride and a lasting sense of home within communities.

As our high streets undergo transformations due to factors like hybrid working, it is essential to plan our built environments with the future in mind, ensuring they reflect the wishes and needs of our populations for years to come. Too often, urban

areas can become vacuums of social life, devoid of social interaction or purpose. There are many spaces across London which have suffered this fate. From concrete wastelands created by crumbling housing blocks to former commercial hubs which have fallen into disrepair, a dynamic and creative approach is required to reclaim these unused spaces and turn them into locales of communal pride and cultural energy.

One such example is a housing block near Church Street in Northwest London. We noticed an empty, unused space set within the courtyard of the housing complex, so we approached the Regeneration Office with proposals that it could become an excellent short-term facility to work for film screenings, exhibitions and community events (Pictures 3 & 4). Slated for regeneration in the future, spaces like these can become vibrant meeting points for the local community.

Rather than depending on a few over-serviced cultural hubs dotted around the city, temporary exhibition venues, events facilities, and community centres can elevate whole neighbourhoods and inject life into areas of London that have been left to decay. They bring people together and act as points of civic pride and inclusion for local residents, improving quality of life.

Improving well-being and mental health

As architects, we should embrace our role as catalysts for positive change. Each project presents an opportunity to transform the way people live, work, and interact with one another. Moreover, the impact of beautiful and high-quality buildings on individual well-being should not be underestimated. Research shows that urban dwellers are 40 per cent more likely to develop depression. Aesthetically pleasing and welldesigned urban architecture can profoundly affect people's mental and emotional states.

Incorporating elements of nature, such as green spaces, parks, and gardens, provides a respite from the hustle and bustle of city life.

To see how truly green our residential spaces can be, we need look no further than Milan’s Bosco Verticale, with its two towers, each housing hundreds of trees, ensuring the complex lives up to its name as a ‘vertical forest’.

Research has shown that exposure to nature has a positive effect on mental health, reducing anxiety and improving overall well-being. By integrating more greenery into urban settings is not only beneficial for the environment; it is also conducive to maintaining a high standard of mental and physical health among residents.

Additionally, well-designed urban architecture can prioritise accessibility and inclusivity, ensuring that everyone can fully participate in and enjoy public spaces. Incorporating features such as ramps, elevators, and sensory elements can make urban environments more welcoming for individuals with disabilities or senso-

ry sensitivities, fostering a sense of inclusiveness and reducing barriers to engagement.

By creating spaces that promote relaxation, connection with nature, social interaction, and a sense of pride, architects can contribute to healthier and happier communities. It is essential to prioritise the integration of these principles in urban design to create environments that support the holistic well-being of individuals and foster a sense of belonging and connection.

While it may seem strange to think of architects as activists, it is a useful way of illustrating how powerful a force for good our built environment can be. By prioritising beauty, sustainability, and civic pride in our designs, we can build stronger and more inclusive communities. Architects have an opportunity to shape the world around us, redefining the essence of community through thoughtful and visionary design. Together, 2023 could be the year we really unleash architecture’s potential to facilitate environmental and social change. n

1https://www.pbctoday.co.uk/n ews/planning-constructionnews/building-for-a-bettertomorrow-how-can-the-sectordeliver-a-sustainable-built-environment/114855/

IMAGES: Woodside Park Synagogue in Finchley

Building better brownfield with community consent

Context

The British planning system is weird. It is almost unique in the world in being a discretionary system that lacks predictability and certainty. It is largely reactive, not proactive, only really providing the opportunity for meaningful consultation and debate when permission is sought, rather than as part of an upfront, plan-making process. The outcome of this is a system that restricts the playing field to mainly large developers, does not deliver the housing or places we need or want, and has resulted in public trust in developers and planning authorities hitting lows of 2% and 7% respectively. Much has been written about this, and most would agree that we need to move to a more rules based, predictable system and bring the democracy and consultation ‘upstream’.

Fortunately, the tools for this approach already exist in the form a little used mechanism known as Neighbourhood Development Orders (NDOs). Introduced in the 2011 Localism Act alongside Neighbourhood Plans, NDOs allow the bottom tier of local government to permit development to a design approved by the local community via referendum. They are not too dissimilar from their bigger cousins Local Development Orders (LDOs), but with the added benefit of putting the local community in the driving seat.

The challenge for Chesham

This bottom-up approach was a perfect fit for the problems facing the Buckinghamshire market town of Chesham. Being nestled in the beautiful Chilterns, and within commuting distance of London, the town faces significant development pressure, but residents gave a resounding thumbs down to new urban extensions eating into the surrounding greenbelt and the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. They supported and understood the need for new homes but were clear that these shouldn’t be drive-to cul-de-sacs off the main road, but rather an organic intensification and growth of the town. New homes needed to be sustainably located, bringing people back to the town centre, and designed in a way that improved the town and respected the unique character of Chesham.

Chesham Town Council saw the opportunity and teamed up with Create Streets and the neighbourhood planning experts

Oneill Homer to deliver the first-town wide NDO. With support and funding from Locality, a series of four orders would grant planning permission across all sites for developments that strictly adhered to a design code and site masterplans. By reducing the planning risk and leaving developers with a clear recipe to follow the aim was to incentivise leading SME devel-

opers to build within the town, while baking quality and popular design into the process.

A total of eighteen sites were identified, including a mix of car parks, industrial sites, and commercial buildings. Budgets were limited, and it would not have been feasible to individually design each in detail while resolving highways and environmental issues and ensuring that residents were fully engaged. Nor would we be able to rigidly define the quantum of development and land use. An efficient and flexible approach was needed.

A Neighbourhood Design Code

This is where the Neighbourhood Design Code comes in, allowing us to bring the democracy forward and work with residents to set clear rules for development in Chesham. Where this code differs from area-wide design codes is the inclusion of a pattern book of house types, based on the results of extensive consultation, alongside the usual rules around public space, greenery, and, of course, parking and bins.

To understand local preferences, we used our tried and tested approaches of ‘engaging wide’ and ‘engaging deep’. ‘Wide’ to

Tom Noble is a Senior Urban Designer at Create Streets

Tom Noble on using Neighbourhoo d Development Orders (NDOs) to deliver community led infill development in Chesham

give those with busy lives their say, from the comfort of their home, during the ad break or on the Metropolitan Line to work. ‘Deep’ for those who want to attend a town hall drop in or join a one-to-one zoom call.

For the former, we used Create Communities, our in-house online platform and received 2,822 individual online comments responding to public realm questions and their preference of a cross section of existing buildings within the town, giving a clear steer on what buildings people liked. We also embraced in-person engagement and decided to ‘come to the people’ by setting up stall at local events, including the Christmas Market, and ran drop-in days in the town hall.

This process of continuous engagement allowed the refinement of house types and gave us the confidence that they were what the people of Chesham wanted to see. One particularly useful insight was the popularity of Victorian warehouse buildings in the town and the appreciation of Chesham’s industrial past, presenting an opportunity for height and density in a way that respects the town’s history and character.

A flexible approach

In total we developed nearly twenty house types, from small terrace homes up to mansion blocks and warehouse-style flats, each based on standard plot dimensions that could be

readily applied to sites across the town. Each house type permits a choice of materials, window types and door types resulting in an almost limitless variety of homes. This plotbased approach is inherently flexible and allowed us to produce efficiently designs for the 18 sites. Each site masterplan sets out the street layout and plots and assigns house types to each. The design code then acts as a recipe book for developers to complete the detailed designs and specification.

The NDO proposals only set a maximum quantum of development and it will be up to the developer to decide what type of homes they deliver. Most house types in the code can be subdivided or combined, allowing the designs to adapt to the market and the aspirations of the developers. For example, the townhouse typology could be constructed as one large townhouse, as a stacked maisonette or as flats, and be readily converted in the future adapting to changing needs as many good buildings always have done.

Quality is the one thing that the code doesn’t allow flexibility on, good standards for materials have been clearly set and offer little wriggle room. However, getting the balance right between flexibility and predictability isn’t easy and early on it was recognised that an additional layer of approval and control was needed. The team have therefore proposed creating the Chesham Design Code Panel to review developer’s detailed plans and ensure that they follow the design code and site plans. This will sit at the Town Council level, bringing the decision-making process closer to the local community, and will very much work on a ‘checklist’ approval based on the rules as set out in the code, rather than a subjective approval process that could reintroduce uncertainty. When the original 2011 legislation was made, it did include an allowance for Parish Councils to act as a de facto planning authority, either fully or partially. This part of the legislation (paragraph 61L (4) of Schedule 9) was never enacted, perhaps understandably most parishes would lack the resources, so the Chesham Design Code Panel offers a workaround within the bounds of the current system. Nevertheless, enacting this secondary legislation and providing real powers for communities should be a priority for officials.

What next?

There is still much to be done in Chesham; the proposals will go for a ‘Regulation 21’ public consultation this September followed by a review by Buckinghamshire Council, independent examination, and then finally a public referendum early next year. If the local community vote for the proposals, then the orders will be made, and development can begin. There has also been a huge amount of work going on in the background, including environmental, engineering, and viability studies with support from Civic Engineers and Artorus cost consultants. Oneill Homer have been busy with the task of drafting policies and the orders themselves, and officers and councillors have made a huge

LEFT: Chesham house types

effort to support the process and get the town on board.

If successful, there is an incredible opportunity for other councils to adopt this approach, bring democracy forward, and deliver the housing and places we need in partnership with local communities. Now that design codes are becoming commonplace, we see no reason why the Local Development Orders could not be used by Local Planning Authorities (District, Borough, and Unitary Councils) for similar projects in areas without a parish council or neighbourhood forum. In nearby Aylesbury, the former District Council used a very similar approach for householder extensions, and we see this as a potential next step for Chesham. Funding is however an issue, and at the time of writing the government is yet to confirm the funding arrangements for neighbourhood planning for the coming year.

Funding aside, we now have the tools for ambitious local communities to kick start the bottom-up planning revolution. It’s time to seize the opportunity. n

https://www.grosvenor.com/property/property-uk/communitysuccess/building-trust

Ralph Ward and Michael Owens

introduce their new book Play the Game

Play the Game

How the Olympics came to East London

By Michael Owens and Ralph Ward

Published by Machine

Books £13.99

How the Olympics came to East London

Just before 10pm on Sunday 5th August 2012, Usain Bolt, shortly to become the fastest man in the world over 100 m, lined up in his starting blocks in the Olympic Stadium. Across the globe the eyes of millions of people focused on the mysterious part of London known, if at all, as the Lower Lea Valley. Ten seconds later, the roar of 80,000 onlookers in the stadium carried across to the Aquatic Centre, the Copper Box Arena, the Velodrome and the Athlete's Village. Heads turned in the Park's numerous temporary venues and green spaces. Satellite images were beamed around the world from the International Broadcasting Centre.

Only ten years earlier, an advisor to the London Mayor visited the proposed Olympic site as London's bid started to gather steam and commented ‘what a shithole’. The Lower Lea was then still one of the most remote, abused and neglected parts of the city, known only to a few Londoners beyond the dwindling number of small businesses still operating there, a handful of remaining residents and a disparate collection of allotment holders, hardy cyclists, indiscriminate fishermen, the odd flaneur and a scattering of evangelistic planners, like your authors.

London had chosen its most unglamorous corner as the site for its 2012 Olympic bid. This little book tells some of the story of how this happened, in the words of some of the people involved: people who created the first visionary narratives of what the Lea could become; people who assembled the plans and blagged the investment that began to suggest that radical change might actually be possible; people who, faced with the heroic Olympic challenge, rolled up their sleeves and got on with it. The stories are recorded here as dialogue, based on interviews.

Methodology

We first conducted interviews with contributors in Spring 2015. We met face-to-face in a variety of London cafes, bars and homes. We returned to transcripts in 2021, converting them from raw spoken word into dialogue, seeking legibility

and capturing the narrative of the Olympic project. Thank you to Sarah Bartlett for her invaluable help in that painstaking task. We shared the updated accounts with the participants and made further edits to ensure they accurately represent the views of the contributors in 2022. We would like to take this opportunity to thank those who have helped us build up this collaged picture of how a new part of London was planned. - Michael Owens and Ralph Ward n

Until the turn of the century, London's Lower Lea Valley was one of the most neglected parts of London. It was known to just a handful of small businesses, residents and a disparate collection of allotment holders, fishermen and flaneurs. Somehow London chose this unglamorous corner of the city as the site for its 2012 Olympic bid. Somehow it won and somehow one of the greatest Olympics ever was hosted there. This essential book shows how this happened, in the words of those directly involved. Play The Game gives the few far-sighted people who imagined a radically different future for the area a chance to describe how the Olympics grew out of those early visions. This cast of visionaries, obsessives and planners explain how the Government and London's untried Mayoral agencies confronted the most difficult and complex development challenge it could have faced, and how they got on and delivered the Olympics and its legacy.

Jill Drower introduces her relaunched 2014 book on the ‘swinging sixties’

Scrudge Books Limited

21 Surrey Lane

Battersea, London

SWII 3PA

© Jill Drower, 2023

Performance art, LSD and bent coppers in the Sixties

IT WAS in the spring of 1967 that, at the tender age of 15, I started spending my weekends with the Exploding Galaxy. I would hop on the No. 22 bus at Putney Common and settle into the top-deck back seat. As we slowly plied our way across London, I would transform my appearance by donning hippie robes. Over time, flowing velvets and crèpe de Chine utility frocks gave way to more exotic garb such as a semi-circle of grey army blanket, closed at the front with a kilt pin; a cardigan knitted by my grandmother that was full of moth holes; a chiffon blouse carefully teased out through each moth hole, to resemble an Elizabethan doublet. Then there were the attachments - appendages made from found objects, each with its own meaning, which were tied to the outer layer, or pinned to my hair. Eight months in, these bus costumechanges had become much more complicated.

The Exploding Galaxy was described by Mick Farren as a psychedelic ballet company and by Jack Henry Moore as 'Britain's hope for anarchy in dance’. So it was probably just as well that, at the start, my parents did not know the exact nature of these weekend sojourns. I have been asked why my parents were so lenient with a 15-year-old daughter. It was partly, I suppose, because I went out accompanied by my older sister, and partly because they really did trust us to be sensible. Besides, they were used to their daughters’ nights out as singers on the folk circuit. What they did not know was that the Exploding Galaxy was quite different. What started as a dance drama group soon turned into something all-encompassing. The street performances and the scheduled gigs, the evenings spent talking round the basement fire at 99 Balls Pond Road and the construction of artefacts all merged into a total and continuously aesthetic experience. By the end of I967, I had become a component of a living artwork.

I first started to write about my experience of London in the late sixties when in 2006 Guy Brett asked me to provide a piece for a catalogue to accompany a Tate Gallery exhibition. The book was about the Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica, and since Hélio had stayed with my family in 1969, I contributed a short piece about living with him. This, in turn, led to an invitation from Rasheed Araeen to write an article about the Exploding Galaxy for the ‘peculiarly British issue’ of Third Text magazine. As I was writing it, the article seemed to be a synopsis for a book, so the next step was obvious.

Had I known the long and convoluted journey I was embarking on, I might have turned right round and started running, but what started with a few phone calls turned into a full-scale investigation, trying to make contact with people I had not seen for more than four decades. I traced ex-Galaxy members as far

afield as Japan, Brazil and Canada. Like prospecting for precious minerals, once you have been at it for long enough, you feel you must keep going. Partly because I was still working, the journey took almost six years. Other Exploders, those on the fringes, were not personally known by me. It certainly would not have been possible to include everyone who was ever in the Galaxy, and my apologies go to anyone who feels they should have been included but have not been. To create some sanity in the research, I had to set limits. I have included profiles of those Galaxy members whom I considered to be 'core or otherwise particularly important and whom I was able to contact.

I immediately set about interviewing everybody I couldmore than 40 people. In addition to Galaxy members, I spoke to those on the scene in the sixties who I felt would have something interesting to say and/or knew the Galaxy. Some of these interviews were over six hours long.

Quotes in the book that are not cited come from these interviews. I should say at this point that, although I have quoted from the interviewees, the views expressed in this book are not necessarily shared by these people. Even among ex-flower children, there is a very wide range of opinion on the subjects of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. In addition, I should make it clear that not everyone in the Exploding Galaxy took LSD and not everyone took off their clothes in public. Another hard lesson for me to

accept during my dealings with ex-Exploders was that not everyone views our mutual past with the same degree of warmth. While some people cherish 1967 with the enthusiasm of trainspotters, others now find remembering that time irrelevant or painful.

The artist Caroline Coon and I had talked at length about the way in which women have been written out of art history. We both agreed that it was at the point of writing up that women were excluded from the canon. However this was only partly borne out by my own research for this book.

Of my tiny sample of 25 ex-Exploders - 13 men and 12 women - all the men, apart from David Medalla, agreed to participate. Of the remaining men, only one wanted more than minor changes, relating to factual information. As far as the women were concerned, however, two chose not to contribute, one agreed to a profile interview but then pulled out, another sought substantial changes and a fifth did not get back to me at the final stages. From the beginning, I found the women much more reluctant to give information during the question sessions, anxious about

being judged and much more concerned about the final wording of the completed profile text. These women had been through the feminist seventies as part and parcel of the women's movement, and been in spirit or reality on the barricades? It was exactly like the playground - the ex-Exploders' playground - where the boys occupy the centre saying, Look at what I am doing! while the girls play quietly in the corners. Iwo of these reluc. tants are painters of extraordinary talent and a third is remembered as the Galaxy's greatest poet.

The spirit of 1967 was to free everything up and give access and ownership to all. My great disappointment in doing this book has been to find to what degree we, the Exploding Galaxy, lost our battle. We believed that art could be a shared communal experience; we believed art could live independently of commerce; we believed that the ephemeral was exactly that, and that to preserve it in a museum was an absurdity; we believed that art history was the truth and not a version of events that had been agreed upon by a small circle of people; we believed that we could never be corrupted by the monster. How wrong we were. n

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David Glover Development Management Manager david.glover@brent.gov.uk

020 8937 5344

City of London Department for the Built Environment PO Box 270 Guildhall London EC2P 2EJ 020 7332 1710 www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/planning

Town Clerk and Chief Executive John Barradell OBE john.barradell@cityoflondon.gov.uk 020 7332 1400

Director of the Built Environment Ms Carolyn Dwyer carolyn.dwyer@cityoflondon.gov.uk

020 7332 1600

London Borough of Ealing Perceval House

14-16 Uxbridge Road Ealing London W5 2HL

020 8825 6600 www.ealing.gov.uk/planning

Chief Executive Paul Najsarek najsarekp@ealing.gov.uk

020 8825 5000

Director of Regeneration and Planning David Moore moored@ealing.gov.uk

Executive Director of Environment Keith Townsend townsendk@ealing.gov.uk

020 8825 5000

Director of Safer Communities and Housing Mark Whitmore whitmorem@ealing.gov.uk

020 8825 5000

London Borough of Enfield

PO Box Civic Centre

Silver Street

Enfield EN1 3XE

020 8379 4419

www.enfield.gov.uk/planning

Chief Executive

Ian Davis

chief.executive@enfield.gov.uk

020 8379 3901

Head of Planning Policy

Joanne Woodward

joanne.woodward@enfield.gov.uk

020 8379 3881

Assistant Director Planning, Highways & Transportation

Bob Griffiths bob.griffiths@enfield.gov.uk

020 8379 3676

Head of Development Management

Andy Higham andy.higham@enfield.gov.uk

020 8379 3848

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Sharon Davidson sharon.davidson@enfield.gov.uk

020 8379 3841

Transportation Planning

David B Taylor david.b.taylor@enfield.gov.uk

020 8379 3576

Chief Executive

Tim Shields tim.shields@hackney.gov.uk

020 8356 3201

Assistant Director of Planning and Regulatory Services

John Allen john.allen@hackney.gov.uk

020 8356 8134

Head of Spatial Planning

Randall Macdonald

020 8356 8051

Director of Regeneration

John Lumley john.lumley@hackney.gov.uk

020 8356 2138

London Borough of Harrow PO Box 37 Civic Centre Station Road Harrow HA1 2UY 020 8863 5611 www.harrow.gov.uk/planning

Chief Executive

Tom Whiting tom.whiting@harrow.gov.uk 020 8420 9495

Divisional Director of Planning

Paul Nichols paul.nichols@harrow.gov.uk 020 8736 6149

Head of Planning & Enforcement

James Rodger james.rodger@hillingdon.gov.uk

01895 250230

Head of Major Initiatives, Strategic Planning & Transportation

Jales Tippell jales.tippell@hillingdon.gov.uk

01895 250230

London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham Hammersmith Town Hall

Extension King Street London W6 9JU

020 8748 3020 www.lbhf.gov.uk

Chief Executive Ms Kim Dero kim.dero@lbhf.gov.uk

020 8753 3000

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John Finlayson john.finlayson@lbhf.gov.uk

020 8753 6740

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Pat Cox pat.cox@lbhf.gov.uk

020 8753 5773

Head of Development Management

Ellen Whitchurch ellen.whitchurch@lbhf.gov.uk

020 8753 3484

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Chief Executive

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020 8583 5555 www.hounslow.gov.uk/planning

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020 8770 5203

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020 8583 4994

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Ian Rae ian.rae@hounslow.gov.uk

020 8583 2561

Royal Borough of Greenwich

The Woolwich Centre 35 Wellington Street

London SE18 6HQ

020 8921 6426 www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/planning

Acting Chief Executive Ms Debbie Warren debbie.warren@royalgreenwich.gov.uk

020 8921 5000

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Pippa Hack pippa.hack@greenwich.gov.uk

020 8921 5519

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Victoria Geoghegan victoria.geoghegan@greewich.gov.uk

020 8921 5363

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London Borough of Hackney

London Borough Of Haringey Level 6 River Park House 225 High Road Wood Green London N22 8HQ

020 8489 1400 www.haringey.gov.uk

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020 7527 6743 www.islington.gov.uk/planning

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020 7527 3136

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Hackney Service Centre

1 Hillman Street E8 1DY

020 8356 8062

Dean Hermitage dean.hermitage@haringey.gov.uk

London Borough of Hillingdon Civic Centre High Street Uxbridge UB8 1UW

01895 250111

www.hillingdon.gov.uk/planning

Chief Executive & Corporate Director of Administration

Ms Fran Beasley fbeasley@hillingdon.gov.uk

01895 250111

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Nigel Dicker ndicker@hillingdon.gov.uk

01895 250566

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Andrew Marx andrew.marx@islington.gov.uk 020 7527 2045

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Sakiba Gurda sakiba.gurda@islington.gov.uk 020 7527 2731

Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

The Town Hall

Hornton Street London W8 7NX

020 7361 3000 planning@rbck.gov.uk

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Barry Quirk barry.quirk@rbck.gov.uk

020 7361 2991

Executive Director of Planning & Borough Development

Graham Stallwood graham.stallwood@rbck.gov.uk

020 7361 2612

Chief Executive Ms Janet Senior janet.senior@lewisham.gov.uk 020 8314 8013

Development Manager Geoff Whittington geoff.whittington@lewisham.gov.uk

London Borough of Richmond Upon Thames Civic Centre

44 York Street Twickenham TW1 3BZ

020 8891 1411 www.richmond.gov.uk/planning

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Paul Martin paul.martin@richmondandwandsworth.gov.uk 020 8871 6001

Director of Housing and Regeneration

London Borough of Merton Merton Civic Centre London Road Morden Surrey SM4 5DX

020 8545 3837 www.merton.gov.uk/planning

Chief Executive Ged Curran chief.executive@merton.gov.uk 020 8545 3332

Brian Reilly brian.reilly@richmondandwandsworth.gov.uk

Assistant Director Traffic & Engineering

Nick O’Donnell nick.o’donnell@richmondandwandsworth.gov. uk

Deputy Director Highway Operations & Street Scene

Kevin Power kevin.power@richmondandwandsworth.gov.uk

Executive Head of Economic Development, Planning & Sustainability

Eleanor Purser eleanor.purser@sutton.gov.uk

The London Borough of Tower Hamlets Mulberry Place 5 Clove Crecsent London E14 2BE 020 8364 5009

Chief Executive Will Tuckley will.tuckley@towerhamlets.gov.uk

Divisional Director Planning & Building Control owen.whalley@towerhamlets.gov.uk 020 7364 5314

Strategic Planning Manager Adele Maher adele.maher@towerhamlets.gov.uk

Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames Guildhall 2 High Street

Kingston Upon Thames

KT1 1EU

020 8547 5002 www.kingston.gov.uk/planning

Interim Chief Executive

Roy Thompson roy.thompson@kingston.gov.uk

020 8547 5343

Head of Planning

Lisa Fairmaner lisa.fairmaner@kingston.gov.uk

020 8470 4706

Director of Environment and Regeneration

Chris Lee chris.lee@merton.gov.uk

020 8545 3051

Director of Community and Housing

Hannah Doody hannah.doody@merton.gov.uk

020 8545 3680

The London Borough of Southwark 160 Tooley Street London SE1 2QH

020 7525 3559

020 7364 5375

London Borough of Lambeth Phoenix House 10 Wandsworth Road London SW8 2LL

Chief Executive Andrew Travers atravers@lambeth.gov.uk

020 7926 9677

Divisional Director for Planning, Regeneration & Enterprise

Alison Young ayoung5@lambeth.gov.uk

020 7926 9225

Divisional Director Housing Strategy & Partnership

Rachel Sharpe rsharpe@lambeth.gov.uk

London Borough of Newham Newham Dockside 1000 Dockside Road London E16 2QU 020 8430 2000 www.newham.gov.uk/planning

Chief Executive Kim Bromley-Derry kim.bromley-derry@newham.gov.uk

Director of Commissioning (Communities, Environment & Housing)

Simon Litchford QPM simon.litchford@newham.gov.uk

Chief Executive Eleanor Kelly eleanor.kelly@southwark.gov.uk 020 7525 7171

Strategic Director of Environment & Social Regeneration

Deborah Collins deborah.collins@southwark.gov.uk

020 7525 7171

The London Borough Of Waltham Forest Town Hall London E17 4JF

020 8496 3000 www.walthamforest.gov.uk

Chief Executive Martin Esom martin.esom@walthamforest.gov.uk

020 8496 3000

Strategic Director, Corporate Development Rhona Cadenhead rhona.cadenhead@walthamforest.gov.uk

020 8496 8096

Director Regeneration & Growth Lucy Shomali lucy.shomali@walthamforest.gov.uk

London Borough of Redbridge 128-142 High Road Ilford London IG1 1DD

020 8554 5000 www.redbridge.gov.uk/planning

Chief Executive & Head of Paid Service

Andy Donald andy.donald@redbridge.gov.uk

Interim Head of Planning & Building

Control Ciara Whelehan ciara.whelehan@redbridge.gov.uk

The London Borough of Sutton 24 Denmark Road Carshalton SurreySM5 2JG

020 8770 5000 www.sutton.gov.uk/planning

Chief Executive

Helen Bailey helen.bailey@sutton.gov.uk

Assistant Director, Resources Directorate (Asset Planning, Management & Capital Delivery)

Ade Adebayo ade.adebayo@sutton.gov.uk

020 8770 6349

London Borough of Lewisham

Town Hall

Catford London SE6 4RU

020 8314 6000 www.lewisham.gov.uk/planning

Head of Inward Investment & Enterprise

Mark Lucas mark.lucas@redbridge.gov.uk

020 8708 2143

Strategic Director of Environment, Housing & Regeneration Mary Morrisey mary.morrissey@sutton.gov.uk

020 8770 6101

The London Borough of Wandsworth Town Hall Wandsworth High Street London SW18 2PU

020 8871 6000 www.wandsworth.gov.uk

Chief Executive Paul Martin paul.martin@wandsworth.gov.uk

020 8871 6001

Head of Development Permissions Nick Calder ncalder@wandsworth.gov.uk

020 8871 8417

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Mark Hunter

mhunter@wandsworth.gov.uk

020 8871 8418

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John Stone

jstone@wandsworth.gov.uk

020 8871 6628

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Greater London Authority City Hall

Kamal Chunchie Way

London E16 1ZE

020 7983 4000 www.london.gov.uk

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020 7983 4000

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Executive Director, Good Growth

Philip Graham

City Of Westminster Westminster City Hall

64 Victoria Street London SW1E 6QP

020 7641 6500 www.westminster.gov.uk

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Lucinda Turner

Head of Development Management

John Finlayson

Head of the London Plan and Growth Strategies

Lisa Fairmaner lisa.fairmaner@london.gov.uk

Planning Change Manager

Peter Kemp

Chief Executive

Stuart Love slove@westminster.gov.uk

020 7641 3091

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020 7641 2519

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Paul Finch is programme director of the World Festival of Architecture and joint publishing editor of Planning in London

Norman in Paris

The best monographic architectural exhibition I have ever seen is currently at the Pompidou Centre (until 7 August); see it if you possibly can. Half of the centre’s top floor is given over to what one might usually call a retrospective of the work of Norman Foster and the various incarnation of the practice he has led for more than six decades. In this case that would be a misnomer, because although it is a comprehensive review of the architect’s most significant work, it underscores the extent to which the work, from yesteryear and today, is dealing with the future. It is as much a ‘futurspective’ as a historical review.

Arranged in a series of seven sections rather than a chronological sequence, all the old Foster favourites are here, plus some you may not have realised had been attempted. The layout, by Foster himself, avoids a simple enfilade by allowing multiple routes through most of the exhibition via the use of angled walls which respond to the orthogonal nature of the rooms by avoiding them.

In what is a coup de theatre, and in contravention of the Pompidou’s usual strictures about enclosing the exhibition space to avoid connection with the (assumed) irrelevant external world, Foster shows a line of models of the practice’s key tall buildings in front of a huge window which reveals the city beyond. This is both an exhibition design statement and a commentary on the way in which Foster regards the singular architectural object – always as

part of some wider context which informs the design thinking of that object building or structure.

The nature of his thinking is illustrated via an extensive display of his sketchbooks, which Elena Foster encouraged, revealing the inner workings of a designer mind, a record which includes a student essay and hand drawing dating from 1948 – and a pretty good drawing at that. This sort of display is not something that architects necessarily feel comfortable with; the almost unconscious commitment of pen or pencil to paper without any regard to future publication tells us what might be going through the designer mind. An intrusion into privacy, you might say. But in the context of this exhibition it makes powerful sense, providing a glimpse into the personal conjectures that lie behind the formal results that provide the main courses of the exhibition.

The wider context of contributors to the show comprises a wall listing of 10,000 individuals who have contributed to the work on display. Not a one-man show, then, although it would have been appropriate to have heard/seen rather more about the key contributors, past and present, to the extraordinary variety of architectural achievements. As it is, the individual cited on more than one occasion is Buckminster Fuller, whose influence on Foster is generously acknowledged, and whose legacy, along with that of other pioneers of movement and transport, are celebrated via the

>>>

Paul Finch visits the Foster exhibition at the Pompidou Centre

unexpected introduction of structures and vehicles, echoing Foster’s recent exhibition on ‘Motion’ at the Guggenheim Bilbao.

One part of the Pompidou exhibition, which Fuller would no doubt have loved, deals with the question of energy provision. Here, Foster relishes displaying collaborative thinking about the use of ‘clean’ nuclear batteries, of modest scale, which could power a city block for a year before any recharging would be required. If technology has got us into a climate mess, Foster is

saying, then let’s use technology to get us out of it, rather than pretending that it doesn’t (or shouldn’t) exist.

This is serious stuff, and in tune with Foster’s increasing willingness to take part in debate and discussion about the future of the world. He appeared at the Venice Biennale, where in partnership with Holcim, he displayed a prototype for a ‘temporary’ refugee housing unit, the design predicated on the fact that in reality, temporary means on average 20 years. Form follows

function, dealing with a problem of the here and now which pays no attention to colour, creed or nationality – nor to speculations about the digital world of atomised and scarcely physically connected individuals.

In a discussion at Venice, the question of our relationship to each other in the new world of the internet and (potentially) interplanetary futures was brought an appropriate end by Foster, who simply asked, if disconnection and disassociation were so desirable, ‘Why are we all here now?’

Foster is appearing the EcoCity event in London, focussed on the way in which we can combine architecture, technology and nature. He can point to the work of his practice, and could modestly suggest that the participants head to Paris if they want to know what he means.

Kengo in Venice

A monographic exhibition of a very different sort, about Kengo Kuma, is on display in Venice (until 23 November), in the Villa Franchetti next to the Accademia Bridge . Titled ‘Onomatopoeia Architecture’, it comprises an exquisite series of rooms, featuring a selection of Kuma’s work via beautifully arranged models, photography and drawings. The work is arranged on the basis of a series of double words which inform the exhibed designs, for example ‘solid/void’ or ‘fluid/soft’.

In each instance, Kuma provides a scribbled drawing, a designer’s indication about how the words translate into a type of design approach. The words/scribble/approach are then illustrated in the work you view, a very Japanese combination of materials and ideas.

In marked contrast to most of the ideas on show at the Biennale, Kuma provides hints and suggestions about what is being felt and experienced, not what is being analysed and formulated. It is not a retrospective in the sense of the Norman Foster

show, and it is certainly not an attempt to predict or design for the future, but it is nevertheless and very powerful demonstration of the relationship between culture, idea, form and proposition.

If you visit the Biennale and, like Patrik Schumacher, get tired of the lack of architecture on display, head for the Kuma show. It is an understated reminder of the power of an architectural attitude.

Bladerunner meets Archigram

This year’s Venice Biennale is billed as ‘The Laboratory of the Future’. The nearest thing I found that would fit the description was in neither the Arsenale nor the Giardini, the main locations for the event. Instead, it was in Abbazia di San Gregorio, next to Salute on the Grand Canal, where the Neom projects is being exhibited (until 24 September).

Neom is an area in Saudi Arabia identified for the creation of what would amount to a new society for the 21st century. About the size of Belgium, its key features are a high-speed rail/utilities/services route, the ‘Line’ stretching 170km from the Red Sea through three geologies/topographies.

The diagram for the proposition is simple: instead of creating a variety of cities on the European model, with all the necessary road and traffic infrastructure, you created concentrated super-tall urban environments as a series of clusters along the Line; each would house about 250,000 people, 20 per cent of whom would be Saudis, the rest expatriates interested in an a new form of living, which would exclude roads and cars, instead creating ‘fiveminute’ environments where everything you might want (part from travel) would be available.

The three-dimensional version of Neom-World is what gives the exhibition, with its magnificent models, an extraordinary fascination, simultaneously raising doubts about whether, even if desirable, it could possibly be achieved. That is because of the proposed dimensions. At ground level, the line and its settlements,

All photos by Nigel Young, Foster + Partners ©

would be 200m wide (ok), but 500m tall (honestly). Three linear blocks of 800m each would line each side of the Line, with various route across, internal environments, parks, gardens, homes, offices etc all sitting within the two ‘walls’ of development on either side.

The client, essentially the Saudi leader, Mohammed bin Salman, is paying reported fortunes to a host of top architects

and designers to bring this dream to reality – 17 of them attending a glittering opening during the Venice Biennale. Thom Mayne’s Morphosis has been instrumental in the overall masterplanning, with old pals like Peter Cook and Wolf Prix joining the party, along with Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas and a host of others.

There are more conventional peripheral projects (eg moun-

tain tourist resorts) which form part of a wider programme, including BIG and Zaha Hadid Architects, which presumably could be built quicker. However, work has already started on the Line and detailed designs for the first city settlement are under way. It is a ‘zero carbon’ project; water comes from desalination plants, with the salt used as an admixture for building blocks and bricks.

Can this be real? Peter Cook made headlines during the Biennale by suggesting that the height in particular was highly questionable. Incidentally, not only would the elevations be 500m high x 240m long, but they would be in a form of mirror glass, cleaning technology and engineering for which area all apparently in hand.

The exhibition is so extraordinarily convincing, complete with library feature huge tomes outlining materials, plants and vegetation, and technology proposals, that it is only when you start thinking about it later that you wonder whether this is one of those experiments which you assume will fail, but in the process will reveal what you may be able to do which you would otherwise never have imagined possible. Shades of Norman Foster’s Masdar project in Abu Dhabi.

For example, in the case of Neom clusters, could the proposition work at, say, 150m high rather than 500m?

Is this one of those instances where one might observe: ‘Better a fertile error than a sterile accuracy’?

Out of Africa

Pliny the Elder’s observation, ‘Semper aliquid novi Africam adferre’, seems appropriate as a comment on curator Lesley Lokko’s Venice Architecture Biennale (until 26 November). Something new has indeed come out of Africa to inform this

year’s show, not least the huge increase in black faces on the opening days – it felt just like London. More African and African diaspora contributors (50 per cent plus), more younger contributors, more post-colonial analysis and proposition, in some cases tiresome breast-beating and virtue-signalling, but overall this is lively biennale, and I have no hesitation in recommending anyone, especially those who can bring students, to visit over the next few months. It takes three days to see everything properly.

It is true that the guilt-trip examination of historical themes, sins, crimes and outcomes does not necessarily translate immediately into the sort of delightful and provocative architectural designs which one assumes will be central to any architectural exhibition on this sort of grand scale.

On the other hand, like Ricky Burdett’s 2006 show on ‘Density’, Lokko’s propositions are designed to provoke thought about the contexts which create architecture, not necessarily the architecture itself. This is surely no bad thing; the question is then how successful is it? My view is that it would have been better to have focused entirely on Africa and the way the rest of the world has viewed, experienced, conquered, colonialised, exploited, retreated from and in some cases re-colonialised this impossibleto-define continent.

As it is, the attempt to meld ideas about (inevitably) the past with propositions about the future can only be partially successful because the focus is ( also inevitably) so wide. An exhibit about what China is doing to its ethnic Muslims is shocking, though not surprising; it would have had more impact had it dealt with China’s cynical exploitation of African natural resources through that familiar 19th century tactic of offering railways and finance

(bribes) in return.

Flores and Prats’ delightful assemblage of drawings and models was in a way a welcome reminder that this is an architectural biennale, but it wasn’t entirely clear in that case how the laboratory meets Africa. This didn’t worry me too much, because in my

experience, the relationship of individual elements within the whole of the Arsenale main show is less important than whether those elements are in themselves interesting, and plenty are –particularly a wide range of work by this year’s star-of-the-show David Adjaye, who proves you can simultaneously exhibit an argument and a variety of real architecture. Surely a Biennale curator in the making.

There is also plenty to appeal in the Giardini, and the International Pavilion where there is a higher concentration of architectural projects. As ever, some of the national pavilions have failed utterly to respond to the curator’s programme, but others have done well. My tips, for what they are worth: Japan, Switzerland, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Belgium and Netherlands.

A final point: it seemed odd to have so little engineering in evidence at a Biennale intended to be a ‘laboratory of the future’. Various national curators, unwilling to produce any architecture at all, might think about science as a prompt, rather than art and sculpture. But then how many curators did anything other than arts degrees? n

Advice

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