53 minute read
FINCH
Uncertainty is the only certainty
FINCH
The atmosphere in London is febrile, writes Paul Finch
With the ongoing financial implications of Covid, rising energy prices, a European war, and inflation rates rising to levels not seen since the 1980s, these are worrying times for even the most optimistic forecaster.
So while big investment deals in the London market continue (the latest being the £1 billion-plus purchase of the UBS building, designed by Make), the concern is over what is going to happen to building cost inflation, as opposed to the general rate.
Some quantity surveyors are now assuming up to 15 per cent in their assessment of new construction, making some projects distinctly marginal. Given everything else that is happening, why take the risk of development? This will inevitably lead to a slowdown in commissions, which in turn suggests that the architectural employment market, which has been remarkably resilient over the past two years, is likely to take a hit, even though skilled and experienced practitioners are in short supply.
The idea that green policies can transform the economy, even if they should, is currently fading in the face of economic and energy realities. A recent survey suggested that four out of ten employers would not pay higher rents for offices with strong green credentials – and in any event, the enjoyment generated by working-from-home arrangements suggests that demand for space is unlikely to grow. All another reason for developers to be cautious about embarking on ambitious new projects.
Meanwhile the biggest project in London, the retrofit of the Palace of Westminster (ie the UK Parliament), seems to be in a state of limbo, following the abandonment of the development corporation-type supervisory body which was supposedly in charge of development. The problem here, apart from the £5 billion to £10 billion cost, is that Parliament has never got to grips with what it wants from its renewed estate: a replica of what already exists? Possibly, but that would scarcely take account of the changes that devolved national parliaments in Scotand and Wales, plus technology (tested during the Covid pandemic) now offer to legislatures.
Moreover, the constitutional make-up of the UK has been slowly unravelling, since the Blair government introduced changes for reasons of party, rather than national, interest. The existing Charles Barryplanned building, as my WAF colleague Jeremy Melvin has often pointed out, is an architectural description of the 19th century constitution, with monarchy, hereditary House of Lords and elected House of Commons in their appropriate places. That constitution, in practical terms, no longer exists. What would a new architecture look like were it to reflect what we now have?
This raises another problem, which is the unsatisfactory nature of our second chamber, a body with a vast number of political has-beens, no-show vanity peers and a minute number of hereditaries. Which comes first, constitutional reform or a building?
And how, one might ask, does this vast anticipated expenditure on a London landmark chime with the government’s much vaunted ‘levelling up’ agenda? This involves exporting various government
offices from the capital to provincial locations, giving local mayors a bit more authority, and lubricating the process with what remains of the public finances. Needless to say, the Midlands and Northern towns and cities which will be the beneficiaries of these policies are not falling over themselves to say thank you. For one thing, many of them are Labour-controlled, so whatever a Conservative government may offer will never be sufficient. There is a faint hope that the geological accident of vast shale deposits under the north-west of the country will be brought into play because of the energy crisis, thereby vastly increasing the financial wealth of the northern regions, but it would be unwise to count on it. The prejudice against fracking remains widespread.
Government commitment to green policies has expressed itself in a minor way, via a new tax measure reducing VAT on environmentally friendly improvements to dwellings (essentially insulation). But the realisation that we should not be relying on Russian or Mid-east oil and gas to provide us with heat and light has also triggered a renewed interest in nuclear power, at least in the mind of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has asked for new plants to be development at ‘warp speed’.
Whatever happens is going to take time (even at warp speed), during which the built environment sector will become a focus of attention for the Treasury and economists generally. It is not commonly understood just how big a proportion of the national economy construction and property represent. Construction and its ancillary activities (for example building product manufacture) comprise about 10 per cent. The value of development and investment is hard to put an exact figure on because of definitions, but it is massive, affecting not just the development and transactional market, but the operations of pension funds and other financial institutions, which regard property – with the exception of shopping centres these days – as a safe haven. It is not looking quite so safe at the moment.
Of course one tries not to be too pessimistic in these troubled times. But always remember the cynic’s definition of a pessimist: someone who lives with an optimist. n
Paul Finch is programme director of the World Festival of Architecture and joint publishing editor of Planning in London
In this important essay Spencer de Grey says we need cities more than ever to bring people together to innovate and tackle the challenges we are facing Density, diversity and proximity: the three qualities of an innovative city
When I was asked to pick my favourite building in London earlier this year, I chose the 1943 Plan of the Social and Functional Groupings of London as a deliberate provocation. Conceived by planners Sir Leslie Patrick Abercrombie and John Henry Forshaw, and illustrated with striking clarity by Arthur Ling, the diagrammatic plan shows London’s distinct yet interdependent urban villages and industrial districts radiating from the capital’s historic hearts, the West End and the City. Obviously, the Plan is not a building, but I chose it because good architecture begins by responding to its social and physical context. For this piece, I have been asked to discuss the architecture of innovation, and once again, I want to cast the net beyond architecture and focus on what makes cities innovative.
Innovation is a product of the exchange of ideas between people, and the built environment can either improve or impede the flow of knowledge. At Foster + Partners, our clients, be they universities or corporations or city governments, approach us to design innovative spaces. There is, of course, no one-size-fits-all approach, but there are three spatial qualities
Illustration by Arthur Ling, 1943
that are universally applicable when designing spaces for innovation: density, diversity, and proximity.
Density
Cities have always been the engines of innovation. As Edward Glaeser, the urban economist, wrote: “[i]deas move from person to person within dense urban spaces, and this exchange occasionally creates miracles of human creativity.” Urbanists from Jane Jacobs to Richard Florida have long celebrated the benefits of urban density in catalysing innovation, but it’s not urban density per se that creates innovation, but porous density which allows for a continuous flow of people, and by extension, of ideas.
A 2019 study by Maria P. Roche at the Georgia Institute of Technology showed that a ten percent increase in street density and connectivity is associated with a 1 percent increase in innovation. This hard data supports the soft observational analysis that dense urban environments like London’s Soho and Shoreditch – which comprise a mesh of human-scale streets and intimate public spaces – tend to foster more interactions between people, leading to greater exchange of knowledge and the strengthening of social networks. Evidently, Soho has been a driving force in London’s entertainment industry and Shoreditch in the tech-industry.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Roche’s study also found that areas with a higher density of amenities like bars and restaurants are also positively correlated with innovation because colleagues and collaborators who socialise together are more likely to develop a sense of trust and reciprocity, which are just as important as state-of-the-art facilities. It is little surprise then that both Soho and Shoreditch are key nightlife hotspots in London as the cornucopia of cafes and bars, pubs and restaurants function not only as collective canteens and watering holes for local workers, but also attract other Londoners and visitors, making these districts vibrant around the clock and across the week.
ABOVE: Churchill College Dining Hall credit: ACME
Diversity
Density of people and amenities is fundamental, but it alone cannot sustain innovation. It needs to be combined with a diversity of expertise and organisations to help spur innovation. Alfred Marshall, the celebrated Cambridge economist, coined the term ‘industrial district’ in 1890 to describe the innovative power of the clustering of interconnected industries and institutions which are at once cooperating and competing.
Silicon Valley is an example of an industrial district par excellence. It has been so successful that the term Silicon Valley has become a synecdoche for the high-tech sector, and the word Silicon has become a powerful brand for other high-tech districts around the world: Silicon Savannah in Nairobi, Silicon Sandbar in Cape Cod, and of course Silicon Roundabout in London, to name just a few. Whilst the Valley has become synonymous with industry giants such as Apple, it maintains a thriving ecosystem of start-ups, research centres, public institutions, and venture capital firms.
At the turn of the nineteenth century Detroit looked a lot like Silicon Valley in the sixties and seventies, with a hive of small, dynamic firms and independent suppliers. But the consolidation of the automobile ecosystem into General Motors and Ford by the 1930s hindered the growth of new ideas because the network of small-scale entrepreneurs could no longer compete with the behemoths, and the atmosphere of innovation was replaced with an atmosphere of efficiency.
The decline of Detroit is a cautionary tale against industrial monopolies. To protect innovation, industrial districts must safe-
LEFT: Soho street credit: Bex Walton
Spencer de Grey is head of design at Foster + Partners
Article first published in the magazine of the Cambridge University Land Society >>>
RIGHT: Building 20 credit: 1964 MIT Alum Class
NEXT PAGE: Willis Faber & Dumas credit: Tim Street Porter
RIGHT: Watling Street credit: Dominic Martin guard a diversity of organisations of different scales and expertise across the public and private sector.
The benefits of close-knit diversity of expertise are also seen in university towns. The University of Cambridge, for instance, has produced 110 Nobel Laureates, accounting for 83 per cent of the UK’s total. The high-tech laboratories, well stocked libraries, and capacious lecture halls are of course a part of the architecture of innovation, but it is also the inter-disciplinary dining halls where the seeds of innovation are planted, much like the pubs in Soho and bars in Shoreditch. The recent proliferation of the private sector and venture capital in the city is helping to finance and scale the innovative ideas to the global stage.
Communication technologies have eradicated distance, enabling someone in Cambridge, UK to collaborate with someone in Cambridge, Massachusetts in real time. But this virtual proximity has not replaced the value of physical proximity. In fact, as telecommuting has become easier and cheaper, innercity real estate has become more coveted and expensive because knowledge-sector industries and workers appreciate the value of chance encounters and the tacit knowledge that is shared simply by being in the same place at the same time. The fact that Silicon Valley is at once the most technologically literate and yet the most expensive place to live in the United States is irrefutable proof of the fact that there is a premium on physical proximity.
On an architectural scale, MIT’s Building 20 is a renowned example of the benefits of proximity. Designed in the space of an afternoon as a temporary war-time facility to develop radar systems, the building remained intact after the war becoming a spill-over facility for unlikely departmental neighbours such as Nuclear Science and the Linguistics department. These unlikely collisions proved to be a boon for its resident scholars who made legendary strides in electronics, physics and linguistics. Noam Chomsky remarked: “It looked like it was going to fall apart. There were no amenities, the plumbing was visible, and the windows looked like they were going to fall out. But it was extremely interactive.” The building was so beloved that when it was finally demolished in 1998, some 200 leading figures attended the funeral of the “plywood palace” that bore so many ideas.
The desire to create a highly interactive environment that encourages chance encounters was a key driver for our design of the Bloomberg Headquarters in London. From the sculptural Vortex at the entrance, to the distinctive hypotrochoid stepped ramp, characterised by its smooth continuous three-dimensional loop, to the radial desking system organised around collaborative clusters, the office building was designed to break down the figurative walls between teams. This approach to designing architecture that nudges colleagues to interact is part of a long lineage stemming from the Willis Faber & Dumas headquarters in Ipswich, completed three generations earlier in 1975. The building’s open-plan offices are spread over three floors connected by escalators that climb up and down the central atrium. The three-storey escalators serve as an interior High Street for the workers of Willis Faber & Dumas, a place to see and be seen and stop for serendipitous conversations.
When we were designing the Bloomberg Headquarters, together with the client we wanted the building to be a “good neighbour,” to give something back. The biggest gesture was the reinstatement of Watling Street, an old Roman Road that once ran through the site, and the addition of cafes and restaurants at the foot of the building. Curated by food critic Richard Vines, the eateries transformed the office building into an engaging slice of the City, much like the tight-knit and restaurant-lined streets of Soho and Shoreditch. It is easy to forget that the origins of the word company come from the Italian ‘con pania’, meaning ‘with bread’, which is a useful reminder that eating together is critical to cultivating collegiality and camaraderie, and ultimately, collaboration.
Over the past eighteen months many have called the future of cities into question. Yet we need cities more than ever to bring people together to innovate and tackle the challenges we are facing. From the architectural-scale of buildings that promote interactions across teams and disciplines, to the urbanscale of streets and squares that promote interactions across organisations and communities, designers play a crucial role in innovation by encouraging the exchange of ideas. Whether designing new buildings or reworking old ones, architects must begin by peeling back the red line boundary of their site and embracing the wider context both in terms of form and function. This is why the 1943 Abercrombie and Forshaw post-war strategic vision for London is just as relevant now as it was in the post-war era because it reminds us of the importance of urban density, functional diversity and the strategic proximity between complementary industries and sectors. n
Me, beauty and planning reform
Richard Coleman emphasises that ‘townscape’ and ‘heritage’ are invariably interlinked
As Secretaries of State come and go, frequently tampering with the planning system in fits and starts, half doing the job and then moving on, we are bound to find in its operation as many barriers to achieving beautiful places and buildings as we find authentic guidance on its realisation. Part of an unrealised plan is actually in place and it is called ‘Beauty’. It has become a policy requirement for the first time alongside what in my view is its counter force, ‘design codes’; a mistaken method of achieving it. National government bodies have been set up to advise on both ‘beauty’ and ‘design codes’; the former yet to be fully defined and the latter yet to be proven.
While architect’s have long been encouraged in their Design and Access Statements to set out why they believe their designs are good, it very often falls to others to objectively assess design quality. Design quality has proven to be a better term than beauty. When there is one on the team, the townscape and heritage consultant, of which Citydesigner is one, generally takes on the role to objectively assess design quality. At Citydesigner we today celebrate 25 years of having done this for hundreds of schemes. In the early days we produced the first Environmental Statement in the UK for an urban building where design quality as a cultural imperative figured centrally to the building’s acceptability within an historic context. That was for the Gherkin, in the City of London, on which we collaborated with Foster and Partners, and which demolished the damaged Grade II* listed Baltic Exchange.
The role of objectively assessing design quality can draw on guidance from a number of sources including the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment(CABE) and Historic England. My foundation is a book I helped to write, edited by Sherban Cantacuzino CBE while at the Royal Fine Art Commission (RFAC) called ‘What Makes a Good Building’ commissioned by central government and published in 1994. Its evidence was the schemes coming before it and out of it developed a comprehensive set of criteria still of relevance today, at the aesthetic end of the discussion. The RFAC was the sole national design review body from 1924 until its transformation to CABE in 1999, two years after I left it. Soon design review expanded into multiple panels across the nation but CABE still has a central role though now part of the Design Council. In the RFAC book, Sherban, it’s Secretary from 1979 to 1994, reminded us that
‘Beauty is a matter of consensus but an absolute value, distinguish between what you like and what you know to be good’.
It is imperative in the design panels of today, that ‘what you like as a panel member, is left at the door step, so to speak, and that analysis and judgement with an open mind should prevail.’ This was the practice at the RFAC where 18 commissioners appointed by the Queen met twice monthly to look at schemes. Beauty when confined to the eye of the beholder, is only of use to the beholder!
So this question of assessing design quality, aca ‘beauty’, needs debate and discussion but also an understanding of what considerations the designer has made. It requires skills of observation and a three-dimensional imagination in order to interpret drawings, simulations and far too rarely today, real physical three dimensional models. Most of all it requires a method.
I have adapted an observational exercise I have practiced for many years and have developed to guide Citydesigner’s approach to this task. It’s a way of methodically observing and understanding a phenomena, whether existing or imagined from
Richard Coleman is founder, Citydesigner Townscape and Heritage Consultancy www.citydesigner.com
four standpoints. It was mirrored, long after I began using it, by English Heritage’s ‘values’ system set out in their well-received Conservation Practice document. There they listed ‘evidential - historic - artistic and - communal’ values. My version begins with studying the physical facts about the thing being studied ie the definable evidence. Second is the response the thing makes to time both past, present and future including time/rhythms such as night/day, seasons and the rhythmic activities of the users. Third is the emotional response to the thing, which may vary from person to person but about which there is often a general artistic consensus. Finally, what is the archetype of the phenomena, what can all agree its essence is in a communal sense; what is the ‘ego’ of the thing. This exercise can reveal a lot about a phenomena, building, place or object. Not all that is discovered by this method is necessarily relevant to a particular project, but it often helps lead to connections, parallels and conceptual origins of the thing being considered.
Most of the talented people working with me over the last 25 years have consciously or unconsciously benefitted from this deepening of understanding through careful observation and recording. In the case of analysing an existing structure or urban scene it can help understanding the thinking applied by the original designer and this stands the practitioner in a valuable position when advising how a new intervention might respond. Many of my talented trainees have gone on to head up other townscape and heritage teams often within a planning consultancy. It remains a young profession best served by those trained in architecture, urban design and heritage.
It is also a profession which clearly combines ‘townscape’ and ‘heritage’ as the two are invariably interlinked. It surprises me that in many major schemes clients appoint separate consultancies for these inseparable functions. Even more when big consultancies treat the two separately and even have the Manchester office do one and the London office do the other, for example. What really helps a big scheme in sensitive surroundings is an holistic approach where heritage and townscape are not only embraced together but that the professional doing the embracing is also able to collaborate through the design development phase with the urban designer and architect. There is, however, no substitute for a high level of design skills pursuing the design while responding to continual townscape and heritage assessment through the whole design phase.
So Citydesigner is still going strong, serving clients, training a new profession, and celebrating beauty in the built environment. Design Codes are a whole different essay of contention! n
FAR LEFT: 30 St. Mary Axe (2000), The Gherkin, City of London, Foster and Partners. Beauty accepted by all as an acceptable replacement for the bombed Grade II* listed Baltic Exchange.
TOP:: Chiswick Curve (2015), Hounslow, Studio Egret West. The inspector approved it on the basis of its ‘beauty’- the Secretary of State refused it on the basis that he didn’t find it to be ‘beautiful’.
LEFT:: Holburne Museum (2006), Bath, Eric Perry Architects where authentic contrast in style and materiality was seen to be a beautiful addition to a Grade I listed building in a World Heritage site.
The Levelling Up White Paper
The Levelling Up White Paper acknowledged that reform of the planning system is required; but bearing in mind the strong commitments made to overhauling the planning system there was a startling absence of detail. A policy vacuum exists that continues to create uncertainty, impacting on the progress of Local Plans and the delivery of news homes in particular.
The development industry has long been pushing for the ‘principle’ of development to be established through the Local Plan process. This would involve each local planning authority creating growth areas in their Local Plans, within which any sites would automatically be granted outline planning permission for the principle of development following adoption of the Plan. The 2020 Planning White Paper, Planning for the Future, which until recently was set to be the basis for a radical new Planning Bill, proposed that after adoption of the Local Plan there would be “no need to submit a further planning application to test whether the site can be approved”.
Many backbench MPs had raised concerns that the proposals would mean reduced scrutiny by local elected councillors over individual planning applications and less public involvement in the planning process. Defeat at the Chesham and Amersham byelection last year also focused Ministers’ minds over planning reform and development on greenfield land in particular. The Levelling Up White Paper’s focus on brownfield prioritisation is not new and has been the policy of successive Governments over the last thirty years. Whilst brownfield sites are important, unfortunately the strategy of ‘brownfield first’ has failed to tackle the housing crisis, in fact it exacerbated the crisis. And the air of uncertainty around planning reforms will make matters yet worse to come.
Now Michael Gove has apparently told MPs that the Government will not bring forward a Planning Bill, and that the growth zone proposals have been scrapped. According to the Daily Telegraph, Gove told 45 Conservative MPs at a private meeting, "That he had decided not to proceed with a major separate piece of planning legislation to put the reforms into law. Instead, more limited changes to planning rules will be incorporated as part of a Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, which will be set out in the Queen's Speech in the spring."
It remains to be seen whether the more controversial aspects of the White Paper are being watered down following back pedalling from a Government trying to appease MPs following months of firefighting on all fronts.
The likely ‘tidying up’ is a stark change of direction following the 2019 election where the Government, riding high on the back of political success in the North and Midlands, put forward an ambitious reform of the planning system. Levelling Up promised to deliver improvements to those areas of the country that have undeniably been left behind following decades of a lack of investment and strategic thinking.
Roll on forward three years later and this Government, like many previous Governments, has found that planning continues to be a political hot potato. Ambitious reforms reduced to a bit of ‘tidying up’ of the planning system through levelling up legislation, are not what is required to address the real issues of inequality, a lack of productivity and economic competitiveness from those regions in the country that have been left behind.
Stability and leadership at the top are also required. There have been six Secretaries of State for Communities and Local Government and 12 Housing Ministers since the Conservatives took power in 2010. The revolving door that we have seen at the housing ministry has not helped provide the stability and focus required to successfully understand and tackle the housing and planning brief.
Ambition, joined-up thinking across Government, investment in local authority planning departments and following through on genuine reform to the planning system are what is needed now to ‘level up’. That means delivering decent affordable homes, in the right locations, close to economic opportunities, where people want to live and work.
What is evident is that this Government has lost both its ambition and the political capital to follow through on the reforms that it proposed when it first took office. It is a huge political challenge and one that the Levelling Up White Paper does not go far enough to address. n
Michael Gove has apparently told MPs that the Government will not bring forward a Planning Bill, and that the growth zone proposals have been scrapped. He told Conservative MPs at a private meeting "That he had decided not to proceed with a major separate piece of planning legislation to put the reforms into law. Instead, more limited changes to planning rules will be incorporated as part of a Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, which will be set out in the Queen's Speech in the spring."
Simon Atha is Associate Director, Boyer (part of Leaders Romans Group)
Simon Atha is an Associate Director in Boyer’s Midlands office and is involved in leading on strategic residential and commercial projects for clients across the Midlands region
This is not how to level up the country
Gove’s 12-point plan is hardly the Roosevelt New Deal we were promised, writes Ben Derbyshire
There is no denying the necessity for levelling up. Disparities between the haves and have-nots have been growing for decades. Just recently, behaviour in the Westminster bubble has only served to accentuate the disparity. Even if it were not for the bad taste left in voters’ mouths, we are already two years into a parliamentary term for a party for whom ending inequalities was supposed to be a manifesto centre-piece. The danger for government is that Gove’s announcement is already too late.
To regain support that brought its landslide majority in time for the next election, government must be mindful that structural changes can be controversial and take forever to implement. The 2030 timeline for 12 missions on productivity, education and transport is well beyond the current parliamentary term. The electorate will be quick to see through short-term, inevitably superficial, re-allocations of cash with only transient outcomes. Regions, towns and cities targeted by this policy have seen cuts that the existing £10bn commitment in no way restores – and the similar sum written off over wasted PPE spending puts the investment into perspective.
The trailed plan for more local mayors with access to funds already allocated and the long overdue regulation of privately rented homes seems anaemic in comparison to the challenge. Further demand-side stimulus for home buying will boost prices and increase private debt. Sure, local government can and should be improved. The scandal of exploitative rentier slum housing should never have been tolerated in the first place. But could these changes honestly be described as ‘red meat’ sufficient to satisfy the bloodthirsty Tory backbenchers with fragile ‘blue wall’ majorities? These MPs need impacts that will not only impress voters in the short term but have a convincing chance of sustained value. Government needs a new settlement with local authorities, and councils in turn need to strike a new deal with their citizens.
Let’s start from the bottom up. Communities must have more say in plan-making and development management, not outside local democratic accountability, as proposed in last year’s Planning White Paper, but as part of the process. Planning reform and levelling up are linked by the perception of local people that investment in development and infrastructure is in their beneficial interest, because that’s how their satisfaction with the outcomes will translate into votes. A commitment to much better local engagement on plan-making, including transparency and digital consultation, is a quick win with long-term benefits. Likewise, perceptions can only be improved by a requirement that developers commit to meaningful consultation on individual schemes, demonstrating how development meets local and national plan and policy criteria.
None of the above is possible within the current cash-strapped constraints on local planning authorities and the skilled resources they can afford. Local mayors alone are not enough – there’s a campaign in Bristol to scarp theirs. Local planning authorities need more resources and autonomy. Westminster really must get over its instinctive mistrust of local democracy and swallow a prejudice that inhibits a more generous delegation of authority that, yes, may favour councils led by opposition parties.
It is critical that policy is thoroughly tested with impact assessments on our ability to meet the 2050 net zero target. In the structure of delegated power and control I am calling for, a critical prerequisite is that all investment is tested for its contribution to mitigating climate change and that no money is spent on anything that threatens the long-term future. That actually rules out quite a few of the lollipops that a Tory government might otherwise be thinking of to win back voters – new road schemes in particular.
We need to build a consensus about what form sustainable development should take. So long as direction emerges remote from local considerations, people will continue to believe that development decisions are being done to them, not made by them. There is ample evidence from neighbourhood planning that communities understand that new development can bring benefits. There is a slew of well-informed policy development around local control, from No Place Left Behind by Create Streets and Street Votes by Policy Exchange that the DLUHC would do well to adopt.
Irrespective of the growing sense that the governing elite exists in a bubble that insulates it from the experience of ordinary citizens, the only hope for a green economy based on sustainable development is that a population increasingly concerned for the welfare of successive generations, believes in good measure that people have made the choices that most directly affect them.
Levelling up prosperity and opportunity requires Westminster to level with local people, trusting in them to make the right decisions. What we have instead is no Rooseveltian ‘New Deal’. n
HTA sketch of Superbia for the Policy Exchange Street Votes report Ben Derbyshire chairs HTA Design LLP and is past president of the RIBA. He also chairs Historic England’s Historic Places Panel
The end of the Planning Bill
The rumour that the Government has finally condemned the Planning White Paper to the dustbin is disappointing but hardly a shock.
We now understand that there will be no Bill following the consultation on the White Paper published which in August 2020 (although the Government’s response is still anticipated following May’s local elections), and that instead reform to the planning system will be through a series of ‘tidying up’ measures that will be introduced via levelling up legislation.
For a sector that believed, back in August 2020, that the Planning for the Future White Paper would bring about radical reform, this back-tracking on several levels has created uncertainty.
The likelihood that the Government was proposing to scrap the Planning Bill which was announced in last year’s Queen's Speech had been on the cards for some time. In one of his first moves as Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities in September last year, Michael Gove paused progress of the policy to conduct a review. The following month the Conservative party chairman Oliver Dowden said that the Government was ‘looking again’ at the proposals within the White Paper, specifically the planned broad-brush approach to simplify strategic planning by ‘zoning’ land for Growth, Renewal or Protection.
This specific policy had already resulted in controversy, not least in the Chesham and Amersham byelection in June last year, when the Conservative party lost a 16,000 majority primarily due to planning controversy. It was acknowledged then that voters were concerned over the perceived reduced public consultation that would come about as a result of zoning. Politicians stated that voters had been heard ‘loud and clear’ and that the by-election result represented a ‘warning shot’.
The introduction of zoning would have had a potentially significant impact on the planning system. Currently, Local Plans already allocate sites or designate land for specific uses, in a not dissimilar way to the proposed Renewal and Protect categories. However, the automatic granting of planning permission and ‘permission in principle’ on land allocated for ‘Growth’ gave a strong impression that local authorities would have lost the ability to control development, alongside a considerable reduction in public consultation – something, as the by-election outcome demonstrates, would have been extremely unpopular with sections of the electorate.
So what does the Planning Bill’s replacement, the Levelling Up White Paper, propose for the planning of new homes?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the negative response to the intention to focus public consultation solely on the strategic planning process, rather than on individual planning applications, the Government has committed to strengthening engagement and improving democracy in planning. Its commitment to ‘beauty’ and the proposed creation of an Office for Place are also a reaction to public displeasure in ‘identikit’ housing developments. Allied to the concept of ‘beauty’ is a commitment to ‘protect and enhance’ green spaces, specifically the Green Belt, to support environmental protection and the transition to Net Zero. Local Plans should be made simpler and shorter, according to the White Paper. Presumably, this aims to increase the number of up-to-date Plans, and follows a growing number of local authorities having paused or halted their Local Plan process. Some were paused as a knee-jerk reaction to the Prime Minister’s strong opposition to greenfield development when speaking at October’s Conservative Party Conference which, our research demonstrated, caused Local Plans across the country brought to an abrupt halt. Other Local Plans have stalled due to environmental issues such as the moratoriums imposed in relation to water neutrality issues, and some due solely to political indecision.
The Levelling Up White Paper also refers to a model for a new infrastructure levy. This levy would ‘enable local authorities to capture value from development more efficiently, securing the affordable housing and infrastructure communities need.’ Additionally, it outlines ‘Project Speed’, intended to improve the delivery of critical major infrastructure projects, including new hospitals, schools and roads.
The vision which underpins the Levelling Up White Paper is positive; but is it anything other than a vision? Eighteen months on from the Planning White Paper, we had anticipated more substance but instead we have a new set of aspirations which may yet be dumbed down further through consultation and political wrangling, as was the case with the Planning White Paper.
There is a world of difference between the ‘tidying up’ now suggested, and the ‘radial reform’ proposed when the White Paper was first released. Central to this was the Government’s determination that the housing needs of the nation, and particularly of younger people, needed to be front and centre, irrespective of the political fall-out, and that the Government was absolutely committed to delivering 300,000 new homes per annum. That now seems a pipedream. n
!"#$%&'()%*&+,-,.$&/0/0 Colin Brown is Head of Planning & Development, Carter Jonas
The Nature Recovery Green Paper
Is the Nature Recovery Green Paper the answer? (and if so what was the question?) asks Simon Ricketts
My last two blog posts have been on the huge and urgent challenge arising for the English planning system arising from the advice being given by Natural England in relation to potential effects on special areas of conservation and special protection areas (see my 18 March 2022 blog post New NE Nutrient Neutrality & Recreational Impact Restrictions (+ DEFRA Nature Recovery Green Paper) and my 26 March 2022 blog post More On That Natural England Advice). We also held a clubhouse discussion on 29 March 2022 and you can listen back here.
Undoubtedly, the environmental protection and assessment system that has development pursuant to European Union Directives and caselaw of the European Court of Justice is ripe for review now that we are no longer in the EU. It is complicated, uncertain and its tests can lead to wide repercussions, as we have seen with the “neutralities” issues the subject of Natural England’s advice. It was no surprise that the Government has been trumpeting for years (literally years) the opportunity to review the system post Brexit.
This was Environment minister George Eustice in his 20 July 2020 speech on environmental recovery:
“Later this autumn we will be launching a new consultation on changing our approach to environmental assessment and mitigation in the planning system. If we can front-load ecological considerations in the planning development process, we can protect more of what is precious.
We can set out which habitats and species will always be off-limit, so everyone knows where they stand. And we can add to that list where we want better protection for species that are characteristic of our country and critical to our ecosystems that the EU has sometimes overlooked– things like water voles, red squirrels, adders and pine martens. We want everyone to be able to access an accurate, centralised body of data on species populations so that taking nature into account is the first, speedy step to an application.”
“Later this Autumn”, my foot!! Only last month was the Nature Recovery Green Paper finally published, for consultation from 16 March to 11 May 2022. This was finally the opportunity to grasp the nettle.
I have read the paper several times now, together with the summary of findings of the HRA review working group comprising DEFRA ministers Lord Benyon and Rebecca Pow, Tony Juniper (Natural England chair) that was published alongside the green paper. I’m afraid I do not see any nettles grasped but rather far too much about how to assimilate the nomenclature and classification of EU designations (special areas of conservation and special protection areas) into our domestic regime and general aspirations for a system that is simpler and clearer without any ideas as to how to make it, in practice, simpler or more clear. How do we actually address these nutrient neutrality issues for instance and avoid any more applications via Natural England advice of an emergency handbrake on the operation of the planning system?
I make the point forcefully because there is a risk that we all see this complicated, long-term, expert-driven and ultimately one for the academics and planoraks, whereas it is vital stuff if we are to achieve a functioning planning system alomgside a system of environmental protection and recovery that is fit for purpose (or at least as good as the EU system of which we are no longer part).
My Town Legal colleague Stephanie BruceSmith has summarised chapter 3 of the green paper in a piece which you can find here: https://tinyurl.com/4k3c26tt without amendment - and for which I take the responsibility (but not the credit).
Chapter 3 is the meat of the proposals and Stephanie’s piece, which I think is great and I hope you do too, will give you a good sense of the Government’s thinking. n
Simon Ricketts is a partner with Town Legal LLP
From Simon’s blog at simonicity.com/author/simonicity/ Personal views, et cetera
The road to recovery
High street businesses in the hospitality and retail sector have been frontline casualties of the Covid19 crisis. No parts of the country were spared; but London was disproportionately hit badly.
Centre for Cities’ recent Cities Outlook publication has shown that businesses in central London lost nearly a year’s worth of sales between the start of the pandemic and the eve of Omicron - making it the hardest hit of all 63 cities covered in the analysis. This resulted in a wave of closures: of all 2,426 extra vacant units in UK city centres between 2020 and 2021, a third were in central London.
The reason why Covid had a devastating impact in the capital is because overnight, London’s strengths turned into weaknesses. Office workers, which central London had more of, were advised to work from home; weekend shoppers and tourists coming from the city’s wide catchment area were discouraged by travel restrictions; and non-essential businesses, of which central London had diversified into to a greater extent, were forced to close.
Government support may have sheltered some businesses from the worst, but the way it was set out actually disfavoured those in London. They perhaps benefited more in monetary terms from business rates holidays than those in areas such as Blackpool or Barnsley, but given the latter had higher exemption rates pre-Covid already, the measure only brought parity between different cities. And businesses in central London received the same or less in government grants than those elsewhere, despite having a larger income shortfall and higher running costs (like rent). Putting it simply, the grants didn’t stretch far enough.
Lockdowns may feel like a bygone era, but London has far from recovered from them. The city still suffers from its Achille’s heel, and reduced commuting to offices is still a bottleneck on the capital’s recovery. While weekend activity is nearly back to pre-pandemic levels (a positive sign that the city centre still is a prime destination for shopping and leisure), weekday footfall still hasn’t recovered. After the government lifted homeworking guidance in January, it went up from 44 to 57 per cent of prepandemic levels. It’s now the busiest it’s been in the past two years, but still nowhere near its early 2020 levels. As a consequence, retail and hospitality businesses are still missing a key segment of their customer base.
The result is that, by the end of February, overall footfall in London was still 40 per cent down on its early 2020 levels, by far the slowest recovery of all cities. Even other big cities like Manchester, Birmingham or Liverpool are further on the track to full recovery, indicating that the work-from-home ‘issue’ is soon to be a London-only problem.
The concern is that recovery might stall if those most reluctant to return (particularly those who live the furthest away from the centre) stay away from the office. Of course this change in behaviour is not a problem per se but, in the short-term at least, it puts jobs at risk and means the nature of commercial property may have to change to adapt.
Policymakers have a few more levers to pull. On the transport front for instance, they could incentivise more people to return to the city centre by introducing a part-time season ticket, in order to attract those put off by the high costs of commuting.
However, if it increasingly looks like not everyone will return, then more will need to be done to adjust to the ‘new normal’. TfL’s precarious financial situation, laid bare by the pandemic, may become critical, especially if rising fares feed the vicious circle by deterring more people from travelling. Moving away from relying on fares could be a solution to bolster TfL’s long-term income stream – it could develop the land it owns around tube, rail and tram stops, for instance. High street businesses might also need to adapt, both to a permanently reduced number of customers and to changes in the nature of demand for different types of commercial space. Greater flexibility over how space is used will be essential. Developers will be able to use the newly introduced ‘E class’ to change between different types of commercial uses, including retail, offices, restaurants and others without the need for a planning permission. This will be key in efforts to fill empty units and ease the shift away from over-reliance on retail towards higher demand uses, such as gyms or hospitality.
Some advocate for conversions towards residential space to bring demand closer to businesses. A case-by-case approach is defensible, but this would need to be carefully monitored, as it risks jeopardising the city centre’s primary role as a place of production and consumption. That said, outside of central London, planners should not call for Article 4 exemptions. Increasing density will be fundamental to attract new office workers and bring more customers to TFL and shops.
The challenge for central London does not lie in its long-term future. The fundamentals of its success – a wide and affluent catchment area and a highlyskilled workforce – remain and will enable its economy to adapt and grow. But the road to recovery may well be bumpy. n
Valentine Quinio is an analyst with Centre for Cities
CLIPBOARD
Energy supply strategy
On 7th April the government published its energy supply strategy: • Wind - The government aims to reform planning laws to speed up approvals for new offshore wind farms. For onshore wind farms it wants to develop partnerships with "supportive communities" who want to host turbines in exchange for guaranteed cheaper energy bills. • Solar - The government will consider reforming rules for installing solar panels on homes and commercial buildings to help increase the current solar capacity by up to five times by 2035.
Permission finally granted for Bishopsgate Goodsyard
In December 2020, the London mayor Sadiq Khan approved plans for the long-awaited mixed-use scheme on a 4.4 hectare derelict site in the east of the capital, after finding that its provision of office space and affordable housing would be "significant benefits”.
Late last month, developers Ballymore and Hammerson completed the section 106 agreement, allowing Khan to grant final planning permission and listed building consent for the scheme.
The development provides up to 130,940 square metres of new employment floorspace, hotel, retail and community uses, 2.58 hectares of new public realm and landscaping.
It requires the provision of at least 50 per cent affordable housing with a “target tenure split” requiring a minimum 45.5 per cent (by habitable room) London Affordable Rent and a minimum of 24.5 per cent Tower Hamlets Living Rent Housing. The remaining affordable housing units must be at London Living Rent.
In addition, the agreement secures an affordable workspace strategy offering work and retail space in Hackney at a 60 per cent discount.
A £500,000 “local enterprise business support and inclusive workspace contribution” will be provided to Hackney Council to fund measures aimed at encouraging local businesses to occupy and provide services to the development.
According to a statement from planning lawyers Ashurst, which advised the Greater London Authority and TfL on the project and led the negotiations over the agreement, the planning obligations have secured £5.5 million for strategic road improvements, local road improvements “safeguarding for future improvements to Shoreditch High Street station”, plus “major public realm works, significant employment contributions, affordable workspace and retail units”.
According to a GLA report on the project published last month, the developers have agreed to provide a mayoral CIL payment to the GLA of £33.0 million, a CIL payment to Hackney Council of £8.3 million and £17.9 million for Tower Hamlets. – Planning
A visualisation of the finished Bishopsgate Goodsyard scheme (Credit: Hammerson and Ballymore joint venture)
Crossrail
Officially opens to the public this June. It has been a very long time coming. The project has had a lot of setbacks; it is billions of pounds over budget and was originally due to open in 2018.
These plans were abandoned after stations were found to be incomplete and the software needed to connect the trains and signalling system was round to be full of glitches.
So, as the capital finally gears up for the opening, what impact has the Elizabeth line had to date and what impact will it have when it opens?
Jace Tyrrell, chief executive of the New West End Company, a business partnership stretching across 80 streets in the West End, says the development of the Elizabeth line has brought with it billions of pounds in regeneration over the past 10 years. "If you look at the east end of Oxford Street, and in particular Tottenham Court Road, it has been a major catalyst for all the new development. In some ways, it has come up to the rest of Oxford Street in terms of value and demand," he says. "The complete transformation of Bond Street, the restoration of Hanover Square, even the £150m Westminster Council is spending on Oxford Street: none of it would have happened without the Elizabeth line.' n
BRIEFING BRIEFING
Limits to Class E Pemitted Development rights blocked
Seven London councils applied for Article 4 Directions (A4Ds) to limit permitted development rights that allow use class E business and commercial premises to be converted into housing.
Minister for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Stuart Andrew responded to seven councils - the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, Camden, Lambeth, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Wandsworth and Westminster - saying that the proposed directions “failed to take a sufficiently targeted approach”.
Andrew said the proposed Article 4 Directions “cumulatively would disapply the permitted development right from most of the Central Activities Zone (CAZ)”. The CAZ is an area set out in the London Plan, described by the mayor as "London’s vibrant centre and one of the world’s most attractive and competitive business locations".
Andrew said A4Ds should “apply to the smallest geographic area possible” and having reviewed the evidence was “not persuaded that a case has been made for a blanket coverage”.
He said councils should only propose A4Ds “where there is clear evidence that the permitted development would have wholly unacceptable adverse impacts”. He suggested councils “reconsider” their proposed A4Ds, demonstrating that they had been considered for “individual streets or smaller areas”.
Councillor Elizabeth Campbell, leader of RBKC and chair of Central London Forward, a partnership of the 12 central London local authorities, said it was “very disappointing” that the A4D proposals had not been accepted.
She added that the new permitted development right “risks leading to the widespread loss of vital commercial space” and the “creation of sub-standard housing which doesn’t meet the community’s needs”.
A spokesperson for Westminster City Council added that the A4D is a “valuable tool” in its efforts to maintain commercial and retail space, saying that the response is a “setback” but “by no means the end of the road” and the council “will continue to work with government to ensure we have the powers we need to protect and enhance commercial space in our city.
New Euston
“The scale of the new HS2 London Euston station means we have the opportunity to create a new truly public civic space for London, a place that responds to transport and passenger needs and becomes part of the existing urban fabric and community, says Declan McCafferty, a partner at architects Grimshaw.
“The 300-metre long station hall sits at the heart of this approach, creating a space that is permeable, accessible and open and connects to the local streets and neighbourhoods through green, pedestrian-oriented spaces.”
76 years and £50bn to fix the Palace of Westminster
Restoring the Palace of Westminster could take up to 76 years and cost nearly £50bn if MPs do not move out during the works, according to a new report.
The most detailed study yet found that >>>
BELOW: A CGI of HS2 Euston Station, designed by Grimshaw Architects: Grimshaw \ HS2 Ltd
BRIEFING BRIEFING
>>> keeping the Commons and the Lords in the building could increase costs by as much as 60 per cent and dramatically increase the length of time it takes to get the job finished. The cheapest option would require the building to be fully vacated for up to two decades and would cost £7bn to £13bn, according to the body set up to oversee the project. Both the Lords and the Commons agreed to the works in principle in 2018 on the basis that they would cost around £4bn and see occupants ‘decant’ to temporary facilities for six years.
But the rising costs of the project have triggered a heated debate in parliament over the best approach, with several MPs including Commons leader Mark Spencer arguing that MPs, Lords and staff should stay in the building while the works are carried out.
The long-delayed review, by the Restoration and Renewal Sponsor Body, set out three options, all of which cost significantly more and would take much longer than original estimates.
A budget ‘essential scheme’ would take between 19 and 28 years for all the works to be completed, with an 80 per cent chance that the final cost would hit £13bn. Palace occupants would need to vacate to external premises for between 12 and 20 years.
Keeping the House of Commons running for as long as possible until all operations need to be transferred to another space within the building would increase costs by 40 per cent, to between £9.5bn and £18.5bn, and add between seven and 15 years to the delivery time.
The most expensive scenario, in which the House of Commons remains operating throughout, would be 60% more expensive with the works taking between 27 and 48 years longer.
A century of England from the air
Historic England has launched its online Aerial Photograph Explorer tool, making over 400,000 aerial photographs available to view online for the first time.
Photographs show thousands of historic sites from Second World War defences and nuclear power stations to the remains of Neolithic monuments, Roman farmsteads and medieval villages.
The tool’s search function allows the public to explore using a map and discover the changing face of England’s urban and rural landscapes over the last 100 years.
Our picture is of Hampton Court Palace in 1941 with anti-aircraft obstructions made up of short sections of ditches and mounds of earth, designed to damage enemy aircraft if they tried to land in large open areas. Also look for a couple of Second World War bomb craters near the 17th century canal called The Long Water and a strip of allotment gardens. Also note the traces of a roadblock (guard posts and pale lines across the road) at either end of Hampton Court Bridge and pill boxes within the traffic islands to the south (top left). RAF_241_AC10_V_0050 Source Historic England Archive (RAF photography) 26/06/1941
Speeding appeals
Housing minister Christopher Pincher has written to the Planning Inspectorate’s (PINS) chief executive Sarah Richards outlining new measures for appeals, including an expectation to reduce average times for decisions.
He sets forth that the government will work on what is necessary to achieve “a further significant improvement in appeal decision timeliness beyond the new measures”.
The new measures for appeals are: • An expectation that measures are put in place through the new digital services to prevent invalid appeals being made and that appeals are increasingly submitted “right first time”. • Measuring decision timeliness from valid receipt of an appeal through to decision to reflect the whole customer experience. • An expectation that average times for decisions will be reduced, as well as reducing the range of time within which decisions are made. The average time to decide written representations cases currently varies between 20 and 30 weeks, with some determined as quickly as eight weeks but some taking more than a year. This range provides insufficient customer certainty. • Moving progressively towards all cases across all appeal types being decided within these ranges: – wholly written representations: 16-20 weeks. – partly or wholly by hearing: 24-26 weeks. – partly or wholly by inquiry: 24-26 weeks (reflecting the previous Rosewell target). – publishing the number of cases we have quality assured.
The measures that won’t be used include targets based on the ‘start’ date (which is not at the ‘start’ of the customer experience of PINS services).
The statutory time frames for national infrastructure applications (NSIPs) and the target for local plans remain the same. However, they may change when current proposals for wider reforms are finalised.
Pincher writes: “As you know, the government is also committed to improving and modernising the planning system. The work you are undertaking to
develop 21st-century digital public services is an important part of this. I would welcome you complementing that by identifying what steps might be necessary to achieve a further significant consistent improvement in appeal timescales beyond those above so that most appeals could be consistently decided in four – eight weeks, or faster, whilst maintaining good standards of decision. Consideration can then be given to whether these steps might be appropriate.”
Richards commented: “The measures by which ministers assess the Planning Inspectorate’s performance have needed updating for a considerable time to better reflect what our customers want. The replacement measures are good news for us and our customers and will support us implementing ongoing improvements.
“We know our decisions are currently taking too long and customers tell us their experience of our services is too inconsistent. We are working hard to improve this in the short term and continue to invest in recruiting and training more inspectors. Achieving the ambition of these new measures will not be quick, or without dissatisfaction from some, but everyone at the Planning Inspectorate will work together to achieve them.
“We are also investing in the long term, building digital public services which will be at the forefront of a digital planning system and piloting innovative new approaches which have the potential to support both our work and the wider planning system.
“I welcome the minister’s request to report to him on what would be necessary to support a further significant improvement in appeals. This recognises the importance of a fair appeal system to the nation’s economy and is an important opportunity to reflect on how the appeal system can be reframed to operate sustainably for the future. We will engage with key stakeholders on this in due course before we report to the minister.” – The Planner
London growing again
London’s population has started growing again after dropping for the first time in more than 30 years early in the pandemic, say analysts at City Hall. Their report confirms that a “boomerang effect” in well underway as thousands of people who left London for the suburbs and the shires began heading to the metropolis.
In particular the ‘many young adults’ who quit the capital during the first lockdown in 2020 as they lost their jobs or went on furlough started flooding back from last spring and summer, the report found after its authors analysed data from GP registers and the rental sector.
This was probably largely due to the reopening of the hospitality and leisure sectors from last April onwards,
The report, from the GLA’s City Intelligence Unit concludes: “Following an initial fall over the first year of the pandemic London’s population has likely resumed growing, albeit at a slower rate than it had been prior to the pandemic.”
Some early estimates suggested that the combined effects of Brexit and the pandemic could permanently reduce London’s population by hundreds of thousands in a “race for space” flight from the capital - but these fears appear to be unfounded.
The report found that deaths spiked during the first two waves of the pandemic, when almost 22,000 mainly elderly people died from Covid, and the birth rate has continued its long term downward trend, scotching predictions of a “lockdown baby boom.” The long term trend of older age groups moving away from London has also continued. However, this has been offset by the return of younger Londoners.
International migration to London fell in 2020 due to the combined effects of the pandemic and Brexit but more recent visa data point to at least a partially recovery in the months to September 2021.
The report’s findings are in line with evidence from the property market that strong demand for accommodation is sending rents and prices soaring. The London property market was the weakest in the UK through much of the pandemic but prices have started to accelerate since the start of the year and estate and letting agents report a huge surge in the number of buyers and renters.
London’s population is estimated to have peaked in 2019 at just under nine million – the highest it has ever been in its history. It overtook the previous high of 8.6 million in 1939 just before the Second World War. It fell sharply in the 70s and 80s to a low of 6.8 million in 1991 before starting to rise again as the City boomed following the Big Bang deregulation of financial services. – Evening Standard
House of Illustration
... has secured a resolution to grant planning permission from Islington Council for a £12m project to redevelop New River Head into the UK’s only public arts space dedicated to illustration.
