“I WAS LUCKY TO LEAD THE PLANNING CONTINGENT. I HAPPENED TO BE IN THE RIGHT PLACE, AT THE RIGHT TIME WITH THE RIGHT TEAM”
one of the world’s most successful cities” but strongly insists that any achievements are not his alone. “I have not transformed the City over 30 years, but a huge array of people have, from architects, developers through to planners,” he says. “I was lucky to lead the planning contingent. I happened to be in the right place, at the right time with the right team.” What was once a strictly 9 to 5 workplace is a buzzing international business and social centre. “Now there is a choice of clubs, pubs and restaurants. That attracts the young, highly skilled and mobile people who would otherwise work in New York, Hong Kong or Dubai and go to where the most fun is to be had. “London is the number one destination for people around the planet, not just in this country. London is the best part of the world. People come for the nightlife and then they get the job to pay for it.” Today only around 8,000 people live in the City of London – something Rees more than anyone else is responsible for, turning developers away “all the time so there was no point in asking for permission to build apartments”.
Tsunami of towers For the City to remain a financial hub means office redevelopment and evening entertainment rather than neighbours who would complain about the noise. “I’ve tried to ensure that we will have a future as well as a past,” he says. “The City is the UK’s engine room and it’s crucial it’s not impeded.” Rees is derisory about how localism has panned out and government reforms to use class orders that are seeing office blocks turned into flats. “The government has this freaky idea that planning needs to help this type of development. Our national politicians come from the shires and no longer understand the importance of planning. It saddens me that these people from the provinces no longer value London. We have worse planning in parts of the country than in some African states. But it’s a nanny state when a government suggests local communities can decide their
future and then introduce rules to stop them doing what they want.” Rees is also particularly outspoken about developers behaving like “wild animals” and unleashing a “tsunami” of towers on London’s skyline. International residential investment is “simply pushing up prices and creating ghost towns”, he says, claiming that tumbleweed will soon be blowing around some parts of the capital. “I am 100 per cent in agreement with the Prince of Wales about a wave of second rate residential towers across London bought by foreign investors,” he says. “It’s the biggest crisis facing London, this tidal wave of loose money coming in. We have got to get to grips with it. It’s desperately worrying and very damaging. “We have badly formed housing targets that just look at units but don’t provide genuine homes. Local authorities are desperately strapped for cash and need the planning gain so these things are getting through. The residential development industry has a bad record of providing bad buildings. All they care about is the location and the value.” Despite his anger, Rees is well known for a wicked sense of humour and there are anecdotes aplenty to testify to it. “I like tall buildings because you have more time to make love in the lift,” he once said. “The City has been here for 2,000 years since a bunch of randy Roman soldiers set up camp there”, is another of his quips. More than one commentator has referred to Rees’s snappy dress sense. For example, observers still comment on the kneehigh burgundy leather boots he sported at an Evening Standard party. He recently drew a line under a 29-year tenure at the corporation to become professor of places and city planning at University College London’s (UCL) Bartlett School, his alma mater, where he studied architecture in the late 1960s. An internal restructuring at the corporation merged Rees’s planning and transportation department with highways and cleansing – effectively creating one department with two chief officers. The corporation suggested he move into academia and pointed to UCL. Here a familiar theme emerges. UCL acknowledges that one of the main reasons why students travel from around the globe to come to the college is to live in and experience London. It was an offer Rees could not resist. “It gives me the opportunity to carry on my love affair with London and my involvement in the capital’s evolution. I do a lot of lecturing and this also allows me to work with students from around the world. “I have always believed that a life sentence should be no more than 25 years. I am being transferred from one secure institution to another.” J U NE 2 0 1 4 / THE PLA NNER
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