There are several things that become very obvious very quickly at events like the London Real Estate Forum.
The first is that over the trauma of the last few years, the built environment sector, both public and private has become more closely knit. There are some really impressive people working in the Boroughs and in the various public sector delivery bodies that have emerged over the last few years. They are well networked and in most cases pretty in tune with what’s happening out there.
Second there are some really interesting clusters and development nodes emerging with opportunities to use transport to further enhance and connect. These are strategic and exciting. South London is a more complex picture but with Thamesmead and the Charlton ambitions, there is real action.
However, I think everyone is pretty tired talking about the Bakerloo Line extension. If there was an institutional seriousness to this a) we would have an integrated and permissive approach to housing development in the recipient places – we just don’t. b) the Boroughs would have set up something jointly with the GLA by now. They haven’t so this is literally coffee room chat which could probably do with being shelved.
The third and more difficult message: no one is building anything. Literally, no one. But we are all being British about it. There were literally a handful of SMEs at LREF this year. I can remember days gone past when people would be cutting deals on new sites and preparing the way for planning. But with difficult financial conditions, cost inflation, no growth and rigid EUV+, there’s simply no way to bring new sites forward unless its public land.
There are a lot of people talking about building. There are a lot of people that want to build. There are even people that still think they are going to start building when the grant drops in the account – lets hope cost inflation hasn’t caught up with them.
Fourth: City Hall is starting to realise the Draft London Plan is not landing. It is not a serious document because the policies do not reflect market conditions. How can you seriously expect a set of policies to land when fewer than a quarter of the day one scenarios stack up? No one wants to spend their life in late stage review purgatory.
All that being said, the conference agenda was packed full of plans and exciting ideas. Because it was light on stuff actually happening in the present moment many chose to stay outside the fringes and haunt the corridors of power bumping into old friends and colleagues.
I gave it a go though and there was some really good stuff in the various rooms. At the start of the day Jace Tyrell gave a positive address and my former colleague Thomasin Renshaw now Greystar rightly stated housing should be considered critical infrastructure, rather than a political football it so often becomes.
The West London orbital railway was genuinely interesting. Linking Hounslow, Ealing and Barnet and the big growth zones of the golden mile, OPDC and Brent Cross Town seemed, as one member of the audience put it – a no brainer. Well done for Hadley for being the only SME to make an appearance on the stage. I think they were the only one to be invited to actually participate.
Newham’s impressive Mayor gave a great speech on his Borough straight after. It’s open for business and ready to work with developers. Names were bounded about, big names. There were few SMEs though. There was lots of discussion on the land opportunities with Network Rail and Places for London. Complexity was pondered and Dr Greg Clark suggested you need PhDs to unlock this stuff – I wasn’t sure whether he was really making a side swipe at regulations or he was being serious. Heathrow joint working got an interesting discussion with Slough, Hillingdon and Hounslow who all seem to be game for a strategic approach.
Overall, there is a place for LREF but it increasingly feels like a programme couched in theory. It needs to find a way to bring back practice, but that takes a lot more than an engaging conference programme. It takes spades in the ground.
