The Estates Gazette Question Time roadshow reached London last week, with experts voicing opinions on the Olympics legacy, a third Heathrow runway, the NPPF, and more
Chairman: Damian Wild, editor, Estates Gazette
How will the Olympics change London?
Andrew Altman, chief executive, London Legacy Development Corporation
The Olympics will change people’s mental map of London. Eastward growth is opening up a lot of opportunity in areas like Hackney, Stratford, Waltham Forest, Tower Hamlets. What the Olympics has delivered, aside from the sporting legacy, is a massive infrastructure project with 25 to 30 years’ growth and I think you’ll just see the effects of that radiating out.
That could happen at the Royals Business park, and you’ll see it at other large sites that will start to become more and more attractive. Crossrail is also going to open up more opportunities. It’ll be 45 minutes from east London to Heathrow.
You’re also starting to see major institutions like University College London look east. UCL’s campus in Bloomsbury is on about 23 acres of land. They have built that right out. They’re looking at their master plan, saying, where do we go in the future? For their future now they’re looking to create an equivalent 23-acre site in east London, south of the Olympic Park in what is called the Carpenters Estate.
That will change the game in east London. It won’t just be about great retail and amenities and offices but suddenly a whole new economic dynamism.
Will investors look beyond the City and West End?
David Marks, joint managing partner, Brockton Capital
Look at Redchurch Street. Five years ago probably a tiny percentage of people in London would have even known where it is. It’s the little side street behind the Tea Building in Shoreditch. Christian Louboutin and Ralph Lauren are going to be there within 18 months. Rents are going to quadruple and all those kinds of start-ups – pop-up galleries, cafés, bars, independent fashion retailers – will move east.
We’re invested in Camden Town’s street market. It’s vital that London develop its satellites for offices and jobs because London is changing so rapidly.
And we went down and looked at the Whitgift Centre in Croydon and tried to get our heads around it. It’s very complicated. I’m going back maybe two years or so. The whole ownership structure was like a bowl of linguini.
Does London need a new airport?
James Goldsmith, director of central London and international, Savills
I am out there selling the UK, selling London to international investors. And when we’re talking about investing in other cities around the UK, as crazy as it sounds, how easy it is to get from my home airport to an investment location is quite an important decider in whether you invest in that city or not.
It is crazy to me that British Airways is buying British Midland simply for their landing slots at Heathrow, but that is a fact. And so we’ve got to ask ourselves, do we have anywhere near enough capacity if things continue to grow globally as they are? That’s the key question.
We’re trying to manage the number of landing slots that we have for London to deal with today’s economy. Yet tomorrow’s is going to look different. I don’t know how many Chinese cities there are going to be with x millions of people, a lot of whom want to come to Europe to do business and want a direct flight. We’re not even close, even if you build a third runway, to dealing with that. The vision of what you will need in 2030 or 2040 is much bigger than just the third runway.
Are local authorities growing more pragmatic in helping developers develop?
Chris Grigg, chief executive, British Land
One thing that we are seeing outside of London for the first time in a while is greater realism from some local authorities about what it takes to do a deal. We are looking at probably four or five separate projects around the UK where there is a realism about what it takes to get something done in town or on the edge of town. We’ve really seen a change. If somebody really wants something, they’ll make the planning easier.
You do still hear some laughable conversations. A non-London example is that we are doing one shopping development which will open next year. And as part of the work we were asked to do, they said, would we put some photovoltaic cells on the roof? It is quite a pricey thing and with the changing legislation doesn’t make a whole host of sense. And we said: “The money’s in the equation, we know we’re going to pay that, why don’t we just take the money and invest in improving insulation in local homes. You can have your people do it.”
The impact would have been much more sustainable.
There was no interest – it had to be the photovoltaics. You just have to massage your temples and say: “Is this really green? Is this sustainability?”
Will the NPPF [National Planning Policy Framework] make any material difference to planning in London?
Dan Labbad, chief executive EMEA, Lend Lease
Yes, I think it will. The devil’s in the detail, though. There’s a lot of good in the NPPF. Some of the things that it looks to do around community engagement, the hierarchy of where you can develop, they’re all things developers should be doing and are now doing more.
We recognise you have to embrace what communities are looking for and in our latest developments, we’ve completely changed what we’re doing based on engagement. That’s very different from what was happening five or 10 years ago.
But there are a lot of areas where there are words and descriptions that are open to scrutiny and there’s a lot of subjectivity in how they are interpreted. And that could stall progress.
What can be done to help create satellite business districts around London?
Aubrey Adams, head of property unit, global restructuring group, Royal Bank of Scotland
There’s no easy answer. What doesn’t work is giving tax incentives or building buildings, which is what people have tried in the past. When you look at what drives business, you see that businesses need a reason to cluster around something.
Look at Cambridge. As a market, it’s doing quite well because there is a university, there’s a lot of research, there is a lot of knowledge there. These things are knowledge-based.
Look at Sheffield. Sheffield University is a leader in metal science. They went and talked to Boeing and Boeing said, “This is fantastic”. And they’ve set up a science park off the back of that. You need those sort of drivers. You’re not just going to persuade people to move otherwise. They might move their back office out, but that’s it.
And we don’t need a lot of offices in the way we did. You can see an awful lot of empty business parks. The last thing we want to do is build more of them.
To watch video coverage of the event go www.estatesgazette.com/questiontime/
