Christopher Holt is a 46-year-old civil engineer who lives on a south-west London estate designated for regeneration and intensification.
He is articulate, prolific on social media and knows how to rally a crowd. He is a developer’s worst nightmare. “Regeneration is revgen: revenue generation,” he says. “Maximising the revenue you get from the land.”
Holt’s language is reminiscent of a multitude of regeneration protests across London, where “social housing, not social cleansing” has become the refrain. He opposes Clarion Housing’s proposal to demolish Morden’s Ravensbury Grove estate, where he is a life-long resident. The housing association plans to demolish 1,174 homes and replace them with 2,800 new homes across three Merton estates.
Community consultation is a statutory part of the planning process but Holt calls public exhibitions “circus tents” and thinks the council and developer had made up their minds about what they wanted to do with the estate before consultation began (something which the council and housing association dispute).
Mistrust and a feeling of loss of ownership are fuelling protests across the capital, causing delays to the planning process and racking up costs for all sides in the long run. High-profile schemes which have been gazumped by public opinion include the Garden Bridge, Zhongrong Group’s proposed £500m “cultural destination” at Crystal Palace and Notting Hill Housing and Southwark Council’s long-disputed plans to regenerate the Aylesbury Estate, SE17.
At the same time, government guidance on retaining the green belt, constraints on industrial land release and the difficulties of building over high street retail have intensified the demand for the regeneration of estates and brownfield sites, including housing estates.
As the debate around regeneration becomes increasingly toxic, how can developers carrying out regeneration in the capital bring the community with them?
People and profits
Developers are starting to wake up to the fact that consultations should be more than a box-ticking exercise and early engagement will only speed things up and reduce costs in the long run.
“Consultation, for me, is where a developer puts together a scheme, sticks it on some boards, puts them in a room and waits for all the usual suspects,” says Steve Sanham, managing director of residential developer HUB.
“And [the developer] just sits there and waits to have abuse hurled at them, which is not really a successful way of engaging with an existing community about what their concerns are, what their hopes and dreams are and… I don’t think it works a lot of the time.”
Sanham says HUB’s approach for schemes such as the recently approved transformation of Croydon Council’s former HQ, Taberner House, into 514 new homes for sale and rent is to be “unbelievably open” and to have difficult conversations early and engage with the wide demographic of the community.
It employed Kaizen Consulting which put together a programme that went out to schools, engaged with people on the streets and reached out to more than 1,200 people of different ages, ethnicities and social backgrounds.
Neil Meredith, head of UK business space at Schroder UK Real Estate Fund, who has overseen community engagement on projects including the nine-acre mixed-use development of Ruskin Square in Croydon, agrees that developers are putting more effort into consultation.
He says: “In the old days, community involvement was right down the bottom of the pile and certainly community involvement in a scheme design. So public exhibitions and so on were pretty few and far between.
“Most of the planning meetings you would have were with the council officers and maybe a couple of councillors and that was it. Now there’s a huge community engagement at the start of a planning process where you have your models, you have public exhibitions and the council takes great weight by what the public say and the criticism of what the public may or may not make of your scheme. That’s been a big change.”
The mayor of London’s proposed good practice guide to estate regeneration
• There is a clear statement of the aims and objectives of the borough or housing association in maintaining and improving at housing estates
• There has been full and transparent consultation and resident engagement
• Proposals should offer full rights to return for displaced tenants and a fair deal for leaseholders
• Demolition should only be followed where it does not result in a loss of social housing, or where all other options have been exhausted
At Ruskin Square, a joint venture with Stanhope, the partners worked with the community and council to find something that would “make a big difference”, eventually landing on Boxpark, a shipping container cum pop-up mall for independent food and drink outlets, virtually giving the land to the operator for nothing. Events management company Cellar Door has also been invited to run an open-air cinema on the top floor of the car park and a sculpture has been commissioned using materials reclaimed from the site.
Meredith says the community engagement work was an important part of securing HMRC as a tenant for the entire 180,000sq ft first phase of offices.
“Meanwhile uses” have also been a favoured and successful method of community engagement by developer U+I. At its 8 Albert Embankment scheme, SE1, which will transform the former London Fire Brigade Station headquarters into a mixed-use scheme with more than 300 flats, they have opened a new temporary community and events space with a London Fire Brigade pop-up museum which has also enabled them to engage with a wider cross-section of the community about their plans by interviewing them as they come to see the exhibits.
Penny Humphrey, head of marketing at U+I, says : “To put it bluntly, it’s almost like sometimes you have to put your money where your mouth is. Why is anyone going to trust us that we are going to change and regenerate the area for the better?”
Being human
A new arm of consultancy has emerged to advise on consultation. While many developers advocate using consultants as an intermediary between them and the community, some warn not to be too scientific. Engagement is ultimately about human contact, listening and debating.
Argent development directors are said to have cycled through King’s Cross every day to speak to residents and businesses affected by the major regeneration project.
Paul Cooke, new business director and CSR director at Higgins Construction, the firm behind the redevelopment of the King’s Crescent Estate in Hackney, faced the challenge of coming into a development 10 years after the tower had been blown up by Hackney Council. He says: “The key is that if you don’t involve the community, you’re at your own peril.
“The biggest challenge we have found is because we have come to the table late in the day. So a lot of the estate regeneration has been going on for years, with residents involved and councils involved. So there’s been lots of water under the bridge, lots of promises made, lots of promises broken. So I think by the time we’ve got involved, quite often residents have had enough.”
Higgins employed Newman Francis as an intermediary to engage with the community. Thrashing out what everyone wanted and explaining what they could and could not adapt worked well, he says. The regeneration has been widely praised, including by the mayor of London Sadiq Khan.
Nick Jones, head of strategic communications at GL Hearn, part of Capita Real Estate and Infrastructure, says: “In these types of projects [estate regeneration], there is often a direct relationship between the time and the money spent on it and its ultimate success. Any attempts to cut corners or speed the process up often results in poor outcomes and failed projects.”
Making links with local community groups as an intermediary can also help. HUB joined up with a local youth group at its Wembley development to reach out to the community. Sanham says it’s about “not being afraid of opinions”. He adds: “People try to create something that’s more of a science than it ever could be. Our approach and our understanding, particularly my understanding, of working with communities is that all people want is somebody to have an honest conversation with and that is probably the most human of things, really.”
Time for change
The Greater London Authority is consulting on stricter rules around estate regeneration in the capital. This summer it is also due to publish an investigation into foreign ownership, possibly recommending stricter rules on selling new-build flats overseas.
Thomas Stevenson, director in the residential land and development team at JLL, is advising on Enfield Council’s 5,000 home masterplan for Meridian Water. He says: “It is challenging. You’ve got requirements to deliver much-needed homes and economic inward investment.
There aren’t many opportunities, the land market is quite constrained and central government is pushing for more homes and the GLA is seeking those through the intensification of estate renewal. Clearly on estate renewal it’s people’s homes and you need to be collaborative and you need to consult with people.
“You need to do that as early as possible in the process. And I think sometimes it doesn’t happen as efficiently or as early as it should.”
Public protest is propagating the narrative of the corporate steamroller trampling on communities’ public and private rights. What would convince the most staunch opposition to regeneration to get on board?
Speaking from his home in Ravensbury Grove, Holt says: “If the residents led it, were in charge of it. Because the residents are the guardians of the area. They live there day in day out and if we had a controlling influence then people would show residents respect.” If developers don’t help improve understanding of positive regeneration, public pressure could force politicians to act.
If developers don’t help improve understanding of positive regeneration, public pressure will force politicians to act.
This year’s LREF Preview gave Londoners the chance to see what’s happening with development in the capital
LREF 2017 – Community Day from BAR Productions on Vimeo.
Retail, regeneration and consultation
Giulia Bunting, Revo president and planning director at GL Hearn, says good community consultation can also support retail schemes because communities which feel a sense of ownership of developments are more likely to shop there.
“They’ll appreciate the asset, rather than just say, ‘I’d rather go shopping elsewhere or go to the cinema elsewhere’ – and people start to love their own town centre.”
She says business improvement districts in London are good examples of where engagement with communities and councils is helping to promote positive regeneration.
EG collaborators
EG is partnering with Mishcon de Reya and Mount Anvil to investigate how best to facilitate collaboration with an event in November and a bespoke magazine.
We will also be celebrating the best of the industry’s collaboratory efforts at the EG Awards in September. If you think you deserve to be recognised for a partnership or collaborative effort, click here to enter.
To send feedback, e-mail Louisa.Clarence-Smith@egi.co.uk or tweet @LouisaClarence or @estatesgazette
