LDN Weekly – Issue 190 – 29 September 2021
A NEW CHAPTER
"Today, a few months into LCA’s 23rd year of business, we have made some important announcements about our future."
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LCA Board Director and LDN Editor, Jenna Goldberg As ever we hope you enjoy this edition and if you don't already, follow us on Twitter and Instagram and feel free to visit our website for more information on LCA’s team, services, and clients. Oh and a technical note: If you like hearing from us, make sure to add ldn@londoncommunications.co.uk to your contacts or ‘safe sender’ list – this will help ensure our news bulletin lands in your inbox.  GREEN (BELT) SADIQLast Thursday saw the Mayor conspicuously burnishing his green credentials with care. See City Hall’s relevant press release, which outlined how he was in a single day (a) delivering a ‘keynote speech’ at the Barbican Centre to warn Londoners that ‘we are at a crossroads for tackling the climate emergency’ (b) launching a campaign ‘to inspire all Londoners – individuals, businesses and communities - to take action’ (c) unveiling a an art installation supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies and (d) launching a new Climate Vulnerability Map compiled with the help of Bloomberg Associates. If you’re wondering why all the fuss on this particular Thursday, the same press release quite candidly points to key upcoming milestones including ‘COP 26, the expansion of the world-leading Ultra Low Emission Zone, a new Environment Bill and new targets set by the World Health Organization for toxic air’. Khan’s big green day out certainly generated quite a bit of media buzz and was covered by regional media, from BBC London to the Evening Standard, Time Out and the East London Advertiser, but also by national and international-reach outlets. Perhaps just as significantly – if less conspicuously – our Labour Mayor has directly opposed plans by a Labour-run London borough to release 186 hectares of Green Belt land, to make way for 6,430 homes. It is not the first time that Sadiq Khan has taken issue with Enfield’s draft Local Plan, but his formal submission to the borough’s consultation, issued on his behalf by GLA Assistant Director of Planning Lucinda Turner states in no uncertain terms that ‘it is the mayor’s opinion the exceptional circumstances required [for the release of Green Belt land] have not been established’. While the Mayor cannot veto the adoption of the Local Plan, his statement will carry considerable weight when it comes before a planning inspector. It should be noted that the council itself is not exactly keen to build on the Green Belt and is well aware of how controversial the plans are – arguing they are necessitated by the need to balance housing targets against the limited availability of brownfield land and restrictions on the redevelopment of industrial land, among other factors. IT'LL ALL BE OVER BY CHRISTMAS...Plans to move City Hall from its current location by London Bridge to the Royal Docks have reportedly been delayed – though the Mayor’s office begs to differ. Last year, as part of a Covid-induced cost-saving drive, the Mayor decided to take advantage of a break clause in the Greater London Authority’s (GLA) lease. Its new home will be The Crystal, a conference centre in the Royal Docks owned by the GLA. The plans have from the get-go been heavily criticised by the London Assembly on multiple grounds and have also proved controversial with many GLA staff. Over the course of this year there have been reports of increasing costs and ‘unexpected snags’ that could delay plans. Now, as reported in the Evening Standard and elsewhere, the move date has been ‘moved to the end of 2021’ – whereas ‘the original plan was for staff to move to The Crystal next month [in October] - and have everything up and running for the GLA Christmas party in December’. Staff will still have to vacate their current offices as originally planned, potentially rendering them ‘homeless’ for a few weeks, though the Assembly will be able to continue using its chamber for public meetings into December. The Mayor’s office is adamant that nothing is amiss, with a spokesperson saying they are ‘on track to move to The Crystal building in the Royal Docks by Christmas, saving taxpayers £61m over five years’ – and to be fair, a delay of a few months is not all that unusual for a project of this scale. LONDON PLANNING LATEST
LONDON TRANSPORT LATESTReports this week have shown that the Government’s interference in TfL matters is not limited to its finances. Correspondence between the Prime Minister’s transport adviser Andrew Gilligan and Sadiq Khan’s Walking and Cycling Commissioner, Will Norman, obtained by The Telegraph through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, show that Gilligan urged Norman to ensure that London boroughs that had removed cycle lanes were not granted further funding for ‘active travel’ schemes. Meanwhile, the Government has also been pushing ahead with its plan to introduce driverless trains on the Underground, something long resisted by the Mayor. Trade unions have responded to the reports by threatening to strike, while the Mayor has said that the news is ‘disappointing’. Producing business cases for driverless trains on the Piccadilly and Waterloo and City lines was a condition of the Government’s latest funding deal with TfL, agreed in June. Meanwhile Jacobs, in its capacity as DfT-appointed watchdog, has found that the central section of the Elizabeth Line will now not open until May 2022. The project had originally been set to open in December 2018, but a series of delays had led TfL to move the opening date to a ‘window’ of time within the first six months of 2022. Jacobs has now concluded that there will not be sufficient time for the project to move to the trial operations stage of testing in November as planned, which will have a knock-on effect on the final opening date. It has also been reported that TfL is in the process of reviewing the revenue it expects to raise from the Elizabeth Line, to take into account the impact of COVID-19 on work and travel patterns. INVEST(ING) IN LONDONIf all that transport talk has gotten you down, here’s some good news. Resonance Consultancy have ranked London first for ‘relative quality of place, reputation and competitive identity’ among the world's 100 top-performing cities in their annual World's Best Cities Report. Meanwhile, Knight Frank’s latest annual Active Capital Report predicts a ‘resurgence of interest in the office sector’ in 2022. And if that doesn’t impress you, just follow the money: a joint venture between Hong Kong-based CC Land and Chinese developer R&F have committed no less than £3bn to a project in Nine Elms. Their One Thames City scheme comprises plans for 12 buildings of up to 53 storeys, 1,400 homes, shops, restaurants and 120,000 sq ft of office space. A number of smaller acquisitions and financing deals have also been announced over the past few days, involving office, logistics and mixed use sites across London. But London’s edge is made of more than bricks and mortar – which is why we were excited to hear that Barking & Dagenham, Brent, Croydon, Enfield and Newham are among 54 ‘priority places’ where Arts Council England plans to ‘increase both staff resources and financial investment over the next three years’. The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for London as a Global City, has meanwhile launched a call for evidence as part of an inquiry into ‘fostering London’s Global City status’. PEOPLE NEWS
 GOVE ON THE MOVE?A couple of weeks on from the reshuffle, more has emerged about what to expect from Michael Gove’s new Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. With planning reforms on ice, Gove is reportedly talking to those backbench Conservative MPs who so adamantly oppose the changes. Latest reports say that the reforms may be altered to make those areas designated for ‘growth’ under the proposed zoning system smaller, while it has also been reported that local authorities may be encouraged to earmark areas of land as ‘nature recovery zones’ in an attempt to increase rewilding and biodiversity. Planning reform is of course not the only item in Gove’s in-tray. The British Property Federation (BPF) has written to the Secretary of State urging him to exempt build-to-rent from an upcoming new tax on developers, designed to raise funds for the remediation of dangerous cladding on buildings. Meanwhile the Labour Party has announced a range of measures that it would implement to tackle the housing crisis, including giving first time buyers priority on new homes. Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves has also said that a Labour Government would review the current taxation system and scrap the existing business rates model. COLLECTIVE COLLAPSEThe property game can be a tough one, as the collapse of one high-profile developer has reminded us. Specialist ‘co-living’ developer and operator The Collective, founded in 2010 by Reza Merchant, has fallen into administration and is reportedly ‘in line to be broken up by its lenders’ – though a press release from its administrators confirms that its assets outside the UK “are held in separate entities, remain under the control of their directors” and “do not form part of the administrations.” The company made a splash over the years, acquiring a sizeable portfolio of projects in the UK and the US and positioning itself as the poster child for an innovative tenure of housing – mostly small rental apartments with shared amenities and communal areas such as kitchens, lounges and co-working spaces, primarily targeted at young professionals. Well into this past spring, the company was touting investments in new projects in Wandsworth and Westminster. By May it had announced a reshuffle of its top team, over the summer it was reported to be considering putting itself up for sale and by mid-September, it was ‘teetering on the edge of administration’. It is believed that its current predicament is directly linked to COVID-19 – as reported by The Times, ‘demand for rooms at its properties fell during the pandemic as people left city centres and prioritised larger private living areas as they spent more time at home.’ Unsurprisingly, The Collective’s collapse has triggered a wave of soul-searching in the co-living and wider build to rent sectors. REPORTS ROUNDUPWith conference season upon us, sitting as we currently do between Labour and Tory turns at LREF 2021, there has been a veritable deluge of research reports put out recently. Probably also something to do with the upcoming Spending Review too. Here are a few that caught our eye:
Sadiq Khan spent a longer time than usual at the Labour conference in Brighton, doing a number of events and basking in congratulations for his re-election in May. He was in chipper mood when LDN caught up with him for a chat in Pizza Express in the Lanes. A current major theme for Sadiq is ‘building bridges’ – which is mainly about being less combative with ministers and working with the government to try to get the best deal for London. But it could apply to relations between the Mayor’s office and ‘LOTO’ (Office of the Leader Of The Opposition) too – which unsurprisingly are far better under Keir Starmer than they were when Jeremy Corbyn was leader. Could this be one reason why the London mayor got a platform speech in Brighton, while Labour’s other metro mayors, including Andy Burnham, Steve Rotheram and Dan Jarvis, missed out? During his many media appearances this week, Sadiq was asked if he had ambitions to return to parliament: he stuck fast to the line that he wanted to remain mayor for as long as Londoners wanted him. NOT PETERING OUT LDN was pleased to see Lord (Peter) Mandelson in Brighton, chatting to journalists in the bars and hotels, and revelling once again in his status as an unofficial adviser to a Labour leader. He was overheard taunting Seumas Milne, Jeremy Corbyn’s director of communications, to the effect that ‘we’re back in control’, according to Kevin Maguire in the New Statesman. But Mandelson, once dubbed the ‘Prince of Darkness’ and whose very existence is anathema to the Labour left, was also reluctant to abandon ancient ‘TB-GB’ battles between supporters of Tony Blair (like him) and Gordon Brown. ‘You were never happy with the size of our majorities,’ the peer observed to an old acquaintance whom he (mistakenly) took to be a political soulmate of the former Chancellor. The lines from Keir Starmer’s speech in which he reeled off New Labour’s achievements from its years in power will have been music to Lord M’s ears. STAR QUALITY Has the message that Labour has put the days of the Corbynistas behind it been lost on some Brighton hoteliers? These were the only three newspaper titles available at one seafront establishment.  LDN CONTRIBUTORSRobert Gordon Clark, Senior Advisor and Partner Jenna Goldberg, Board Director Stefanos Koryzis, Research Manager Emily Clinton, Research Executive Aroa Maquedano Pulido, Middleweight Designer LCA prides itself on its intelligence-led approach to PR and communications and our dedicated research team monitors London politics, news and issues as it happens. If you would like to know more about LCA or anything in this edition of LDN – London in short please get in touch.If you have received LDN Weekly indirectly and would like to subscribe to receive it every week, please click here to register your details.LDN is put together by a dedicated team at London Communications Agency. The content for each edition is developed from news drawn from the last week from every London local paper as well as the regional and national press, from intelligence gathered by monitoring local, regional and national government activity and from the insight and expert knowledge of the entire LCA team.    |