This year’s MIPIM is upbeat and dominated by an industry intent on making the most of intense demand for homes and increasing demand for commercial space in London.
Sir Edward Lister, the Mayor’s Chief of Staff and Deputy Mayor (Policy and Planning), emphasised that the Mayor will leave no sites out in order to deliver the 49,000 new homes confirmed as needed in the recent London Plan Further Alterations.
Speaking at the annual Dentons – London First Lunch, Sir Lister called for the development sector to ‘double up’ its current housing production. He also stressed that the Mayor is willing to explore all options to bring forward stagnant sites and new communities, including through the use of compulsory purchase powers.
Sir Lister highlighted the role of transport investment, infrastructure tariffs and TIF-style forward funding to bring forward new opportunity areas such as Old Oak Common.
The Nine Elms Battersea Vauxhall Opportunity Area would be the model, he said. He agreed with our suggestion that flexible plan policies and a board of owners and key investors would be key to making other areas as successful as the VNEB. Dentons has been recognised as a “stand out winner” among the law firms advising in the VNEB Opportunity Area. We have helped secure consents for the 4 of the largest 25 VNEB schemes approved since 2007 – Vauxhall Sky Gardens (Frasers), Vauxhall Square (CLS/ Vauxhall Square Limited), Sainsbury’s Wandsworth Road (Northern Line Extension Works Act Order) and Hampton House. We are also working on the £2bn New Covent Garden Market regeneration scheme. Together, these account for around 30% of the 16,000 homes envisaged within the VNEB area.
With institutional investors now seriously interested in residential and infrastructure there is a real prospect of achieving these goals.
A long hard look will be needed to ensure that the CIL regime is up to the job, since it will largely replace the S106 tariffs that have worked well at Nine Elms. Even after recent reforms, it is a dysfunctional system not fit for purpose in relation to large scale and complex development.
Stephen Ashworth also stressed the need to look wider than London at new settlement opportunities that can both provide for London’s needs and begin to balance growth. Realism is needed on the green belt, he said.
We continue to be involved in the most complex new settlements – at Harlow North, Alconbury Weald and New Covent Garden Market – and are working with the TCPA on their New Towns Act proposals.
