Innovacion

Outer London Commission: Geography matters

So the long awaited final report from the Outer London Commission (OLC) has now been published (25 May 2010). We produced a range of economic policy papers which formed the LDA's input into the ruminations of the OLC. Overall the report generally takes a fairly realistic view of the economic potential of Outer London across a wide range of issues - some of which sit uneasily together. With this wide remit it is inevitable that some areas are covered more convincingly than others. The consideration of the scale and nature of office development in Outer London sensibly concludes that aspirational super hubs are exactly that. Increasing development through public sector investment in higher and further education, hospitals and civil servant relocations by expanding the existing 'star and cluster' spatial structures is a realistic way to try to drive change.  

In other areas the ideas are more debatable. It is not clear why a high value service firm would want to use a local suburban library for meetings, even if it is renamed as an ICT hub. Today's launch of Apple's iPad is likely to be another uptick in what mobile working actually, rather than theoretically, means. Our hunch is that a greater freedom in where you work means that the importance of the other factors that make up desirable places actually increases. The result isn't a levelling the playing field effect but a concentrating effect. Desirable places become even more sought after: less desirable places even less so. While the report also suggests that putting firms together in an innovation park means they will work together these sort of developments have a pretty chequered history in the Capital.  In many sectors service firms will work the firms they need to rather than they are near to. Our survey partner is in Yorkshire. Our IT services come from San Francisco and Lancashire. Our accountant is in Cambridge.  

One overriding feeling remains.  While the OLC chose to look at the different rings around London the bigger and more meaningful economic difference is still that between east and west London extending out from central London and into the Greater South East mega-region.  So while the Crossrail benefits concentrate along an east-west axis they also spill out along radial links into Outer London. You can't change hundreds of years of geography that easily...

Outer London Commission Final Report (Pre-publication, May 2010)

Making sense of housing - best practice from CAA green flag local authorities

With 2.5 million council tenants currently and an additional three million homes planned by 2020 local authorities play a major role in the management and development of housing locally. Local Authorities are having to respond to future challenges including how to provide more (affordable) housing in better designed places, how to reduce homelessness levels and how to respond to demographic trends. The CAA Green Flag authorities of Blackpool, Corby and North Yorkshire County Council have undertaken a range of innovative and successful housing activities. Blackpool Council has substantially reduced its levels of homelessness through a range of initiatives. Corby Borough Council has 16,000 new homes planned or built and has secured £2 billion of investment. Working in partnership with seven district councils, housing associations and other partners North Yorkshire County Council has developed 11 new Extra Care schemes which provide a new independent living option for its ageing population.

Download the case study produced by Innovacion for IDeA from the Work Together site 

Innovacion develop economic options for London's Royal Docks

As part of a Regeneris team Innovacion have been commissioned by Newham Council, Design for London and the London Development Agency to develop and appraise the strategic economic options for investment priorities in the Royal Docks over the next 25 years. The economic study will explore development scenarios and options based around the current array of economic assets and identify the supporting infrastructure required to bring forward sustainable development. This commission forms the initial stage in the production of the Royals Development Framework which runs through to March 2011.

Coulsdon's Economic Future reviewed by Innovacion

Innovacion and EDP Associates have been commissioned by Croydon Council to review the economic, demographic, property and commercial conditions of Coulsdon which is a district centre in the south of the Borough. The study aims to set a baseline for any future local regeneration and development strategy and, in particular, guide any discussions with strategic partners around the redevelopment options for the nearby Cane Hill site.

Outer London - handle with care

While the diverse nature of Outer London has been rightly highlighted in the new consultation draft of the London Plan, strategies for accelerating its economic growth in tough times will have to be carefully handled with care.

Rumfitt A; "Outer London - handle with care"; Town & Country Planning (December 2009)

Download Outer London - handle with care (TCPA December 2009)

Andy Rumfitt appointed to Yorkshire Design Review Service

Andy Rumfitt has been appointed as a panel member of the new Yorkshire and Humberside Design Review Service being established under the Integreat Yorkshire programme which is run by Yorkshire Forward.  

The Design Review Service panel will discuss projects in the context of criteria of good design and provide views of how well or otherwise that the project addresses those criteria. The aim is to assist the project team by providing useful feedback to enable improvements in their design proposals.

The Design Review Service will provide advice on a wide range of built environment issues including new buildings, masterplans, green spaces, urban frameworks and other planning and spatial strategies.

People or Proximity: Where does growth come from in outer London?

As a successful retail centre in a great location on the Thames, Kingston is the desirable home for highly skilled workers. Access to high quality environments (parks, river) and the transport network (Heathrow, Gatwick, roads) also add to the attractive locational mix. And Kingston has the high house prices and waiting lists for good state and private schools to prove it.  

Retail aside Kingston’s relative specialisation in business services aligns with a key international strength of London. Parts of this specialisation will be in providing local business services. In Kingston, the usual range of local accountants and solicitors will service the needs of the local business community and a burgeoning army of freelancers, many home based, as well as benefitting from a high level of passing trade. Other parts will be linked to London’s globally competitive strength in business and professional services. These are built on an extensive and deep labour market across the 21 million residents in the Greater South East.

Two thirds (64%) of the residential workforce in Kingston are managers and professionals compared to just 42% in Croydon. This is a non-trivial difference. Being able to source highly skilled local labour is a key comparative advantage for the firms in Kingston. And goes some way to explain the relatively low level of out commuting for such a residential part of outer London. The make-up of a local area’s population including its occupational profile has a big impact on long term economic development.

Over the other side of outer London different drivers are at work. Despite its relatively poor river crossing options, north Bexley has developed as a relatively (in a London context) cost effective location for a range of near market functions. As time really is money Michael Porter and others identified this proximity advantage many years ago. These locations offer potential as the profitable base for time sensitive activities. So in Belvedere we have a concentration of food logistics operations such as ASDA, Londis and Lidl, office support services such as Viking Direct, Iron Mountain and Office Depot plus construction and printing. Here the most important competitive advantage is proximity to a very large consumer market plus the central London concentration of office functions. Without this near market logic other economic activities which are exposed to international cost pressures such as the manufacture of cables are very much history.

Understanding the underlying drivers explains how a local economy got to where it is today. But it also sets parameters on where it can go tomorrow.

Andy Rumfitt appointed as a Delivering Design Quality Enabler for Transform South Yorkshire

Andy Rumfitt has been appointed as a Delivering Design Quality Enabler for Transform South Yorkshire. Andy will bring his 18 years of economic development experience from many different areas and geographies to help the largest Housing Market Renewal area to champion design, build capacity, develop projects and disseminate best practice.  Including Sheffield, Doncaster, Barnsley and Rotherham Transform South Yorkshire covers 130,000 dwellings and almost 300,000 residents.

Innovacion study for Outer London Commission published

Innovacion's analysis of eight key locations in outer London produced for the LDA has been published by the Mayor of London's Outer London Commission. Using a range of information sources the study considered various economic characteristics of Croydon, Stratford, the Heathrow Area, Brent Cross, Wembley, Kingston, Woolwich and the Upper Lee Valley. These included economic scale, economic profile and performance, business and skills base, property (current supply), planning (future supply) and economic catchments.

View the study on the Outer London Commission website

Download Key Locations in Outer London Published Version

Andy Rumfitt appointed to the TCPA Policy Council

At last night's AGM Andy Rumfitt was elected to the Town and Country Planning Association's Policy Council.

The TCPA campaigns for the reform of the UK’s planning system to make it more responsive to people’s needs and aspirations and to promote sustainable development.

The TCPA occupies a unique position, overlapping with those involved in the development industry, the environmental movement and those concerned with social justice. The Association prides itself on leading-edge, radical thinking and problem-solving.

Its objectives are to:

• Secure a decent, well designed home for everyone, in a human-scale environment combining the best features of town and country
• Empower people and communities to influence decisions that affect them
• Improve the planning system in accordance with the principles of sustainable development

When a hub is not a hub

Launched yesterday the Mayor's proposals for the London Plan give an indication how the Spatial Development Strategy for London is likely to develop in the future. Economically this comes at a tricky time when it would be easy to be distracted while getting used to the "new normal" - as Lee Shostak has correctly termed where we are now.

The sub-regional conundrum continues.  Despite abandoning a rather peculiar sub-regional division of London that removed central London (the so called pizza slices and about as memorable) the new sub-regional split puts Tower Hamlets and therefore Canary Wharf in East London.  I'm not sure any of the occupiers of Canary Wharf, which is more Manhattan than anywhere else in London, see themselves as anything else but a (better) part of the Central Activity Zone.

The proposals also give some indication of the emerging policy for Outer London and the impact of the Mayor's Commission in getting a greater a better deal for the suburbs.  The mooted hubs (and at one point super hubs) have become "strategic Outer London development centres".  This is probably due to the existence of the fairly elaborate town centre hierarchy in London and how different the four suggested potential hubs locations are.  

The loosely defined Heathrow area is a very specialised and enormous airport economy. It is also congested so there is little appetite for increased development. Brent Cross is currently a regional shopping centre that if bolted together with Cricklewood could, on paper at least, become a Metropolitan Centre. Despite being a "pillar" of the London economy and touted as the seventh largest "city" in the UK, Croydon has been losing employment for the last 15 to 20 years to growing centres outside the Green Belt and has a mediocre office stock. Which leaves Stratford. With its vast development potential and planned investment, Stratford probably is closest to having the capacity to become a hub, genuinely grow jobs on the back of its proximity to the Central Activity Zone and have a real "polycentric" or spatial economic impact on the London economy.  By avoiding a "one size fits all" approach to developing these strategic Outer London development centres the Mayor is accepting the extent of these differences.  Though, on the flip side, the danger of allowing limitless local flexibility could leave people asking exactly what the plans are.  It is a tricky balance.

Barking up the wrong tree

The halting of the development of the light rail extension needed for 11,000 new homes at Barking Riverside throws up a number of questions about our appetite for seeing through major developments in urban brownfield locations.

In November 2008 the Mayor of London halted the public inquiry process for the proposed Docklands Light Rail (DLR) extension to Dagenham Dock to give time for DLR to negotiate with the Mayor’s office and the Government over who will fund the ongoing developmental costs as well as the final £500 million bill. This pause gives the opportunity to reflect on what the DLR scheme’s progress to date tells us about our appetite for bringing forward major urban developments and transport infrastructure schemes, and what this means for the policy that espouses such an approach.

Rumfitt A; "Barking up the wrong tree"; Town & Country Planning (March 2009)

Download Barking up the wrong tree (TCPA March 2009) 

How housing is supporting the Community Strategy, Local Area Agreement targets and Local Strategic Partnership in Hull

Hull City Council has closely integrated their new Housing Strategy with their Community Strategy, Local Strategic Partnership and a range of national indicators from their Local Area Agreements.  This was made possible by having four clear outcomes in the Community Strategy which were supported by two objectives in the Housing Strategy.  Hull City Council identified the direct and indirect impact of housing services on the four outcomes by reviewing international and national evidence, secured full Cabinet support at an early stage and completed a comprehensive consultation programme to develop the Housing Strategy.  The benefits have been much improved understanding amongst all Council staff and partners about the contribution of housing, more inquiries handled at first point of contact by housing staff and increased joint working both internally, especially with Hull City Council’s Children and Young People’s Services, and externally with partners including the Primary Care Trust.

Read more in Innovacion's case study in IDeA's Partnership and Places library

Innovacion considers the economic benefits of the proposed Thames Gateway Bridge for North Bexley

Innovacion reviewed the potential economic effects of the package of East London river crossings (including the Thames Gateway Bridge) proposed by Transport for London on the future aspirations, strategies and masterplans for the development and regeneration of North Bexley.

Innovacion help CABE with Thames Gateway Identity and Placemaking Workshops

Innovacion were commissioned to help develop and deliver 3 workshops to help CLG, Local Delivery Vehicles and Local Authorities understand what they each need to put in place to create places that respond to the unique character of the area and to achieve a shared sense of direction with respect to raising the quality of design in the Thames Gateway.

Northern Growth: Next Generation Communities

The city-regions of the North need a new initiative to support economic growth by explicitly addressing housing quality and other important quality of life factors.

One of the great triumphs of the Northern Way initiative has been its ability to challenge conventional thinking about pan-regional economic development in the North of England. The Northern Way’s growth plan has rightly been posing some fundamental questions about how to identify and deliver the necessary supporting infrastructure to generate an additional £30 billion of output for the UK. The ongoing discussion about the most effective type of transport investments post-Eddington is but one of these debates.

Rumfitt A & Bridges T; "Northern Growth: Next Generation Communities" (TCPA July 2007)

Download Next Generation Communities (TCPA July 2007) 

Future London Ideas

At the Future London Masterclass on 6 April 2005 at the Mayfair Conference Centre, the Executive Chair of Future London, Honor Chapman, asked for new ideas for the future economic and physical development of London.  This drew from the discussions concerning the detrimental impact that risk aversion and a blame culture has on supporting the implementation of innovative approaches, ideas and projects.  The following ideas have been developed by Andy Rumfitt (Innovacion) and Simon Davis (then of GVA Grimley).

A: Must Have Ideas

1. Construct a new and significant (central/Thames Gateway) London park to counter the increasing densification of London’s urban fabric.  There is evidence that land prices adjacent to the park will increase by enough to compensate for loss of property on the park site. Also consider a Linear Park along the embankment as a green access route into the Capital.

2. Close central London to traffic for one weekend day a month in the summer and make public transport free.  This would create a totally different experience of how a city centre would operate without cars and increase the popular mandate for introducing more radical transport solutions.

3. The tube must have sustained and continual investment and aim to be the best public transport system in any major global city (with measurement of benchmark metrics).  Rather than incremental changes in four hour windows each night consider the short, sharp shocks of closing entire sections for intensive renewal so the benefits are brought forward and residents and businesses are more tolerant of the disruption.  This should be a key investment area for London plc and it is a good discipline to view London as a company.

4. A radical change to the buses in central London which creates clarity for those people who do not understand bus routes.  Make buses operate more like a tube system in central London with similar colour coding along key routes within the Circle Line central area.  Bus routes should most closely integrate with tube stops.  Improved legibility will help increase usage by businesses and visitors.  Reintroduce the Routemaster bus!

5. Develop and implement a clear and sensible policy about building on flood plains in and around London.

6. The current position where VAT is not levied on new development but is on refurbishment needs to change as it does not support the preservation of London’s built heritage.  Identify pilot areas of London where VAT is charged on new build but not on refurbishments to make restoration more commercially viable and to encourage retention and re-use (e.g. Heritage Improvement Districts).

7. Make all new housing developments in London no higher than six storeys so blocks are constructed in a more European layout around a central courtyard with integrated parking.  There are significant management issues for buildings over 10 storeys and their design principles become badly skewed towards trophy architecture.  The result is a similar density but with a better built form.  Also consider restricting the marketing of whole developments to only overseas investors, who often leave it empty and thus additional housing space is not being provided for “Londoners”.

8. Institute a massive programme of mature tree planting across London’s road and rail gateway points.  What are rail corridors so badly planted and almost completely ignored as green arteries when they are seen by millions of people.

9. Open all bus lanes to motorbikes (and perhaps even commercial traffic) as they don’t hold up buses.

10. Promote the development of large firm incubator projects in regeneration areas.  This would involve a large firm in a specific sector acquiring 50% more office space than they require.  They are then helped in providing very flexible subletting to a range of small firms in a similar sector (e.g. built environment, accountancy, creative sector).  There would be support services on site (e.g. meeting rooms, printing, library, event room) and it would feel more collegiate than much of the current serviced office space.  There would be lots of potential for networking, joint working and learning.

11. Undertake radically different procurement approaches for the professional services used in regeneration and economic development.  Replace the costs of risk management (long and expensive procurement approaches that impose enormous costs on both client and contractor) with a more flexible and iterative approach.  Pool the saved costs as to cover any “failures” in a self-insurance model.  This could, for example, involve the public sector creating a project management firm to contract with 10 small, innovative firms who are not able to access large contracts or buying a two days time from a number of small firms to come up with visionary ideas.  Consider borrowing from a venture capital model as the public sector is investing funds in alternative delivery approaches and install Board members on the smaller delivery organisations to manage risk and ensure adequate performance.  This could also extend to more radical approaches to public funding investment such as co-investment with the private sector for commercial returns on a pari passu basis.

B: Could Have Ideas

12. Institute a Christmas market to rival the best in Europe and decide whether London really wants to do something sensible on New Year’s Eve rather than the annual damp squib that seems to occur at the last minute.

13. Roll out a number of home zone experiments in parts of London where the role of cars could be massively diminished and additional facilities are provided for local residents in the released space (e.g. children’s play areas).

14. Full integration of business support service with the private sector.  All firms need to have a bank, an accountant and probably a solicitor.  All these professionals generally have a good credibility with their client base and it would be easy for them to cross-sell publicly funded services.  Take-up would be higher, services would be integrated into their business needs and marketing costs of public sector services reduced enormously.

15. Tax incentives for Growth.  Any London firm showing a percentage improvement in growth (or Gross Value Added) which is validated by an ‘accredited’ accountant should result in a tax benefit.  Currently SMEs are not motivated to report this growth statistic and it is required by the LDA as they take on the Business Link for London contract (April 2005).  The scheme could be funded by a reduction in general business support activities.

16. Research shows that SMEs who have business plans and training plans are more likely to have competitive growth.  Offer via the banks (all companies have a bank) a reduction in interest rates for firms that can demonstrate they have a current and appropriate business and training plan.  Validated by business support network or accountants (both accredited in some way).

17. Skills. Individual tax concessions for individuals successfully completing particular accredited skills training e.g. Adult Learner Key Skills, construction training – concession to be held over if individual out of work.  Similarly, concessions available to employer as incentive to allow staff to attend appropriate training courses.

18. Incentivise recycling and make it “sexy”.  Offer meaningful benefits to residents and businesses who beat recycling targets and fund it from fines on those who take no action.