Collectively Speaking
A new podcast series, looking at the big issues in the built environment, hosted by industry expert and LDN Collective Founder Max Farrell.
The LDN Collective is a network of built environment experts and creatives fighting to improve people’s lives and the planet’s prospects.
Each episode Max will chat with members and clients of the LDN Collective.
Collectively Speaking
Season 2: Episode 7 - Politics and Planning with Jonny Popper
What's the secret to revamping one of the world's most iconic cities? Jonny Popper, CEO of LCA, joins us to uncover the political and planning transformations that have shaped London's urban landscape over the past quarter-century. We explore how establishing a mayor and assembly in 2000 catalysed a new era for London's built environment. With Jonny's expert insights, we dissect how political dynamics and the alignment of borough plans with the mayor's vision have evolved, alongside the professionalisation of planning processes. Yet, the journey is far from over, as ongoing challenges in land assembly and viability assessments continue to impact the pace of regeneration projects.
Curious about what it takes to navigate London's complex development sector? This episode promises a deep understanding of the viability challenges developers face amid an intricate web of policies and requirements. We highlight the need for political bravery and flexibility in planning decisions to enhance housing delivery while reflecting on the shifting landscape from Ken Livingstone to Sadiq Khan. The conversation underscores the tension between policy aspirations and the financial realities on the ground, emphasising the need for a balanced approach to meet ambitious housing targets.
Looking beyond London, we delve into the global investment stage with the Opportunity London initiative, a pivotal effort to attract international capital. We discuss London's role as a gateway for UK investment and the challenges international investors face. Our conversation highlights the strategic development potentials in East London, the importance of community consultation, and long-term planning in creating sustainable urban environments. As we cast an eye toward the future, we share our optimistic outlook on economic recovery and company expansion, spotlighting the latest developments within our team and the promising opportunities that lie ahead.
Find out more about the LDN Collective at
https://ldn-collective.com/
Welcome everybody to the latest episode of Collectively Speaking. This is a podcast series. We're in the second series now, where we sit down with key figures within the built environment, our clients, collaborators and members of LDN Collective. Today we're going to be talking about a really timely and relevant topic to everybody really, which is about politics and planning and, in particular, how that relates to communications and having a good strategy but a a good well work through process and team helping support these big projects that inevitably are gonna be in the public eye.
Max Farrell:I'm joined today by Jonny Popper, who is the chief exec of the LCA. So, johnny, it was a big year for you last year and I was pretty honoured to come along to a very special dinner to celebrate your 25th anniversary, and that's quite an achievement and also quite interesting to people because to have been involved in right in the thick of it in terms of London's built environment and how that's evolved and developed, particularly the big regeneration projects you've been involved in, like King's Cross and, more recently, earl's Court. Can you tell us a bit about? You know, from your perspective, what's changed over those 25 years? I know a lot has, but also what stayed the same and what makes London special, I suppose.
Jonny Popper:Yeah, you've just started with a nice, easy, simple question what's changed in 25 years? Obviously a lot has changed. So I mean when we set up the company so myself and Robert Gordon-Clark back in 1999 1999 there was just the two of us and obviously a lot's changed for the business and a lot's changed in in planning, in politics and in london, because we're now, uh, more than 75 people, obviously a much bigger company, uh, truly multidisciplinary range of services, but still focused very much on the built environment. So it's been fascinating to watch the whole journey of, of politics and planning in london. Um, so I mean the first thing, obviously, the change we set up to respond to the establishment of a mayor and assembly for london. That was like our business model of a, of a company that specialized in, in understanding the politics of london, which was changing dramatically.
Jonny Popper:People forget obviously you did have the GLC way back when Kent Livingston, as we know, abolished under Thatcher. Then you had a period of no centralised government for London and only the boroughs and the City of London, and then in 2000, of course, we had the Mayor established. That was a big change for London and took quite a lot of years for the politics to adjust and the politics of the boroughs to adjust. So in the early years you had quite a lot of battle. So in planning policy terms, for example, you had a real lack of alignment between the borough's local plans and what the mayor wanted to do.
Jonny Popper:Take a really easy example parking standards. You had Ken coming in wanting to reduce parking provisions in new developments and put the emphasis, understandably, on public transport. And of course you had outer London boroughs saying well, no, our policy is two, two cars for every, two parking spaces for every home. Of course you need that, otherwise how can anyone live? So you'd have a developer completely caught in the middle between what the borough wanted and what the GLA wanted. So that took some time to settle down. And now you have a much, much greater alignment between the London plan and the boroughs actually, and I think you've also seen a real professionalism of planning across London, across all the boroughs. You know the political leadership is mostly really good, leadership is mostly really good the chief execs, the heads of planning and and you've got a much better system and process in place and I think we were working with 20-25 years ago. It's been very interesting to follow that along.
Max Farrell:It's interesting you say that, because I suppose, looking from the inside out, I absolutely agree there's there's much more of a robust sort of process in terms of planning and regeneration and understanding of what good placemaking is and people that are really world-class at what they do. But on the flip side, from the outside, looking in, I'm involved in this Land Economics Society, which is a global society, and I know that you've been involved in some land economics society, which is a global society, and I know that, um, you've been involved in some of those meetings. Nick bows gave us a great, uh sort of summary of what to expect from from the recent changes in government, but when it's the americans or the asians, they, they look and they think they can't believe how long things take yes, that's certainly true and um, but they also kind of can't understand the continually changing nature of the politics and what a big role it plays.
Max Farrell:Do you think, like looking back at the last 25 years and you know how that has changed and people are more aware of you, know what it takes to deliver these big projects and small projects, but do you think can you see things changing now, or do you think there will always be a sort of quite a drawn out process of getting things done? And I'm thinking particularly in terms of all the crises that we're facing, in terms of housing crisis and homelessness and the need to desperate?
Jonny Popper:need to build more homes. The honest truth is there will always be a drawn-out process but it can be made quicker for a number of schemes. I mean, if you're talking about the very long-term, different, the long-term big regeneration projects, of which there are a small number and is not the norm for your normal planning project, they are really complicated. To assemble the land, to deal with all the issues you have to get planning, go through viability, to sign the 106, deal with your conditions, deal with all the third parties that you know then then then you know, break them up into phases, appoint partners. I mean that they just inevitably take a long time to deliver. Um, and yes, I think you probably can see the planning system being easier to deliver. We can talk about that, but I think that will continue to take a long time. At a more normal level of scheme, you can definitely speed it up and I know we're going to talk a bit about some of the government planning reform, but that is absolutely heading in that direction and I think the key change that we're seeing now, that is, the most important single change we can actually see, is just actually the change of attitudes that I think will hopefully filter down. You know, there's no question, and I'm not trying to make a political point here, but under the previous government it is remarkable how unified the entire property industry was in the desperate need for a change.
Jonny Popper:At the end of the the Tory government, you know, we know, know, take outside of London that abolished the housing targets. But even more broadly than that, their planning reform was a throw everything up start again. Frankly pretty nuts idea of zoning the entire country into three areas, which would never work in a major urban centre, complex urban centre like London, where you've got different issues street by street, different listed building conservation areas, so many issues at play that need a bespoke response. And we wasted years, frankly, of that. There was. Thousands of people responded to the consultation, the government quietly shelved it and then they sort of did nothing on planning reform, or certainly nothing helpful. In fact they did an awful lot of things that lots of people think were incredibly unhelpful and then, of course, you had, you have the Secretary, like removing the mandatory housing target, like removing the mandatory housing target.
Jonny Popper:It's like their approach on second staircases, you could argue. And also just politically, how. I mean you had Michael Gove, whose job he seemed to see his job as attacking the sector, attacking housing associations, attacking developers. It's not really a way of delivering positive change. And of course, you had a lot of playing politics with planning, especially in london, where government will call in schemes that you think why are they calling that in? Um? And it's just politics at play. So we've had the government come in.
Jonny Popper:The new labour government set a very, very different tone. Firstly, they have spoken about housing and infrastructure and public services and the need to get things built from the beginning of their campaign pre-election, which was a very brave thing to do and which the conservatives simply abandoned the space. Frankly, at the party conference before the election, rishi Sunak did not mention housing in his speech a single time, which is quite incredible. And so Labour have come in pledging change and we've seen quite a number of their proposals, although some of them still not that detailed yet. They've set the right tone and that tone does filter down politically.
Jonny Popper:Um, I think it's quite interesting in some of their proposals, you know, for example, more things going through officers, slightly less things going through planning committees. I think that's to be welcomed because we all know particularly we talked about how professional it is when you know, for example, more things going through offices, slightly less things going through planning committees. I think that's to be welcomed because we all know particularly we talked about how professional it is when you know they've got very detailed local plans, you've got planning officers and specialists and they appoint consultants and things to look at stuff. You deal with them. You know, for many months, in some cases many years, spend a fortune getting to a point. But when you get to a planning committee it can be slightly soul-destroying sometimes. But that'll only be for some schemes because you know the big schemes. You do need something quite important in planning which is local democracy. So you'll still have a lot of the big projects needing to make for there to be a political decision and that that's entirely. That's entirely correct yeah, it's interesting.
Max Farrell:I mean there's so much in in what you were just saying there and and I agree with everything that you said and it reminds me of when we did the Farrell review, which was ten years ago now.
Max Farrell:We made a number of recommendations around, you know, proactive planning and skilling up planning committees in the first place, as well as you know, enhancing the role of good officers and and the local plans as a framework that should be relied on more rather than the sort of the whim of politicians, officers and and the local plans as a framework that should be relied on more rather than the sort of the whim of of politicians and and which can often make things more politicized that don't necessarily need to be, and I fully agree with that.
Max Farrell:But it's interesting because the other thing you said about um, it having such a priority now being, you know, that change of tone and attitude. That was one of the most remarkable things I think about the election last year. But it reminded me also if there was another 25th anniversary last year, which was of the Richard Rogers led urban task force. Yeah, and actually if you think back to then, 25 years ago, there's a lot of parallels, because that was led by the deputy prime minister, john Scott, and today we have a Deputy Prime Minister leading on the whole housing construction agenda. And I think you're absolutely right. It's that sort of statement of commitment of intent that has a sort of a softer effect on creating conditions of more positivity.
Jonny Popper:That's right. So that's been a really important step. We do need to have the reality with it, and the reality, by which we all know, is that there are massive viability challenges. So you cannot overcome fundamental viability challenges merely by change of attitude. So and that is the big challenge that we are still facing Ultimately, what we've seen in planning is more and more policies coming on in every area, more and more requirements on developers, and in a world where you've got massive viability challenges, you're ending up in the situation we're in right now where lots of things simply doesn't stack up.
Jonny Popper:So you're either actually not even going to bother going for planning or, in many cases, you do go for planning but you know you can't deliver it. So you're going to just bank the planning consent or wait and go back and try and improve it later, or whatever it is you might do. And we're in right now the perfect storm of, as know, kind of real lack of delivery, particularly on housing. Yeah, less so in some other sectors and that actually student and bill torrent's been pretty good, but in um. So, uh, we, we do need to see a, in my view, a recognition of the viability challenges and understanding that deals need to be done. You can't. Just, it's not just going to be all easy. Oh well, if you meet my policy, that's fine. If you don't meet my policy, then don't bother. There needs to be.
Jonny Popper:The key word we now need to see is more flexibility, and we need to see the Mayor of London adopting that and leading that. We need to see the boroughs leading that because officers will understand it. We all know this. You do a viability assessment. It shows what it shows. The borough checks it, agrees with it or pushes you a little bit, fine. But when you get to the politicians, they simply don't buy it. They just don't believe it and they're like well, I don't care that. Your viability says you can only do 25% affordable housing. Our policy is 35, so it needs to be 35.
Jonny Popper:Lack of trust, lack of understanding that's still holding back a lot of schemes at the moment. So I'm hoping that we're going to see more flexibility coming through the system and the system can deal with it. You know there are things like review mechanisms where you can review them every couple of years and see if more affordable housing for staff can be delivered. But we need to see both the change in attitude and the policies that go with it to streamline things, and we need to see a bit more political realism to enable projects to actually be delivered in terms of its viability, and then we'll start to see more delivery, because London is the great resilient city. It's so big, there's always sites that somebody has a great idea to do with, there's always aspirations. It's not going to run out of major developments, of major schemes, of what you can do. So, yeah, we, we just you know.
Max Farrell:But, as I said, the attitude that we're seeing so far is is encouraging. I would say it's often the way, isn't it with? In terms of, obviously, viability is is is a massive issue, but it's interesting that you're talking about the sort of flexibility needed in order to, particularly at this particular moment in time where we have this perfect storm of the cost of construction, the cost of borrowing and the lack of skills and resources, that, in a way, something has to give. And do you think just thinking that through that? The other thing that's changed now, as of last year, is that, for the first time in a long time, that the London government is the same political persuasion as the central government and and the same as London Council's most boroughs.
Jonny Popper:I mean we've got this perfect political alignment at local, regional and national right now.
Max Farrell:Yeah, we've got the perfect window to deliver so if those sort of borough leaders that perhaps in in the past might have been more intransigent, if they are all part of the same team, with Angela Rayner talking about 1.5 million homes and there's no better place to deliver on that than in London that already has all the investment in the infrastructure and the employment opportunities and the need for more people to be housed and the need for more people to be housed Do you think that that in itself will enable that sort of you know movement towards more flexibility?
Jonny Popper:Yes, but the flexibility needs political bravery. You know you'll have to make planning decisions that don't comply with policy. So at the same time as saying affordable housing is my top priority, for example, you'll have to agree a consent that delivers less than you would ideally like. Otherwise the scheme won't happen. So you need to have the political bravery. I mean it's worth talking about sort of 20 you know, 25 years is it, and I don't want to like give too much of a history lesson but it's worth just looking back at the history of this in london, because you had ken come in as the first mayor in 2000 and the property industry at the start were very, very nervous of Red Ken and of course, ken basically got everyone in a room and said I am going to let you build to your heart's content, bigger and taller than you've ever dreamed, but you're going to give me my pound of flesh and that's affordable housing broadly. And there were other policies too and the developer community said yeah, okay, and it was. You know he was pretty straight with everybody because you know you had across London frankly we know very, very soft deals on affordable housing done before the GLA. You had some boroughs who didn't actively want affordable housing in their boroughs particularly. And so you had a whole shift when the London plan came in.
Jonny Popper:When Ken came in, the first kind of planning decisions team in the GLA was excellent. The first London plan was excellent. It really set the standard. You then had, under Boris, a lot more flexibility and of course it was so partly related to the sort of you know, the 7A crash post the financial crisis in that period, where you did have viability issues again and you had a lot more flexibility on affordable housing. Then you had kind of Sadiq campaigning that it was too flexible, weren't prioritising affordable housing.
Jonny Popper:So actually, sadiq came in saying, no, 35 percent, we need to enforce this. And there was also, you know, some justification, I think, for that and also sending a message through. What they were trying to stop is developers sort of overpaying for a site and they're coming to the GLA and saying look at my viability, I can't afford to do affordable housing. Picking on affordable housing. There's other things too, and and of course the GLA wanted to send the message of well, land values need to be adjusted here. You need to know that you're going to have to deliver 35 percent before you you start. So factor that into your, into your assessments at the very beginning, and so there was trying to have a bit of a fundamental shift on land values and how developers would approach, um, uh approach, things before they come to the gla, and that was very successful, I think, at the start. And of course that works as well in a slightly rising market and we all know the sort of optimism bias that developers have, uh, to make these things stack up.
Jonny Popper:And but when the circumstances dramatically changed COVID, interest rates, build costs, global economy there needs to be an appropriate, similar response, and there hasn't been. There's just been a layering of more and more policies, actually more and more requirements. There's just been a layering of more and more policies, actually more and more requirements, and so that's, that is the period that you know, the flexibility I think needs to come in to recognise it. So that's, that's what I'm hoping we'll see now, and particularly, as you say, with that political alignment, because the mayor of London will now be under great pressure from the Labour government to deliver the housing numbers. So I think to some degree the mayor is going to have to take a more interventionist approach, which I hope very much he does, and we've seen the early signs. We've seen some positive early signs on that in terms, as I say, the planning, reforms and the decisions the government's been making. So, yeah, the signs look good they do.
Max Farrell:There's a rare bit of good news coming out of Davos in this meeting of global business leaders. I don't know if you saw, but they did a survey of the 100 CEOs I think it was in terms of what country, what market is the most investable, and actually the UK came second to America and ahead of Germany, china, and that in itself is obviously an interesting sign and I suppose the timing from that point of view is good, because I know that LCA are heavily involved or a partner with Opportunity London. That's right, yep, and I think you were involved in actually coming up with the idea.
Jonny Popper:Yes, we were. Yeah, yeah. Again, I've got to give Robert the credit rather than myself, but we were one of the original co-founders of that. Yeah, obviously working closely with London Partners and the NLA, so tell us a bit more about that.
Max Farrell:The idea, I think, is that you have these sort of almost ready made opportunities for global capital to invest in that tend to be large scale mixed use, capital to invest in that tend to be large scale mixed use, but of interest to those sort of capital markets that yes, I mean that's, I suppose, partly where it's ended up.
Jonny Popper:But you know, the starting point of it was born out of a slight frustration and certainly an identified need that London rarely spoke with one voice. And if you were an international investor interested in London, where the hell do you go? You know, if, if you and you know global there's a great phrase global capital has a choice of where, where it chooses to go, both in sector and geographically. You know, and if, if you were looking at some opportunity in some Chinese city, you know you can speak to the mayor, and I'm obviously greatly oversimplifying, but other cities make this much easier. London, of course, is this massively competitive marketplace. You've got 32 boroughs, you've got the city of London, you've got the mayor of London and you've got individual schemes competing for capital. So it actually becomes quite complicated to know where, who you approach, how you get there. And this whole point about London with one message. People were taking very different messages to, to, to, to inward investors. So it was first born out of the need to bring together all of the public sector and then backed by the private sector partners, and obviously London has been very successful. It's backed by London councils, obviously representing all under government, by the mayor of London and by the Department of Business and Trade, so central government and they're very involved, dbt, and so you have that full, and the city of London, I should say, as well. So you've got that full backing. And what it's done is, as you say, it's developed the schemes that are investable and ready and it's raised finance from its partners and it's funding a global programme to go out and promote London and those schemes. So initially it went out to speak to inward investors around the globe to actually learn what were the challenges that they faced when they were investing into London or considering London, and so we put in place a programme to help achieve that. So it's a big upskilling programme within the boroughs. Effectively it becomes the single front door to investors and then it can point them in the direction of either the boroughs or the schemes or whatever it might be, that may be the right party to invest in. And, as you say, it's got the prospectus where it brings together the other ready investable propositions that are public. It then has a list that is private and then it has a list that you need to send an NDA before it can even talk to you about. So that's kind of the off market stuff.
Jonny Popper:And I personally was in Hong Kong as part of the Opportunity London delegation just before Christmas, which was brilliant to see that, and I think you're absolutely right. London is remains, obviously. We pride ourselves on the, the number one global city. We every year win the Resonance Report on best cities in the world. We have a stable political system, stable legal system, world leading creative architecture, you know, pr, communications, support services and, of course, as a city that people want to live in, with this culture and restaurants and theatres and everything else. And then, of course, geographically straddling, you know, the European markets kind of America. So you know we absolutely remain that magnet and it's been great to see Opportunity London in action.
Jonny Popper:I think it's been really well received and it really has hit its strides now In the last 12 months. It's performing its job magnificently and so I saw that firsthand. And of course it's now backed by government. I mean, when I was in Hong Kong the Department of Business and Trade were saying under the new government they've had two ministers visit in the space of three and a half weeks. Um, the last time they had two ministers visit, government ministers visit hong kong. It was over the space of three and a half years and of course you've seen the prime minister out of saudi arabia. We know also about the visits to china, so we're seeing a very active push across government at the most senior level to promote inward investment, um which is again a big change in attitude from the previous government.
Max Farrell:Yeah, I mean, that definitely is a welcome change, because London is a global city, isn't it? And you know it's not competing with Manchester and Liverpool, it's competing with New York and Shanghai and Sydney.
Jonny Popper:And that's the other great change that we've seen from the government. This kind of, you know, the anti-London agenda is gone. Because London is the gateway into Manchester and other regions for a lot of investment investors, They'll start into London or they'll look at London, they'll see the other opportunities and, you know, as I say, London becomes that showpiece for the UK and its gateway into other regions.
Max Farrell:I suppose the thing that we as an industry need to make sure is that with that investment also comes, you know, the spread of opportunity and the infrastructure that is for everybody, for all Londoners, because there is always that scepticism about foreign investment that actually it's all about moving money around and for people that wouldn't necessarily come and live here. If there's overseas people buying housing, but equally we need that capital. It's not going to come all from within our shores.
Jonny Popper:And there's a difference between the capital that's funding this stuff and then how the schemes get delivered and domestic sales versus foreign sales. So that was definitely a big issue. I agree with you about a lot of the housing being built, being sold in the Far East first, for example. I think that's certainly much less of an issue now and obviously is way less of an issue when you're in built to rent or student accommodation, for example. So, or you know, commercial.
Max Farrell:So that's only affects certain sectors and one of those sort of opportunities that Opportunity London is promoting to investors, both UK based and overseas, is a project that we're teaming up with you on in terms of LDN Collective, which is a Royal Albert Dock, and it's a really interesting opportunity because I think it's the only large scale regeneration project in London that is employment led. So there's a real opportunity there, partly because of the scale of the Royal Docks, but also because it's in public ownership. The land is owned by the GLA, so they can, to a certain degree, control the types of land uses. And I think there's a recognition that in order to keep London's attractiveness on the world stage in terms of things like culture and leisure and health and recreation, is that we can't just keep building sort of residential-led schemes in a piecemeal way, schemes in a piecemeal way. We do need the stuff that actually is all about um, livability, quality of life, and um and and healthy lifestyles.
Max Farrell:And it's a difficult one to crack because of the scale and because of the values in east london, but I think, for me personally, I think this is the time that the royal docks will be and where london is heading. You know, the mayors moving their office there from London Bridge was a real statement, the Elizabeth line arriving. I mean, I'm always an optimist and there's definitely going to be challenges. But tell me a bit about your thoughts about you know East London, the docks and the opportunities there.
Jonny Popper:I think it's a classic example of where the GLA plays a hugely positive role Because, you're right, and the role DOCS itself is massive, with multiple different sites, doesn't it some which obviously have already come forward, many of which come forward. So yeah, there's a great example where the GLA can take a role in its kind of oversight and master planning and then partly try to kind of curate what uses go where. Obviously, at Royal albanox, as you say, that's commercial led, which is exactly the right, the right use. You'd think at that site, um and uh, and you know there's so much that's already happened there, a lot of the transport infrastructure is, is in gla's base there, so and there's a great deal of interest around it. So I mean, I I'm with you, I'm an optimist on this stuff.
Jonny Popper:Um, I think your point about kind of healthy lifestyles, I mean that goes across development and is much more recognised and is also now part of how you talked about the whole professionalism of the whole industry, I mean, if I can nip, it does relate, but to West London. So I mean one of the schemes I'm personally very involved in is Earl's Court. The Earl's Court Development Company is else core, the else core development company. That is a master plan. Uh, that is all about healthy lifestyles. It's 40 unbuilt, so certainly building on 60, massively prioritizing the open space, largely car free. Whole theme around there, of, of, of, of the way people will uh, experience the space, healthy lifestyles, and interestingly, that is only is only 60% residential, it's 40% non-residential, a huge commercial element there. And, of course, you've got a site there that is the largest cleared site. It's 40 acres. It's next to three tube stations, which is insane I never thought a site to touch three different tube stations, which it does, you know and a massively important, the classic example of a brownfield land where you can deliver density and and and high quality, and so that that's a, for me, a really good example of a very mixed use schemes prioritizing healthy lifestyles, uh, prioritizing open space, a mix of commercial, residential, a very, very clear offer on the commercial for kind of clean and climate tech industries, and a way that, and also the way they've approached their community consultation, has been really interesting.
Jonny Popper:Obviously, from our angle, they've taken an a really excellent approach for taking years to very patiently engage, basing themselves down on site, really understanding the area, understanding the needs of the area, setting up a community fund three years before even getting towards a planning application, let alone a determination. It's just an example of where they've, they've, they've. They've got a lot of things very right. They've taken a very, very long term approach. They have invested heavily to do that. But I believe that will pay dividends.
Jonny Popper:And I think on something like the Royal Docks it's similar. I mean, obviously, the difference there is you've got a massive area of multiple ownership so you need to have the kind of site by site approach with the GLA kind of master planning and overseeing it. But yeah, I agree with you, I think that will come forward. And obviously Royal Albondock has already had a bit of a checkered history of failed schemes, as we've seen in different parts of London in history. But it's a good example of where the GLA plays its role.
Jonny Popper:And if I talk about when Ken came in, one of the schemes I worked on for a long time was Wembley. Quinten still worked with them at Wembley Park. That would not have happened without the GLA, the old LDA as it used to be, the London Development Agency, the Economic Development Arm obviously was then abolished but the function that the GLA and the LDA performed to help with the land assembly and help with various other issues was absolutely critical to that whole scheme being able to be delivered, as was the role of brent council, and being a genuine partnership.
Max Farrell:Absolutely I think, yep, you're absolutely right and there's so many lessons to be learned from when we get these things right, aren't there? And you know whether it's sort of king's cross and and the relationship with you know camden and the different developers over the years, and or you talked about how how will things get easier. I mean king's cross because obviously and there was shit with Camden and the different developers over the years.
Jonny Popper:You talked about how will things get easier. I mean King's Cross, because obviously we've worked on King's Cross for 24 years I think maybe 23 um, but the our longest standing client and we've that's the scheme that we followed through. We actually helped argent and obviously it's now related argent. It was then argent in partnership with st george win the bid to become the, to become the developer, then helped them through all their consultation. Then for two years it was kind of more construction comms and then it was into marketing, placem and event PR and we still work with them today and of course everyone quite rightly points to it as the best example of kind of urban regeneration and rightly says what brilliant developer they are.
Jonny Popper:When that went to planning committee it was still taken to a judicial review by the groups that didn't like it. Now the judicial review failed but people forget that. You know that was really difficult and of course it was across two boroughs, part of the sites in Islington, as well as it being in Camden. People forget how difficult these things are to actually get through planning and of course it's very easy when it's built for everyone to turn up and say, oh, how wonderful it is. But you know, in fact we had a similar story at brent, when, you know, when it went to planning, uh, the lib dems, who were then in opposition, uh voted against it, and and then they won the next local election in partnership with the conservatives, and they were the first to turn up at the with the ribbon and say how wonderful it is. But there, that is the politics of these things.
Max Farrell:It's never straightforward yeah, yeah, I'm just thinking about the year ahead and what to look forward to and obviously, in a relatively short space of time, uk Reef in Leeds has become the biggest industry event. It's overtaken many others and the whole industry will be there for a few days and this year, for the first time, London has its own big pavilion, I think, which has actually been built in the dock and floating.
Jonny Popper:And you're a partner in that. Yeah, we're one of the headline partners of that.
Max Farrell:yeah, so can you tell us, because lots of people are interested and wanting to know a bit more about what to expect from that. Can you tell us how that might be different and what London will be showcasing?
Jonny Popper:uh, so, uh, yeah, certainly. So I mean London, obviously Opportunity. London has its space for those that go to UK Reef in the Canary. That has jointly with Manchester, but London didn't really have. It's quite a small space. Then it's got the outdoor area, which is lovely when it's sunny, not so lovely when it's raining as it was last year, and London didn't really have a central place actually to kind of bring everything together.
Jonny Popper:So that pavilion, which is double the size of most of the other pavilions, is mostly an event space for its conference programme and we're curating a couple of the events during its time there. So I think it's going to have about 80 seats and obviously squeezing a lot more people in standing. And then it's going to have about 80 seats and obviously a lot more squeezing a lot more people in standing. And then it's also got a very small little exhibition seating area as part of the stand, but it's mainly just a central point, a bit like we're all familiar with at Mipim. Obviously it's much bigger than London Stand at Mipim, but you know the London Stand at Mipim for years brought everyone together, was the central point and at a smaller scale but within the very successful UK Reef event it's doing that. We were therefore absolutely delighted to partner with it and it is a very important year for us. So, yes, we're celebrating our 25th anniversary.
Jonny Popper:We've formally rebranded to LCA, as we said at the start, and that's also very much a part of recognising that, as I say, with over 70 people, we're a much more diversified business than we were before and we've talked quite a bit about planning and politics of planning. But the other half of our business is actually the more b2c side, the consumer side. So we don't just get involved in, in helping navigate schemes through planning and the politics and all the local engagement which is a very important part of what we do do. We also are there to help schemes succeed. So, for example, we were recently appointed by by you capital on olympia to help launch olympia this summer into the under market, into the international market, so not the under market.
Jonny Popper:So that's not a planning brief, that's not a politics brief. It's already got planning's been built. That's a pure consumer brief. We've got a dedicated social media team. We do an awful lot of paid social influencer engagement. We've got a full in-house graphic design studio that creates all the materials and the websites and the graphics and the social content that we need and obviously we're a heart of PR agency, so we've got all the media skills that we require. So we work on some really interesting briefs that are not just planning and politics.
Max Farrell:Amazing. I mean that's why I was just so pleased to be able to sit down with you today, to be honest, johnny, because you and Robert and Jane and everyone here I think, have had such an impact over the years and actually it's often sort of behind the scenes. It doesn't get kind of recognised, or at least people don't really understand all the work that goes into making these things kind of so coherent and actually land well with the communities and stakeholders. So you know, as somebody with a background in communications, I fully understand how easy it is to get these things wrong.
Jonny Popper:Yeah, and of course, well, it comes absolutely because you know when there's a failure of communications, you know that's really public and has a real impact on your ability to deliver. But yeah, I just want to add, what you've said about us obviously goes for so much of the built environment. It's such a huge sector and all of these schemes. You are working with such a huge number of people, from the planning consultants and the architects and the environmental consultants, all these different people that help bring this stuff together. People that help bring this stuff together, um, uh, and you know, we we we've created really strong relationships with our network of associates that we work very closely and collaboratively with, which has been a key part of our success that's interesting.
Max Farrell:You say that I'm. We're obviously in the room here with with lawrence from uc media that does these podcasts and and, uh, we've started making films and we've done it for the Healthy City Design Congress and we'll be doing another film with UK Reef this year. So we should have a separate chat about that. Make sure we get London sort of front and centre. But one thing Lawrence and I have been talking about and are starting to do is make sure that at the end of each film we have credits like you would have in a Hollywood film, because there's so many people involved in the built environment. You know it's like the chief grip is often likely the constitutes of it.
Max Farrell:You know, and more often than not, it's only the architects you ever hear about in these things, and and you know that can't be right, because city making is a much a broad endeavor. Yeah, so, yes, well, johnny, it's just been a brilliant conversation and thank you so much, and really looking forward to the next 25 years. And you know, I think just to go back to my very first question about what's changed and what hasn't changed, I think from my point of view, the thing that hasn't changed and why I think LCA has remained such a successful organisation, is the people and the values. And you know, when you come here and you come to the building, even without a reason for coming, that you're going to have interesting conversations with people that you get on with, and that counts for a lot, particularly when you go through these difficult, challenging projects over a period of a number of years.
Jonny Popper:We're very excited about about the year ahead. As I say, we've expanded and invested in the company a lot, taken on some brilliant talent, and you mentioned Nick Bose, for example, who's our MD of Insight, because our insight, our research, our data is very much a core of what we do. I mean, obviously, it's a difficult time right now. As we speak, in early 2025, the market's still, you know, we're kind of waiting for that recovery that hopefully will come off the back of a lot of these government initiatives, an economic recovery as well. So we think we're very well positioned for that and we're very excited about about the next few years ahead. Good stuff, johnny. Thank you very much. Thanks, that's been fun talking.
