Sir Edward Lister, the Deputy Mayor of London for Policy and Planning, took part in a question and answer session as part of the Develop Croydon Conference on Wednesday, November 18. Paul Finch, editorial director of Architectural Review, asked the questions.
Sir Edward Lister (right) in coversation with Paul Finch
PF What binds a Tory mayoralty with a Labour Croydon? You seem to have a pragmatic as well as an aspirational view about the necessity for growth which has the effect of bypassing party politics…
EL I think we are very pragmatic at City Hall. The Mayor has got the view that he wants to work with those that want to work with him and develop the city. It’s fair to say that the relationship between the mayor and the boroughs has been an extremely good one for the last seven years. The mayor set out from the beginning to work with boroughs and I think this is the where the strength of mayoralty lies. You don’t really elect a party, you elect an individual at City Hall and it’s that individual who can then set the scene and set the direction. That direction is very much about cooperation and working together.
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Pragmatic approach: Sir Edward Lister
PF Croydon’s aspirations of being an international place to live are linked to Gatwick. We know the mayor’s view about the long-term requirement being met in London through an estuary airport, but if push comes to shove would the mayor say ‘actually I prefer Gatwick and I prefer Croydon?’ or ‘I prefer Hounslow and Hillingdon and Heathrow?’
EL I think the mayor has made his views about Heathrow well known. He totally opposes any expansion of Heathrow and believes it’s not feasible. He also believes that even if it is extended it can’t be a hub airport, it can’t operate at night and all the other issues that surround it. He does has the view that Gatwick can be expanded a lot more, we’ve been fairly supportive of that at City Hall. I’m personally very supportive of it because I can see the economic benefits that will flow through to south London which are enormous.
Housing opportunities: Paul Finch listens to Sir Edward Lister
PF Do you think there’s a case, given the market failure to supply sufficient quantities of homes, for the direct provision of what we used to call council housing?
EL This is a very difficult one. It’s not as though we’re actually short of council housing in London. Thirty three per cent on average is either owned by local authorities or housing associations of one sort or another. Whether it’s being properly used is a different matter and that therefore says that you could very much increase densities and other things but all of that takes an awful lot of cash.
We can see that as being one of the opportunities but we see lots of other opportunities out there. We need to accelerate the performance of planning. Basically, every developer needs to build twice what they are doing at the moment, we need to bring in more developers, we need to get small developers going again. There was a time when a small developer would build two or three houses, which was relatively simple to go through the planning system. Today, you’d probably be better off doing roof extensions or digging up somebody’s cellar. We’ve got to correct that.
We’ve got to get back to the point that it’s worth people’s while to do that type of work rather and we don’t absolutely cripple them in terms of what they’ve got to contend with in terms of bureaucracy. We have got to get everybody moving. Council housing is an ingredient but the other big ingredient is private rented. Can we get a lot more of private rented through the system – purpose built private rented rather than just buy-to-let stuff.
I personally am a great fan of private rented; and we at City Hall have started to do some work on some guidance of viability. We feel very strongly that we like it because it can be tenure blind as well. You can actually get social housing within a private rented scheme and nobody knows who’s private and who’s subsidised. To me that’s a very attractive market.
Delegates inside Fairfield Halls for the conference
PF You mentioned without quality of design it’s very difficult to make significant improvements. The mayor has done a lot to promote design. I wonder if there’s anything interest in opportunity areas and specific growth areas where the demands for for quantity and quality may be opposites?
EL They have to be reconciled. There are things in London we should be very proud of and I think one of those is the quality of our public realm and the quality of architecture in London. which has been very high in these last few years. I think every borough is concerned, Croydon like everyone else is concerned, about the quality of what you’re getting.
In some other European cities you do see an awful lot of boring buildings being built but it’s not like that in London. It’s quite vibrant and quite exciting. It might not be to everybody’s taste, some of it, but I don’t think anyone can argue that they are not well designed.
I know that work that we have done on space standards, which have had quite a lot of opposition in the early days from developers, have been a success they have been success and will indeed be part of buildings regulations, so that to a large extent they will become the norm across the country. Therefore, I think you can have really high quality architecture, I think you can create really great space, and match that with density. And I think it’s wrong to say you can’t.
I do believe, though, that you can’t have high density without good architecture. If you ever do that you’ll go straight back to some of those awful developments of the 1950s, 60s and 70s where we did see that happening and you did see those terrible estates being built and indeed some pretty terrible private buildings as well.
Croydon London’s Future was debated at the Develop Croydon Conference
PF Is there anything more the GLA can do to help Croydon’s growth, for example on the Tramlink, and could City Hall divert some public sector jobs down to south-west London?
EL That’s a very fair question and the growth zone which Croydon Council, ourselves and TfL are talking to the Treasury about is a key ingredient of that because we do need to get the infrastructure, we need to allow growth to take place. It’s a journey we have been on in other parts of London.
I think the next stage is to encourage those jobs and we have ourselves been put under a lot of pressure to move public sector jobs which are under our control out of the centre. I think this is about making sure that as we develop Croydon we do have the space which can take that and that we can work together on it.
We’re very keen to work together. As I say we need 500,000 more jobs. Those 500,000 more jobs all need a home. A lot of them are going to be office based and places like Croydon really come into their own at that point. It’s a great place to put those offices.
Keynote speaker: Sir Edward Lister at the Develop Croydon Conference
PF Anything on Tramlink?
EL On the tram we are working with Croydon on the Dingwall Loop, which is actually changing the tram network, which will allow more trams to come into being and to increase frequency and capacity.
We have been working with neighbouring authorities to Croydon, looking at the Sutton tram extension. I think it’s at the stage where it’s a nice idea. It’s yet got to prove that it’s got the growth that we need to get with it to make it work. For us, we cannot commit massive sums of money into transport unless we get growth off the back of it. We’ve got to pay for it somehow. By making it vibrant, by increasing density around it and by increasing opportunity. That is something that Croydon is very aware of, that is why we have all the works going on at the moment to improve the existing network.
Can I just say one other thing? Croydon has got a fabulous secret and we have really got to get the message out there that it is one of the best connected places in London. It’s only 15 minutes or so from Victoria or London Bridge, and we’ve got several trains an hour. It’s dead simple to get here, I know whenever I come here for meetings with the council or developers it takes absolutely no time to get here. I think we’ve got to get that out into the business community a little bit more and say that Croydon is a place that it really needs to be.
PHOTOS BY IAN STRATTON – Photography365.com