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Sadiq turns down The Tulip (at least for now)

The Mayor's planning unit has raised a number of objections to plans to build another exotic new building in the Square Mile
Dave Hill

When Foster and Partners published their plan to build a long, space-age stalk of a building in the City last autumn, reaction ranged from horror to cries of joy. The Tulip, as the planned structure is known, promises a bulbous viewing spot over 300 metres tall looking down at the Gherkin next door. There are hopes that it will attract more visitors to the Square Mile. Maybe one day it will, but it will first need to clear some barriers at City Hall.

A project this large has to be referred to the London Mayor, initially in the persons of the GLA Planning Unit. They have raised a number of objections. The first one listed in their stage one report is the failure of the proposal to “provide free-to-enter publicly accessible viewing areas,” putting it at odds with both the current London Plan (produced under Boris Johnson) and Sadiq Khan’s draft new one. The Tulip is further described as potentially compromising appreciation of the Tower of London, a World Heritage Site, and causing “harm to the historic environment”.

Then there’s the design of the mighty flower. “The height appears unjustified,” says the report. “The site layout and loss of public realm at street level is also of significant concern.” In addition, certain “strategic views” would be harmed and the plans would not reflect the Mayor’s “healthy streets” strategy, the GLA officers say. Each of these points are elaborated at some length.

In response to the report, a spokesperson for The Tulip project said: “We are pleased to see that the Mayor of London considers the use of a visitor attraction as complementing the City. We welcome the detailed technical comments by GLA officers and, as part of the ongoing planning process, we will continue to work closely with the City of London Corporation and the GLA to resolve those matters raised and to improve the package of public benefits associated with the Tulip.”

Watch this space.

Updated on 29 January 2019 to include The Tulip Project response.

 

Categories: News
Tags: Boris Johnson, City of London Corporation, Greater London Authority, Sadiq Khan, The Gherkin, The London Plan

Dave Hill: Austerity is not a story of ‘rich London’ versus the North

Perpetuating simplistic "north-south divide" narratives will not help the UK address its post-Brexit future
Dave Hill

From enervating “giant suction machine” to parasitic “dark star“, London has became an increasingly potent metaphor for geographical inequality in the UK, reviled for its population pulling power, blamed for widening the “north-south divide”, depicted as a greedy monster metropolis getting fat on feeding off everywhere else. Some early media coverage of data compiled by Centre For Cities on the effects of austerity has perpetuated this tale of two nations, focusing attention on the struggles of “the deprived north” while barely mentioning its impacts on the capital.

In fact, London has taken a heavy hammering from cuts to local government funding, especially some of its poorest boroughs. The Centre for Cities figures themselves tell much of that story. The principal contrast made in its analysis is not between the north of Britain and the south as a whole, but between Britain’s cities and the rest of it, with an overall reduction of £386 in spending power for each city resident since the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition cuts began compared with one of £172 per person in towns and rural areas.

Yes, it finds that most of those cities hit hardest are in the north of England, and that northern cities in general have had it harder than counterparts in the east, south west and, indeed, the south east. But that excludes the capital. The Centre records that “in terms of absolute cuts, London has been by far the hardest hit”, with £3.9 billion less to spend on services. That’s 30 per cent of all the cuts in Britain imposed on a city that contains 16 per cent of its population. Londoners on average have £585 a year less spent on them than before, which is the fourth biggest cut endured by all 62 British cities after Liverpool, Barnsley and Glasgow. The average national reduction is £287.

Far from “rich London” having it easy, the capital has been a big victim of city austerity and so have millions of its people. London Councils, which represents our 33 local authorities, told the Treasury last autumn that borough finances are “unsustainable” and its chair, Peter John, has pointed out that London’s population has grown by 500,000 since the then chancellor George Osborne – now editor of the London Evening Standard, of course – began swinging the axe. Our own thank tank, Centre for London, has shown that some parts the capital have been wounded particularly badly, with Newham, Hackney, Camden, Westminster and Tower Hamlets seeing reductions of 25 per cent and more in spending power per resident. The capital has the highest poverty rate in the country.

The EU referendum result is legitimately seen as in part a rejection of “rich London”, its character and values. For some, any cohesive and revitalised post-Brexit national future must entail a regional “rebalancing” at London’s expense: infrastructure investment must be switched away from the capital to Liverpool and Leeds, parliament should be moved to Manchester, and so on.

But whatever the merits of such arguments – and some have more than others – any serious policy programme for helping the nation as a whole to grow more equitably and evenly in future will need first to dispense with misleading narratives about the relationship between London’s successes and the problems faced by other UK cities, including squashing any notion that London government and the people it serves have somehow been spared austerity’s harsh punishments. Nothing could be further from the truth.

 

 

 

Categories: Comment
Tags: Brexit, Camden, Centre For Cities, Centre For London, Conservatives, Evening Standard, George Osborne, Glasgow, Hackney, Leeds, Liberal Democrats, Liverpool, London Councils, Manchester, Newham, Peter John, Tower Hamlets, Westminster

Vic Keegan’s Lost London 75: Shakespeare’s Boar’s Head

For a while, The Bard lived and drank near where the Gherkin and the Walkie Talkie now stand
Victor Keegan

Every Shakespeare buff knows that the Boar’s Head pub in Eastcheap was where Sir John Falstaff and Prince Hal caroused in Shakespeare’s Henry IV under the watchful eye of Mistress Quickly.

This was, of course, an invention. There is no evidence that an inn of that name existed in the early 15th century, the time the play was set in. But there was definitely a Boar’s Head at or near the building shown above in Shakespeare’s time. In fact, it was almost certainly his local.

The original pub was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666 and subsequently rebuilt. The present building at numbers 33-35 Eastcheap was built in 1868 as a vinegar warehouse and references Shakespeare’s play with the effigy of a boar peeping out of bushes half way up the wall. Ian Nairn, the idiosyncratic architecture critic, described the building (now offices) as “the scream you wake on at the end of a nightmare”.

That boar is a fake, but the building previously on the site (which was not a pub, at least not in its later years) sported a bust of the actual boar’s head from the pub that was there in Shakespeare’s time. The original is now in the keeping of the Globe Theatre.

We know from parish tax records that Shakespeare lived very close by, in the parish of St Helens after he moved from Shoreditch in about 1592. It is not known exactly where he dwelled but he departed in 1596, leaving unpaid tax debts behind him. Parishes were often quite small, as their boundaries were set with reference to the number of people that could be comfortably accommodated in its church building. It may not sound very romantic but Shakespeare would have lived somewhere between the Nat West Tower, the Walkie Talkie, the Gherkin and Richard Rogers’s Lloyds building.

These buildings almost suffocate St Helen’s, a gem of a church, much of which is as it was in Shakespeare’s time. There is a recent stained glass window commemorating the playwright inside, one of the very few images of him in London on semi-public display. In the courtyard of St Helen’s was Crosby Place, where Richard III once lived and Thomas More wrote Utopia.

Using artistic licence, Shakespeare set the death of Henry VI in 1481 and his marriage to Anne at this place though neither event actually took place there. Richard, Duke of Gloucester said: “At Crosby House, there shall you find us both.” You would never have found the actual Duke of Gloucester there, but you might encountered William Shakespeare.

All previous instalments of Vic Keegan’s Lost London can be found here.

Categories: Culture, Lost London
Tags: Eastcheap, Globe Theatre, Great Fire of London, Nat West Tower, Shoreditch, The Walkie Talkie, William Shakespeare

Green Belt battlegrounds form as public examination of Sadiq Khan’s new London Plan begins

Hitting a target of 66,000 new homes a year looks a lot harder unless the Mayor allows more flexibility
Charles Wright

Sadiq Khan is right about the London Plan: many Londoners don’t know about it and yet it is “one of the most crucial documents for our city”.

Officially the Spatial Development Strategy for Greater London, setting planning policy for the next 20 years, the plan’s statutory progress so far has been glacial. A first draft was published in November 2017 and the current, post-consultation, version of it appeared in August last year.

Londoners can now find out more about it during the five month, highly detailed “examination in public” that is now underway. Inspectors appointed by secretary of state James Brokenshire are expected to report in July, with the final plan published late this year after being signed off by national government. Details of the hearings and a mass of documentation including representations from scores of interested parties, can be seen here.

While Mayor Khan’s draft plan is wide-ranging, housing takes centre stage. Deputy mayor for Jules Pipe said in his remarks opening the examination that “one key issue came up again and again-  building the homes, particularly the genuinely affordable homes, Londoners need.”

With London’s population heading for 10.8 million by 2041, the plan sets a target of supplying 66,000 new homes of all types a year, up from Boris Johnson’s 42,000. Where will those thousands of homes be built?

The plan focuses on “brownfield” land, including some 40 “opportunity areas” for large-scale housing and commercial development, plus intensification around town centres and transport hubs in the suburbs as well as the centre, and significantly more small site development. Yet Mayor Khan remains pledged to resisting encroachment on the Green Belt, which makes up a surprising 22 per cent of Greater London’s land area.

This policy is likely to become a major battleground, with consultees as various as housebuilders Bovis, Enfield Council, business group London First and Buckinghamshire County Council calling for a rethink.

The 66,000 target “can only be achieved through a flexible policy which includes the opportunity for local councils to review Green Belt boundaries,” says Bovis, while Enfield warns its challenging housing targets are not deliverable without considering the potential for “selective Green Belt release”.

Commentators also note Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham’s “pragmatic” decision to release 4.1 per cent of the city-region’s Green Belt  in pursuit of a 200,000 new homes target.

While Green Belt conflict such as that brewing already in Enfield looks inevitable, there’s already concern over densification plans such as proposed development in Waltham Forest around Lea Bridge station.

Questions have also been raised over Khan’s targets themselves. The London School of Economics suggests they “almost certainly underestimate housing need”, and Brokenshire challenged the calculations in a letter to Khan last year, describing the target hike as merely a “helpful first step”.

With Brokenshire having the ultimate say on what the new London Plan contains, the scene is set for a further battle on numbers when the examination in public concludes, increasing pressure on Khan in the run up to the May 2020 mayoral election. “Where are the new homes London needs?” asked the Evening Standard last week.

a more measured analysis from the Centre for London points to Brexit uncertainty as net extra homes in 2017/18 fell to below half the level stipulated by the draft new plan, coupled with fewer planning applications coming through and a slowdown in the construction industry.

Khan points to a record number of affordable housing starts in 2017/18, cash he has allocated for council housebuilding and the City Hall “threshold” approach already increasing affordable housing levels in private developments.

And as Pipe stressed, the Mayor can’t deliver by himself: “All stakeholders need to play their part. This will require additional central funding, and if the government is serious about its housing ambitions, it needs to work with us constructively to provide that.”

Categories: Analysis
Tags: affordable housing, Andy Burnham, Enfield Council, Greater Manchester, Green Belt, housing, James Brokenshire, Jules Pipe, London First, Sadiq Khan, The London Plan, Waltham Forest

Jennette Arnold: the London Curriculum is a success that could get bigger

One of City Hall's 'soft power' initiatives has proven popular with the capital's school teachers and students
Jennette Arnold

Amid the funding crisis being experienced across the public sector, not least in our schools, it’s important that politicians take every opportunity available to make a positive difference to people’s lives. National government austerity has a defining and sadly limiting effect upon our politics, but it shouldn’t constrain our imagination or creativity.

Indeed, with almost a decade of funding cuts behind us, it’s now more important than ever before to demonstrate ingenuity. This means not only making the most of limited public funds but also the “soft power” of our institutions.

In the field of education, the London Curriculum is such an initiative. Designed to supplement existing school resources, it is a programme of free events and activities for students and teachers linked to key stages 2 and 3 of the national curriculum, which helps schools make the most of our unique and inspiring city to support attainment. It enables London to serve as both an inspiration and as a way of using a familiar geography and culture to make learning more relatable to pupils.

The development of the London Curriculum show City Hall using its reach and partnerships to help enrich the lives of young Londoners and give a helping hand to our hardworking teachers and educational support staff.

It has been successful too. Since launching in 2014 for key stage 3 only (pupils ages 11-14), 293 state secondary schools in the capital, 59 per cent of them, have adopted the 25 free teaching resources. Due to popular demand, a programme for key stage 2 (ages 7-11) primary schools followed in 2017 and already over a fifth of London’s primaries make use of the three resources tailored for them. As of August 2018, a total of 900 schools had signed up.

Parents and carers are able to get in on the action too, with the family explorer trails opening up the city’s history and heritage (with the added benefit of getting the kids outside and helping everyone keep fit).

But the success of the London Curriculum so far is no reason to rest on our laurels. Teachers could make further use of it in specific ways to address areas of greatest need. For example, despite growing awareness and understanding of mental health issues, over 70 per cent of teachers nationally say they don’t feel equipped with the skills or knowledge to support pupils struggling with these problems at school. Why not use the London Curriculum to support teachers in PSHE lessons?

More needs to be done to raise awareness of BAME history and culture. This is especially important given, as a consequence of knife crime, the huge negative (and disproportionate) coverage of black boys in recent years. It’s clear that schools have a role to play in giving kids from ethnic minority backgrounds more to be proud of from their history lessons. And what a tale to tell, too: London’s history is one of migration, assimilation and multiculturalism. Our city was, in all senses, built by migrants. Our young people deserve to hear this story.

Opportunities for expansion to other age groups – key stages 1 and 4 – also deserve consideration, while the family explorer trails set out a template for further parent and carer involvement. Above all, I’d love to see us do more to get families involved in the London Curriculum, using workshops at City Hall and in the community to better understand what resonates and where we should take this exciting initiative next.

Jennette Arnold is London Assembly Member for Hackney, Islington and Waltham Forest.

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Valentina Cipriani: As an EU national in London, I’m sad about Brexit but I still feel at home

I have such mixed feelings about what's happened in a country that has been good to me
Valentina Cipriani

So, it looks like Theresa May’s government is scraping the £65 registration fee for EU citizens who wish to remain in the UK after Brexit. The news came on Monday and caught me by surprise – the organisation the3million has done some amazing work in representing EU citizens’ rights during this whole Brexit mess, but the fact that they have been listened to, at least partially, was still unexpected.

It’s good news for people in my situation, although many have remarked that the concession just scratches the surface of what is obviously a much bigger issue. It could be maliciously said that it has done the job it was meant to – making us feeling a little bit more valued and confident without actually giving any ground. On the other hand, it bridges a financial gap many people may be facing, so let’s cheer for what we have got.

Such were my thoughts when I heard about it, and it got me thinking about all my contrasting feelings about the whole EU citizens’ rights issue.

Let’s start by saying that things are easier for me than for most Europeans in the UK. I only moved to London in September 2017, so I arrived as prepared as one can be for the uncertainty that was coming. Moreover, I’m young, I didn’t start a family here (does the dog count?) and I have a full-time job that gives me relative peace of mind.

Most of the time, I’m amazed by how this country has received me. I’ve had to work hard, but I also got great opportunities that I probably wouldn’t have had in Italy, where I come from. I miss home, but I also feel at home, which is both a weird and a sweet feeling only expats can fully understand.

And, since we’re talking about Italy, the blind and unbelievably narrow-minded attitude my own country is taking towards immigration makes me feel softer about Brexit. It means I know all too well how people can become unreasonable when they think their way of life is being threatened. It may not be right or wise, but it can be understandable.

Because of all this I have the advantage of being less upset and worried than other Europeans. But of course, it still unsettles me. It isn’t about the £65, it’s about the uncertainty. Will I be able to stay? Probably. Will the British economy stay healthy enough to still offer me a job and a good way of life? Hopefully. And will people who don’t deserve it be kicked back to their own country because they don’t meet some criteria or other? I hope not, but let’s face it, it isn’t unlikely.

However, I think I’m mostly a bit sad. I can’t help wondering, Britain, was all this really necessary? Did you really have to put yourself, and us, through all this? Wasn’t there a better way? The European Union is far from perfect and it surely requires change. But it’s also an idea – the idea of a bigger community to cling to – and Brexit deals a nasty blow to it.

I think many of we who have moved to this country will love it no matter what. And as I’m quite an optimist, I’m also confident that in the end things will be better than they look right now, and that in ten years most of this hassle will be half-forgotten. However, a hint of sadness will probably live on. We’re thinking it now and we’ll probably still be thinking it in 2029 – we really wished you guys had chosen to stay.

Valentina Cipriani is a “journalist, writer and overthinker”. Follow her on Twitter.

Categories: Comment
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Big decline in EU nationals seeking London jobs

Falls in construction and transport employment could reflect Brexit-related skills shortage
Dave Hill

The number of non-UK European Union citizens registering for work in the capital has fallen substantially in the last two years, according to Department for Work and Pensions figures, which show a drop from 51,707 in the third quarter of 2016 following the EU referendum, to 33,400 for the same period last year.

The downward trend was accompanied last year by an 11 per cent decline in construction jobs in London and one of a five per in transport jobs according to Office for National Statistics data. The two sectors employ considerable numbers of non-UK EU workers, and the trends indicate that “the decline in EU migration might be manifesting itself in skills shortages,” according to think tank Centre For London, which has published the statistics in its latest London Intelligence bulletin.

The fall in national insurance number registrations (NINos) by non-UK EU citizens contrasts with those by non-EU overseas foreign workers, which has held steady at around 20,000 each quarter since the start of 2015.

Screen shot 2019 01 25 at 10.04.23
There has been a general reduction in EU registrations dating from a peak in the second half of 2014 when well over 77,000 NINOs were made, suggesting that Brexit alone might not explain the more recent downward trajectory. There have also been some fluctuations since then, with upticks occurring both in the post-referendum fourth quarter of 2016 and again at the end of 2017. The current level of EU registrations was last seen in the second quarter of 2014 and earlier this century it has been still lower, going below 20,000 at the end of 2009.

Last month, London Mayor Sadiq Khan criticised national government’s proposed “skills-based” post-Brexit immigration policy, saying it “flies in the face” of what London businesses want and would hit recruitment in several parts of the capital’s economy, including construction, social care, health and hospitality. The London Chamber of Commerce and Industry has called for the Mayor to be given in new role in administering immigration to make it easier for London businesses to hire the workers they need.

Graph from Centre For London London Intelligence Issue 7.

Categories: Centre for London, News
Tags: Brexit, Centre For London, European Union, Sadiq Khan

Private renters squeezed and London housing market ‘stalled’, new figures show

Think tank Centre For London highlights 'a number of worrying trends' across the capital
Dave Hill

The average proportion of Londoners’ income devoured by private sector rents rose to 31.5 per cent in the final quarter of 2018, the highest level for four years, according to figures published by think tank Centre for London.

At the same time, the number of planning permissions for new homes and the number on which building has started is falling as house price growth and sales have slowed, threatening the overall supply of new dwellings.

Silviya Barrett, research manager at Centre for London, said, “London is displaying a number of worrying trends,” stressing the difficulty of getting by when nearly a third of your income goes on housing costs and the urgent need for local authorities and and housing associations to “take up the slack in building the homes London needs”.

Drawing on Office for National Statistics prices data, the think tank says in its latest London Intelligence bulletin that, “In November, after six months of declining rents, year-on-year prices in the capital remained static,” but that figures from property market intelligence company Dataloft, based on reports from around 15 per cent of transactions, “indicate that London rents actually increased in Q4 of 2018”.

The largest increase found was in rents for terraced houses, up by 4.7 per cent in the year to December 2018, while that for single bed flats was a more modest 1.8 per cent. Centre For London also reports that the average age of London private sector tenants has fallen to 32 compared with 34 in 2015, with more than half under the age of 29. Continuing wage stagnation is adding to the squeeze on renters. However, a reduction in non-UK EU nationals coming to live in London since the EU referendum, lessening demand in the private renting sector, might have meant rent rises have been lower than previously expected

The housing trends are brighter for first-time buyers, whose number increased to reach its highest level since 2015 helped by average house prices rising by less than one per cent. However, the volume of buying and selling of homes overall in the capital fell by a striking 18 per cent in the year to October 2018. Barrett attributes this to, “Brexit uncertainty, existing homeowners staying put and a lack of confidence among house buyers”.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced yesterday that he has asked his deputy for housing James Murray and Westminster North MP Karen Buck, a specialist on housing issues, to develop proposals for “stabilising or controlling private rents in the capital”, although for these to be implemented would almost certainly require a change in national law.

City Hall also said that any such policy introduced would also have to protect “new supply and investment”. A 2015 report for the London Assembly housing committee by the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research modelled six different rent stabilisation scenarios, which broadly found that a range of moderate measures to hold down rents would reduce the rate of rent increase and the supply of new rental homes by small amounts.

 

Categories: News
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