Karen Alcock was for 12 years a Hackney councillor and for five of them the borough’s deputy mayor under Jules Pipe, nowadays Sir Sadiq Khan’s deputy mayor for planning. She founding Kanda Consulting in 2017 and, as its managing director, has built it into formidable company in its field, specialising in advising clients from the world of development and placemaking, primarily in the capital. Good knowledge and intelligence about London government is important to that work. That, together with her experience as a London politician, made Karen a compelling choice as a post-borough elections Talk About London guest.
She gave London Society chair Leanne Tritton and I revealing insights into what London’s droves of brand new borough councillors will have discovered about their powers and responsibilities since getting elected – not least that they can’t get started right away. New leaders, mayors and cabinet members, of whom there are also many, “will need to spend some time getting to know their officers,” she said, “that’s the key thing.” Those council officers, local government’s civil servants, will have their work cut out in order to “get people ready to make decisions,” she added.
That process can be very slow, especially if newcomers want pending decisions left over from previous administrations of a different political colour revised or reviewed. Meanwhile, the line-ups of planning committees, for example, will have changed and their meetings postponed. And before you know it, the summer holidays will be here, followed by the party conference season and it will be 2027 before you know it. Karen also talked about the Enfield New Town plan, the likelihood of more interventions in planning decisions by City Hall and much more. Watch and learn below.
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