The built environment professions have a big job to do if they are to restore trust with the populations they serve. But a concerted effort to improve and respond to issues by taking responsibility, offering clarity and providing ‘purpose’ via the New London Agenda – rather than offering up yet another word-based ‘vision’ – will offer a key way forward.

 

Those were some of the conclusions to be drawn from the latest meeting of NLA’s New London Sounding Board last week, which was Sadie Morgan’s first as chair, where she pledged it would be ‘relevant, up to date, and more than a talking shop’. Priorities for the group going forward, said Morgan, will be in helping to force a ‘radical shift’ in London’s fiscal structure and the way in which its built environment is designed, built, financed and managed. ‘I’m generally an optimistic person’, she said. ‘I’d like us to be realistic but ambitious, to be proactive and be able to offer pragmatic steps for the built environment to improve consistently.’

 

Three speakers outlined their thoughts on key principles for the New London Agenda to move to that position – Arup’s Jo Negrini on taking collective responsibility; Argent’s Robert Evans on providing clarity, and U+I’s Martyn Evans on building trust.

 

Negrini said she had visited 90 of Arup’s offices across the world in a six-month study to identify key drivers and that the single biggest issue across all was equity. With the rise of social movements across the world, people are pointing to inequalities in cities, and rising up and making demands, she said. ‘There is a whole movement of people saying this cannot be the way our cities are run and we want to have an impact on what happens’, she said, adding that we need to build an inclusive city, engaging with communities all around London.

 

Robert Evans said there was an absence of clarity at the moment and a huge amount of investment required, despite the ongoing narrative of London as being ‘this unbreakable winner’. ‘We are at the crossroads’, he said. ‘There are huge challenges, and the context is not as strong as it was’, with potential investors being more questioning about London now. The capital has always had a history of messiness, of ‘fudge and nudge’, but more clarity is nevertheless needed. ‘Right now, I have never felt more like there is a paucity of vision’. Evans said that other key issues include affordable housing, where the public don’t understand why policies are not implemented, leading to a lack of trust, which also comes from poor quality housing provision. ‘The standing of the industry is very, very low’, he said.

 

Finally, Martyn Evans said we all need to spend more effort in trusting each other, building on what has become a transformed relationship and collaborative working between the public and private sector since the crash of 2008-10. This could deliver socio-economic change, but takes understanding, not least through cross-industry working, understanding and trust. But trust – which Evans agreed is as low as it has ever been - is needed between the private sector and general public too, with companies working harder to create better buildings for people. 

 

The sector does come up with solutions too, however, as it did with Bazalgette’s sewerage system too, driven by ideas, collaborative working, ‘huge public will’ and money. Expertise is important across the industry, especially given all our lives happen in buildings or the spaces between buildings. ‘We are one of the most important industries in this world, and yet our reputation is terrible. How is that possible?’. Essentially, we need to understand more about people, how they live and work – and what they need. 

 

The Sounding Board members responded to these presentations with observations including from Kat Hanna of Avison Young, who stressed the need for the agenda to embrace something genuinely new and framed around London, but also to talk about the money side of the industry. ‘Most of what we do is in Excel, rightly or wrongly’, she said. Getting people to understand that and being honest about money, and indeed what the right type of money is right for London whether that be from Asia or Russia, are important questions too, she added. ‘Everything when it comes down to a breach of trust is generally due to decisions about money’.

 

TfL’s Graeme Craig agreed, saying he struggled to think of an industry to which people have been more hostile, with a particular lack of understanding about what constitutes affordable housing.  ‘They feel like there are some alien monster that comes and destroys, block by block, little bits of London’. There is a tangible lack of confidence in London, but the answer does not lie in a spreadsheet but a compelling narrative connecting stories about people rather than buildings, he added.

 

Other views included that from LSE’s Tony Travers, who felt the industry is ‘trapped in the middle of a culture war’ and much of the problem lies in the political system, even if London is in a better position economically than the rest of the country. The downside there is that it will receive less policy help. And Binki Taylor of the Brixton Project said it was important to embrace humility and communicate better, helping people understand the planning system and how they can ‘meaningfully and productively’ be involved. ‘There is knowledge in the community’, said Taylor. ‘We can help you suck that up if you need to’. Dr Wei Yang, deputy chair of the Construction Industry Council said despite planning being a highly political issue it was important to try and achieve a ‘universal common good’. ‘No matter which party you come from, we still have to think about human survival’, she said. ‘Our real plan should be for the general public’. Yang suggested we should define what good looks like and work out how to achieve that, Cath Shaw of Barnet adding that long-term stewardship should also be part of the picture, not least as an aid to restoring public trust. 

 

Finally, Westminster’s Debbie Jackson suggested there was still a problem about inclusion in the higher levels of industry, but there was still a need for the development professions to take on and talk about key challenges like the thousands of families in temporary accommodation, or the primary schools losing pupils as families move out. ‘We need to align around an imperative, a common purpose, and we need to find that urgency’, she said. ‘We all know it’s there when it is sustainability and social crisis, but it’s not urgent enough. The platform isn’t burning enough. We really need to think about how we do that in order to really drive action, to shift from recovery post pandemic mode, to actually ‘what’s the ambition?’.