Examination of Witnesses (Questions 960
- 979)
960. Mr Binley: May I just interject.
I am trying to work out if this is yards or metres. There is a
scale at the bottom.
961. Mr Cameron: There is a scale at
the bottom and I suspect it is in metres, but I will ask Mr Penfold
to confirm that.
(Mr Penfold) Thank you for that.
962. Sir Peter Soulsby: I suspect it
is metres.
963. Mr Cameron: We have both ducked
the question, Mr Penfold, so we had better move on.
964. Sir Peter Soulsby: I am sure you
will let us know.
965. Mr Binley: If I may say, I am used
to running 100 yards, not 100 metres. I am old, so I need that—
966. Mr Cameron: Certainly, it is those
few left over yards or feet at the end of the 100 yards when you
go to 100 metres that really counts. Mr Penfold, going back to
exhibit 10, without going into the detail of the policies, can
you explain to us what opportunities there are for further development
in Islington and then Hackney and then Tower Hamlets by reference
to exhibit 10?
(Mr Penfold) Islington UDP, which was adopted
in 2002, before the London Plan, does recognise the large new
office developments built close to the City, but also that areas
of the borough close to those developments still suffer a high
level of deprivation. So it seeks to secure local employment benefits
from new commercial developments. It carries forward opportunities
which have been identified earlier in Strategic Guidance for 1996,
including the recognition of the City fringe as a key margin opportunity.
It therefore identifies, at policy E12, which is at document 50,
the City fringe/Finsbury as a priority area of regeneration, where
the council will, among other things, seek to secure employment
opportunities for local residents and attract and assist new economic
sectors. It identifies a number of sites for employment development
adjacent to those identified in the Hackney UDP, and those sites
are actually shown on exhibit 10. They are referred to at page
90 of the documents.
967. That is Islington.
(Mr Penfold) Yes.
968. On page 90 do you draw attention to Ropemaker
Place as a possible major office development as a new scheme in
the pipeline. Is that closer to Moorgate than Liverpool Street?
(Mr Penfold) Yes, it is.
969. Anything else on Islington, or can we move
to Hackney?
(Mr Penfold) No, we can move on to Hackney.
Its UDP was adopted in 1998, again, prior to the London Plan.
It has produced a third options paper, another policy document,
in 2005, so it is moving its policy on. The UDP identifies the
protection of further development of London's role as an international,
national and regional centre of commerce by fostering a range
of appropriate activities. That is a strategic objective, and
that is at document 53, tab 13.
970. Then if you go on in that there is a schedule
of commitments and proposals, but it is probably more useful to
the Committee to look at exhibit 10. As far as the Hackney allocations
are concerned, are they closer to Liverpool Street or Moorgate?
(Mr Penfold): For the most part—
971. Sir Peter Soulsby: I think, Mr Cameron—I
am sorry to interrupt again—the Committee are already persuaded
of the fact that a lot of people work in the area, persuaded of
the fact that a lot more people would do so in future and persuaded
of the fact that it is important to make provision for those people
in future, and that with additional employment the area is likely
to put further strain on already strained public services, particularly
on the transport infrastructure. I think, perhaps, if we could
accept that we might be able to move forward to some of the rather
more significant issues.
972. Mr Cameron: Certainly, sir. (After
a short pause) Sir, what Mr Laurence has suggested to me, and
I have adopted it, is to make a request of you that perhaps we
could just have a few minutes, only two or three minutes, so that
we can, if you will permit me and if my learned friends do not
object, to pare down the evidence to make sure that Mr Penfold
knows where we are going, I know where we are going, and we can
then concentrate on the issues which you want us to deal with.
I am equally happy, sir, to press on.
973. Sir Peter Soulsby: Mr Cameron, we
can take five minutes.
After a short break
974. Sir Peter Soulsby: Mr Cameron?
975. Mr Cameron: Thank you, sir. I think
we can cut out a lot of what you may have heard. Mr Penfold, I
would like to ask you about one particular point about Tower Hamlets
and its approach to new development. The reason I am going to
ask you about that is because Mr Rees was asked about it expressly
in cross-examination and he did not deal with it because it lay
outside the City boundaries. If you could go to your exhibit 7
please and at the same time as having exhibit 7 if you can turn
up the extract from volume 4a of the Environmental Statement and
map 7(i). Do you have both those documents in front of you?
(Mr Penfold) I do.
976. During the course of Mr Rees' cross-examination,
and for anybody who wishes it it is paragraph 398 of Day Two,
the point was put to him there were not as many opportunities
for redevelopment in the Tower Hamlets city fringe because of
the presence of conservation areas and from the Tower Hamlets
document you have at exhibit 7, do they see the presence of conservation
area as a barrier to office development?
(Mr Penfold) No, the city fringe area action
plan, which is a consultation document so it has not yet been
adopted, nonetheless does show on the eastern boundary next to
Liverpool Street, in blue, an area which is labelled "Bishopsgate
Area Location for Major Office Development", and my reading
of those two plans is that a pretty significant part or at least
a part of that blue area is actually identified as a conservation
area in the Crossrail Environmental Statement. So it would seem
that Tower Hamlets see no reason in principle why a conservation
area cannot be included in an area for major office development.
977. Thank you. Moving on from that point, the
next point might be called the development pipeline. Can we go
to your exhibit 8 please. Mr Rees has already provided the Committee
with information on the amount of development proposals coming
forward. Can you just tell us in exhibit 8 how you have chosen
the schemes over 21,000 square metres for inclusion?
(Mr Penfold) I have chosen 21,000 square metres,
which probably seems like a rather odd threshold, because it brings
into the equation one of our own developments, including 10 Exchange
Square at Broadgate, which I am intending to refer to later, in
terms of the way in which we market this floor space to prospective
tenants and the importance of transport, so I thought it useful
that we include it in the schedule rather than bring it in fresh
at that point and it had to provide a cut-off somewhere. These
are schemes within 800 metres of Liverpool Street station and,
as you can see, they are categorised by their status, "constructed",
"under construction", "planning permissions"
and "planning applications". I should say that there
are no "under discussion" sites here, which is a term
Mr Rees used, because of course those sites he is involved in
discussion on, if British Land has no ownership interest, I have
no knowledge of those discussions, but I have at the bottom included
the allocated sites that you saw on the previous exhibit.
978. For the purposes of modelling future passenger
demand, various assumptions have to be made about office growth
and assumptions can be made on the basis of planning policies
about named developments. Just as an example, if one takes the
period 2001-2002, a period when the London Plan was being prepared
and therefore assumptions were being made as to growth, which
as we understand it, were fed into the demand modelling, would
all these developments have been known about at that time?
(Mr Penfold) It depends who you mean would
know but certainly if we mean the market or policymakers, the
answer would be no. Our planning application on 122 Leadenhall
Street, which is in the planning permissions section of the schedule,
was not submitted until spring of 2004. The Stone House and Staple
Hall proposal I do not think would have been known about in 2001-2002
and the DIFA planning application under planning applications,
the first one Bishopsgate Towers was certainly not known about
in 2002 by the policymakers and nor was 133 Houndsditch, which
again is one of ours.
979. Why is it that you, taking the British
Land example, have come forward with those proposals, I think
you gave a date of 2004 for 122 Leadenhall Street, what has encouraged
you to bring those proposals forward?
(Mr Penfold) Particularly on Leadenhall Street
it was that change in policy, the adoption of the cluster policy
by the City Corporation and the Mayor's approach to tall buildings
in his policy document that suggested to us that there was an
opportunity at 122 Leadenhall Street for a tall building, which
indeed there is, and we now have planning permission and we are
taking the project forward by securing vacant possession of the
existing building so that we can commence development early next
year. The same would apply to 51 Lime Street, which is a much
less tall development but nonetheless still tall at 26 storeys.
That was really enabled by a change in policy so it is very important
to us that we are aware of where policy is moving.
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