Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
100-119)
SIR ROBIN
WALES, MR
JULES PIPE
CBE AND MR
ROGER TAYLOR
17 MARCH 2010
Q100 Mr Ainsworth: You are very,
very optimistic about the jobs prospect here and that is good
and your optimism is commendable.
Sir Robin Wales: But!
Q101 Mr Ainsworth: This is exactly
the sort of opportunity I seem to remember Michael Heseltine was
talking about 25 years ago, so it is good that the Olympics may
trigger that vision for the east of London. In terms of the jobs,
you have said how important the retail side is—Westfield—and
there is going to be a retail legacy ,but where are the other
jobs going to be coming from? What assessment have you made of
the impact of a very major retail opportunity on that site on
existing retail activities, say Thurrock and Bluewater?
Mr Taylor: I am sure that Robin
will want to deal with the second of those, but as far as the
first is concerned the economic model which Oxford Economics are
building for us at the moment is based upon the most tested assumptions
we can make about the additional job flow into the five host boroughs
over a 20, 30-year period. That involves an aggregation of what
we are confident in expecting to happen in Canary Wharf, on the
Woolwich and Greenwich Waterfront, in the Royal Docks, in the
Olympic Park and in Stratford City and Westfield. Our relatively
conservative estimate of that is that we are looking at a minimum
of around about 150,000 new jobs and a maximum somewhere around
about 250,000, given the master planning and the planning approvals.
Q102 Mr Ainsworth: In 20 years' time?
Mr Taylor: Over the next 20 years'
time. When Crossrail is completed and Canary Wharf is doubled
in size and all the financing for the stations under Canary Wharf
are in place then we are looking at somewhere between 75,000 and
100,000 new jobs in Canary Wharf alone. So I think we have to
take a very thoughtfully realistic but nevertheless optimistic
view and to plan our own jobs and skills programmes against the
template of what we expect to see coming into the area over that
time.
Mr Pipe: To put it into context
so that it appears perhaps a bit more realistic, instead of thinking
of it as a development on a particular site with a red line around
it, effectively we are creating here a third of a new London borough.
Then when you think of it on that scale, and how then if there
is not a red line around it, that it then diffuses into the areas
around it and there are spin-offs and support industries that
would be wanted for creating effectively a third of a new London
borough, that is where we are hoping that all that activity will
be coming from.
Q103 Mr Ainsworth: Are you building
in some fairly heroic assumptions about the future growth rate
of the British economy over the next 20 years?
Sir Robin Wales: No. It will grow
at the pace it grows but it will be jobs and new jobs. Talking
to other employers, there is a variety of conversations already
going on with other people, I think, moving in and looking to
come there. What is going to happen in two years' time is that
we are going to have the most wonderful opportunity to showcase
these areas within the Park. I come back again to the Royal Docks—a
huge area of development with fantastic transport links. With
Crossrail coming through the transport links are amazing. We were
just saying it was easy to get here on time; I do not know why
you guys are based here, you should be based in Stratford, you
can get around London much easier. There are fantastic transport
links and people will come and they will build things there. It
will develop as it develops. It has all stopped for a while, except
for Westfield and, to be fair, ExCeL as well. You have ExCeL building
an international conference centre down there. What will happen
is that as the economy picks up the jobs will come and we must
make sure—and this is the big challenge—that people
can access those jobs. You asked the question about retail. I
said 8,500 retail jobs, they will not all be new because some
places will close. I actually think, personally, if I took a view
I would say that Ilford might be in some difficulty but I doubt
if Thurrock will. I know my daughter plans to spend a lot more
money in there and so I know there will be a big increase in net
spend!
Q104 Mr Ainsworth: In Bluewater?
Sir Robin Wales: No, in Westfield.
It is interesting with the number of shopping centres in the west
of London that we do not have one in the east of London really
of that size, if you think about it. You have Croydon.
Q105 Mr Ainsworth: You have Lakeside
and Bluewater.
Sir Robin Wales: That is outside
London; that moves outside a bit, plus Lakeside competes at a
different market end—it is a very different end of market.
Bluewater maybe, but then that is South of the water. It is going
to affect some parts of the other regions, of course it will,
but that is why I say it is 8,500 jobs but they are not all brand
new; but there will be thousands of them that are new and will
be generated there. Plus why should we not have a top quality
retail development there so that our people can access the jobs?
It is very hard to get to Bluewater and Lakeside, very hard.
Q106 Mr Ainsworth: Despite the wonderful
transport links.
Sir Robin Wales: It is in the
centre.
Mr Pipe: It is fine if you have
a car to get down there.
Sir Robin Wales: Yes.
Q107 Chair: You previously expressed
some concern about jobs going to what you called transient workers,
is that still something that worries you?
Sir Robin Wales: It is a huge
problem. We were just doing some numbers for this in fact, looking
at the number of people. I think it is something like 20% of the
people in the Park—the jobs in the Park—have an East
London postcode. If I tell you that I have twice the number of
international and national insurance registrations that anybody
else has got. I will take you to the houses in multiple occupation,
of which there are many. People have come over to work—we
get that—they have come and they are living in houses in
multiple occupation (HMOs), they are making their money and they
have no intention of spending it but they are building up some
money. I cannot blame anyone who does that, but the net effect
is that we are sucking people in from elsewhere who will end up
doing the jobs. That is a real problem if we are going to get
our people to do the jobs. If we are being fair we would say that
some of our people might not have had the building skills to build
the things that are going on but with the apprentice system—which
stuttered but it is moving on a bit now—we can train people
to build over the next 20 years; and over the next 20 years down
the Lee and along the Thames there is going to be a huge amount
of building—Canary Wharf—so apprentices are quite
important. The truth is that we do not have the evidence because
we are not given the evidence by the ODA. They will tell you 20%
are five borough postcodes and we say, "Give us the addresses
and we will tell you how many of them have been living in the
borough for two years or more," but they will not give us
that. They will make claims about what is going on there but the
simple fact is that it has not transformed the local area or really
helped to transform the local area in that sense. I will come
back again and say that for me the Olympics is about inspiration;
it is about the fact that we are sitting here talking about the
East End, which you would not have done otherwise. It is the fact
that we are talking about the SRF and the convergence and we have
got people to sign up to that. That would not have happened without
the Olympics. The Olympics, I would argue, is more a state of
mind and more about inspiration. The actual development that is
taking place, that is why we value Westfield more highly because
those will be more local jobs and we have an opportunity of getting
people into those jobs, hence the Retail Academy and the large
sums of money we are putting into that to make sure that our residents
are able to access that. I think the ODA overclaims. I am quite
happy to be told that that is not true if somebody will give us
the information and we can check it, but that is not made available
to us. But that is yesterday's news, and it is what we are doing
with the permanent jobs and the opportunities and there will be
issues around some of the LOCOG jobs of course because if we get
that right potentially those will be jobs that are not necessarily
so highly skilled. Albeit only for a short-term those are jobs
that are quite important to us as well, to get people used to
working and then into work. It is like anything, it is like all
these things, it may not work but we have a chance and we should
take that chance.
Mr Pipe: The snapshot of the figures
that we had for January, from Hackney there were only 126 people
from Hackney working on the site—6,277 is the figure currently
on there in January. Obviously I am deeply disappointed in that.
All five boroughs have been pushing and pushing this issue for
more years than I can remember, this very issue about getting
people from the boroughs, and this issue which Robin has touched
on that it cannot just be people using HMOs or temporary lodgings
or whatever while they are working on the site. Undoubtedly we
have been disappointed and we remain disappointed. That said,
to reiterate a little bit of what Robin said, it was never really
the main prize. There is a disappointment but the short-term construction
jobs and even shorter LOCOG jobs was never really going to be
what transformed the boroughs, the legacy was going to be about
reinventing a post-industrial area, whether it be Westfield, whether
it be the Media and Broadcast Centres, whether it is all the hinterland
in between, with all the support industries we would hope are
going to come, that was really always going to be the long-term
prize.
Q108 Mr Sanders: The Broadcast and
Media Centres and the legacy of that construction, are you confident
that the Broadcast and Media Centres will be occupied after the
Games?
Mr Pipe: I can be absolutely confident
they will be occupied; the question mark is what with? Obviously
it has been of great concern to me and my administration and the
Council and the borough that it is something which raises aspirations,
which fits with the borough and is not something that is just
plonked from outside, that it is not used, for example, just for
storage. I am sure you know that there are two basic elements.
The Press Centre, which is effectively a well wired-up office
building, so perfect for creative media industries, digital news
gathering organisations, that kind of thing, that is about 300,000
square feet. Then 600,000 square feet, you have the Broadcast
Centre which, again, is very well connected in terms of power
and Internet connectivity, again, good for the latest approaches
to production, whether it be broadcast production or any kind
of creative media industries that rely on high power and digital
connections, which has seen the industry move from having its
heart in Soho over the years—where you cannot get the power
to run the air conditioning and the servers and the Internet connectivity
not being so good—to Shoreditch and benefiting from cheaper
warehouse-type accommodation and the bandwidth afforded by the
City of London being adjacent to that. Now prices are rising there
and more of those warehouses are being turned into lofts and prices
are rising and bandwidth is being constrained and not so much
investment is going in there or, if it is, it is to maintain that
for the City and not spare bandwidth that they can use sending
films and recordings and stuff backwards and forward between here
and the West Coast of America so, again, they need somewhere new.
I think that there is an issue about how attractive the Broadcast
Centre is as a building and so there will be a big issue for the
Legacy Company (OPLC) to make that an attractive place which is
going to be appealing to media professionals. Often it has been
somewhat, I would say, disparagingly termed a "big tin shed",
and undoubtedly that is what it is, but actually big large spaces
are what some of these companies need. The fact that there is
good transport access, Internet power and all that stuff has the
potential to be a really good offer. I do not want to take up
the Committee's time but the OPLC now, it is great that that has
been formed and it is up and running because what has been lacking
is someone—other than the boroughs—who really has
the power and the control to market that building because it is
never really the ODA's job because they are gone after 2014 so
filling it is not really their responsibility and never has been.
The tenants that you would want in there—or even the tenants
you do not want in there—no potential tenant was going to
sign in 2006-07 for a building that they could not occupy until
2014 and beyond, and unfortunately that was often portrayed as
no-one is interested. I would not be surprised if no-one was interested—it
was six or seven years out and no one even knew what the building
was going to look like inside or out. I would think that we should
be getting worried by about 2012 if still two to three years out
from occupation no-one has expressed an interest, that is when
I think we should be worried. Here at 2010 now I think is when
we should be generating interest for people to occupy it.
Q109 Mr Sanders: However, you do
need an overall framework, do you not, for how you envisage those
buildings being used and there were proposals for some sort of
a media city. Is that still a possibility?
Mr Pipe: Absolutely and I believe,
looking at transcripts of this Committee, that you heard from
Baroness Ford she has very much adopted that as the Plan A for
the site. You did quiz her about the Plan B and she said that
she did not have one up her sleeve at the moment but it was a
priority to work on that. The initial priority now is to promote
the Plan A. I cannot reiterate enough that it is not some sort
of strange concept that is being plonked down, an island in the
borough. In that area of East London there is something in excess
of 12,000 artists and they are not purely fine artists, it is
creative and cultural industries doing all this recording and
post-production works on films. This business sector is the small
and medium-sized enterprise sector within the borough. We see
it as something that fits with the borough.
Sir Robin Wales: It is worth making
a comment here. It has been very interesting watching this because
Jules has led very much with a vision for this place, which the
five boroughs have supported but Jules has driven that vision.
It is as we have gone on and people have begun to connect with
the SRF and understand what we are trying to do that people have
begun to realise we are now with the OPLC, which I think is people
understanding that legacy is important and beginning to line up
behind the vision that Jules has pushed extensively because he
understands the nature of his community and how that might work
and how it will relate. I think it is a really good example of
something being pushed by a local borough, backed by the rest
of us, looking to have a vision that will make a difference there
and will link in with the community he has got. It comes back
to heroic economic assumptions. What comes out at the end will
come out, but at least we are trying to do something that will
deliver, something that will work for the local area, based on
the vision that we have had locally and people are now beginning
to line up to. So the question now is: do we get people lined
up to support us on public policy and then the jobs that will
come out will be the jobs that come out and they will begin to
make a difference, particularly to Hackney but also to some of
the people in Newham who will be able to access that, and other
boroughs. It is a really good example of how the vision has been
led by boroughs and people are now getting it.
Q110 Mr Sanders: What needs to be
done to deliver the Media City?
Mr Pipe: There are tenants already
from outside Hackney but also from within Hackney, businesses
that want to expand, so there is a reservoir of interest there.
To make it work as well as it could, it would be great if we could
get a big anchor tenant in and those kinds of conversations are
going on at a high level between OPLC and various potential people.
Q111 Chair: Do you mean a major broadcasting
company?
Mr Pipe: It could be. That would
be the ideal; perhaps that would be shooting for the moon but
let us go for that and something in between, a small, medium-sized
outfit which people have still heard of because then having that
anchor tenant will be seen as attractive to other players to locate
there. But also I think it is key to have something that raises
the reputation of that area and then it is almost used as a brand
name for the area, that will draw people in. As I say, it will
be good for the borough to have a flagship employer in that way.
Q112 Chair: Can I turn to housing,
and particularly obviously the use of the Olympic Village. We
explored nomination policy a little bit with Margaret Ford, although
she said that that was not something particularly she had focused
on. What is your ideal in terms of the nomination policy about
housing?
Sir Robin Wales: Can I just step
back a second and say that you have the social housing and housing
policy, but what will the nature of the rest of the housing be
is something that we have to answer. I have churn in my borough
between 25% and 40% a year in my wards. Stratford is a huge churn.
We have done research into the nature of the flats that have gone
up around Stratford—the better end—and they are being
rented by people who work and basically it is a place to sleep
and they go out and do other things, which is what people do when
they are young and that is fine. What we could easily end up with
is what we have ended up with elsewhere in the borough, which
is a desert, with people not interested in the community and so
we have a bunch of social tenants in there—not huge numbers—and
no real community. I think we have to have a proper debate and
discussion around what will happen with the rest of the housing.
Ideally we want people who live there to buy and then continue
to have an interest in the community. So any discussion about
the Village I would argue needs to start with what happens to
the private sector area because this has to work; if it does not
work it can damage the rest of the Olympic area and the Olympic
Park. We are now arguing, for example, for a Royal Park because
we think that that will raise the whole standard of the area and
people will get some sense of a better place, a place where it
is really good to live. The OPLC understands that it needs to
get housing and family housing and not just blocks of flats, so
starting with that. Then you get to this question about what would
the nature of the allocations be and we are about to have a big
discussion with various partners where we talk about who would
we move in. Certainly from a Newham point of view—because
the Village is in Newham—we took a court case which opposed
housing by need and were successful in turning the policy around,
and the Government has now introduced a policy which would allow
us to support people who are working into social housing because
our view would tend to be if you have a low rent that is a great
benefit if you are working and on a lower income, but if you are
on benefit that is not much of a benefit at all. We are certainly
at the moment having a discussion around allocations policy and
there are plans to have it. We need to make the community work—start
off with the community. I get very frustrated when I hear people
talk about "units"; talk about the community that you
are trying to create and how that will look. If we want to have
this as a place that people want to live in in 100 years' time
the community has to work. To do that you do not then take, for
example, social housing for everybody that is not working together
because we have evidence that that does not work, so if it does
not work perhaps we should stop trying to do it. The nature of
the allocation as to who moves in there is, I think, up for debate
at the moment and all the people involved are willing to look
at that in a radical way that will enable us to build a community
there. But I will come back again, you can do that in the social
and affordable rent side, what about the rented properties that
you will end up with? People will invest and buy chunks off the
plan and they will end up with a lot of people that do not necessarily
spend a lot of time there. For me it is a very clear thing, this
should be the responsibility of the OPLC, it should not be the
responsibility of the ODA and the ODA should be handing over that
responsibility to the OPLC tomorrow because the ODA has no locus
or interest there. It is not that they are doing badly because
these guys have built an Olympic site on time and on budget, they
are doing a really good job from the point of view of doing what
they were asked to do, but they will not be there after 2014 and
we will. The OPLC should be the people who are actually involved
in the Village now. I am very clear about that.
Q113 Chair: Baroness Ford said that
she wants to see more low rise family housing, which is much as
you have said.
Sir Robin Wales: Correct.
Q114 Chair: Is it possible to alter
that now?
Sir Robin Wales: Not in the Village
but it is possible in the rest of the borough.
Q115 Chair: Subsequent development.
Sir Robin Wales: We need to think
about the Park, 100-odd hectares, lots of development sites, a
lot of opportunities to build something different plus—and
people keep forgetting this—think outside the Park. Perhaps
the best site for development at the moment is the existing Stratford
for which we have the freehold, because we could start developing
it in 2012, we do not have to wait until after the Games. It is
a wonderful site next to a major tube station and what we would
like to do is to put all the land and the landholdings round about
with the Park because the idea that you have a Park and it just
has a fence around it and nothing happens outside the fence is
ludicrous. So put it all in together and say, "How would
you develop the right thing?" We need some flats, London
needs some flats—that is not a problem—but we need
family housing for some of the communities we are going to build.
Let us think about the nature of the communities we are building.
I think, for example, one of the things I have been pushing for
is to say that if we build some flats let us not have any social
housing in it but let us take the money we get from it and buy
housing elsewhere in other parts of the borough that would suit
social and affordable housing. Let us think about the communities
we are trying to create; let us understand who is going to live
there. As I say, we did some very interesting research which says
that flatted property around Stratford generally people rent it
who are working; flatted property elsewhere in the borough generally
people who rent it are not working. Let us think about that, what
that means, and let us think about how we build those communities.
We are up for any ideas that will make it work but let us also
think about around the Park, the outsides of the Park, that is
something that the OPLC is going to have to get its head around,
it has not been there very long but it is something that we would
talk to them about it. That does not just apply to the Newham
end; it applies to the Hackney end and round about as well.
Q116 Mr Sanders: Moving on to the
Olympic Stadium—and we had quite a discussion about this
in our last session—who would be the host boroughs' preferred
legacy occupant of the Olympic Stadium?
Sir Robin Wales: You are talking
of West Ham's new stadium, are you not!
Q117 Mr Sanders: That is your answer.
Sir Robin Wales: The OPLC is going
to go out for a bidding process and so they should. I speak now
only for Newham—others may have other views—from a
Newham point of view getting West Ham in there is a very big plus.
I know it does not matter to anybody else but getting out of the
Boleyn would be a very big bonus for people around about there;
the development of the Boleyn would be a really important development
for us and it goes on then to Queen's Market. So for us, in the
sense of our borough it would be potentially something very important.
My worry is that if we do not get a sensible tenant in there and
in the Aquatics you will be knocking it down in 30 years because
that is what will happen. Look around all the stadia. Manchester
showed us the way to do this; Manchester has taught us a lesson
because Manchester Council was responsible for it. The question
you should ask is: why four years ago did we not work through
the different scenarios and say what would the sensible thing
be in terms of having a legacy? The finances would have been better
then as well, so why did we not work that through three or four
years ago? Given where we are now, we should look at all the options
and Newham's preferred option is West Ham moving in there. We
can see the significant benefits and also we think it helps to
protect the club and likely to keep the club as a major club,
which again is in our interests. We can see the benefit of developing
that whole area. For me I am very clear it should be West Ham.
I understand that the OPLC is going to go out to a tender process
and that is the right thing it should do; I hope it comes out
with the answer of West Ham. I declare an interest, I am a season
ticket holder; although the way we are playing this season I do
not know why!
Q118 Mr Sanders: It is closer to
Leyton Orient's ground though, is it not, the Olympic Stadium?
Sir Robin Wales: Yes, and if Leyton
Orient can shift its 500 fans down the road get in there! Yes,
we all like Leyton Orient!
Q119 Mr Sanders: Are OPLC including
the host boroughs in their deliberations at the moment on this
issue? Have you been involved?
Mr Pipe: Very much so, but Robin
and I are also on the board of OPLC so we are fully aware of that.
As Robin said, we are all supportive of it going out to tender
and it is completely open as to the size that it would be and
the way it would be used afterwards, so it is not going out and
saying, "Okay, who is interested in an 80,000-seater stadium?"
or "Who is only interested in only a 25,000-seater stadium?"
Basically there is a range of ideas being put forward for how
it can be configured and it is being put up for offer to the world,
if you like, for someone to come forward with a use. What is really
positive is, as Robin has outlined, there is at least one outfit
that is very keen to occupy it; so that is positive.
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