Examination of Witnesses (Questions 83
- 99)
WEDNESDAY 24 FEBRUARY 2010
MS ROSEMARIE
MACQUEEN,
MR STEVEN
BEE AND
MR JAMES
HOWE
Q83 Chairman: Can I welcome our final
panel today. Could you introduce yourselves formally for the shorthand
writer, please?
Mr Bee: I am Steven Bee, Director
of Planning and Development, English Heritage.
Ms MacQueen: I am Rosemarie MacQueen.
I am the Strategic Director for the Built Environment at Westminster
City Council.
Mr Howe: I am James Howe representing
the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and I am currently
employed by the Church Commissioners as Rural Asset Manager.
Q84 Chairman: Could you each characterise
your working relationship with The Crown Estate Commissioners?
Mr Bee: Yes. Our relationship
with them, English Heritage being a statutory consultee within
the planning process, is mainly in three areas: the urban developments
they get involved in, which are mainly in central London; the
rural developments and mainly agricultural activity that they
have in their estates across England; and increasingly, as you
have heard earlier on, the marine activities over which we have
a responsibility as a consultee both on planning consent in the
coastal area and on marine licences.
Ms MacQueen: The relationship
with Westminster City Council is that from the days where The
Crown did not need to seek consent they are now within the normal
planning regime on a level playing field with everyone else, so
for any planning or listed building application, they have to
make applications to ourselves. They are a member of something
called the Westminster Property Association and via that, and
also individually, they lobby hard for amendments or to engage
with us in terms of policy making, in terms of also justifying
the planning and other associated applications that they make.
For example, they have made 200 planning applications in just
the last five years to us. They own 1,000 listed buildings and
94 or 95% of their stock is within conservation areas. They do
also have a residential estate in Westminster. Part of it is ordinary
market housing, but there is some social housing, of which there
has obviously been some recent correspondence in the last week
or so.
Q85 Chairman: We will come to that,
but could you just characterise your working relationship with
them?
Ms MacQueen: The working relationship
is what I would describe nowadays in planning terms as being planning
management and therefore it is a partnership arrangement. They
have no special favours but they are a very intelligent and astute
organisation in terms of the fact that they use top-quality architects
and planning consultants to put together their packages. They
are very aware of what the Council's wider objectives are in terms
of livability and total place making and I think we have a very
productive relationship with them, but it is a tough negotiating
relationship on both parts.
Q86 Chairman: What about the industry?
Mr Howe: I have had in the past
regular meetings with my opposite numbers on The Crown Estate
rural portfolio. I regard the relationship as one where we are
comparable. Although we have a smaller acreage than The Crown,
we use common agents for many of our activities and the relationship
is one of a useful exchange of industry and professional matters
and they are certainly a useful source for me and my colleagues
in assessing how other organisations such as The Crown are operating
their portfolios.
Q87 Chairman: Thank you. My colleagues
will follow all that up in detail, but can I just put to Westminster,
the current concern amongst tenants of the estates to which you
referred is that in essence The Crown Estate is trying to raise
some £250 million of revenue, which may deprive your city
of some affordable and key worker housing?
Ms MacQueen: Yes, that is a concern
and I have to say I was rather flippant in the material that I
put in, not knowing that the very next day there was going to
be an announcement made in the press. It is not just, though,
to do with residential. I would say also that very, very recently,
in the last few days, we have also heard about the possibility
of selling part of the Crown Estate in Westminster, although they
are at pains to say they will keep management responsibility for
that, which does have some concerns for us because we have had
experience in the past of offshore owners of property in Westminster
and you do not get quite the same dialogue as you do when they
are on the same soil. But going on to the key worker and also
the affordable housing units, which they have predominantly in
the Millbank area, yes, there is concern there and indeed only
at the end of last week I had a meeting with The Crown's chief
executive and the leader of my Council when we put our case. The
case on their part will obviously be given to you, but they are
saying that for existing tenancies, those who are on assured tenancies,
the rental will remain the same because they will negotiate that
with the person or the companies who may buy. However, our concern
is that we have nomination rights for a number of units—we
have still to establish it, but we believe it is several hundred—for
people who are working in the Primary Care Trust, teachers in
Westminster and also in services such as the Police and Fire Services.
What we are concerned about is that there may be assurance of
tenancies now, but when those tenants either go or when the assured
tenants eventually, I am afraid to say, die that will then be
a break and there will then be no opportunity in the future to
retrieve that.
Q88 Chairman: My colleagues, I think,
will want to pursue that, but in general terms for Westminster
they may be selling off a lot of residential properties, raising
over £200 million, but you are also involved because they
are trying to redevelop in Regent Street, are they not?
Ms MacQueen: They are.
Q89 Chairman: Are you not concerned
that essentially they are selling off some of their residential
properties in order to finance the redevelopment at the other
end of your borough, your city?
Ms MacQueen: Yes, well, I do understand
the linkages that have been made, although in a sense a substantial
part of Regent Street, luckily for us, is coming to a conclusion
in terms of redevelopment, although they are now stretching into
St James. So, yes, the limitations they have in terms of raising
money are of interest. However, I am slightly puzzled by this
point because to date the 200 applications that we have dealt
with, or at least the 10 major applications, have been funded
by whatever means and they are very complicated and very major
schemes, so they have some methods already of raising money.
Q90 Chairman: So they do not need
to sell off these houses to finance the Regent Street development,
is that right?
Ms MacQueen: I do not know the
details of what their financial cases are, but to date they have
not.
Chairman: Okay.
Q91 Sir Peter Viggers: I was wondering
the extent to which they have consulted with you, Westminster
being a key player in this issue, about the possible sale of 1,300
homes in the London area?
Ms MacQueen: Well, as far as our
area is concerned—that is all I can speak for—I received
a letter the day before it went into the press that this was about
to occur. I then alerted the Director of Housing and the cabinet
members who needed to know and the ward councillors. None of those
knew in advance that this was about to occur.
Q92 Sir Peter Viggers: Did that surprise
you? I am trying to get a comparison with other large landlords?
Ms MacQueen: I did not find it
unusual that other large landlords might choose to do that, I
have to say, but the spirit of partnership working that we certainly
have had and has been very productive in the commercial estate,
I was a little surprised and maybe they were a little surprised
that we were very quick off the mark to ask them to come in and
discuss the matters with us. Obviously there has been quite a
bit in the press and I have had very recently a letter from Paul
Clark, who is the person in charge of this proposal at their end,
stressing the fact that they have full engagement with their tenants,
illustrating by way of letters, public meetings, et cetera, what
they are going through and when they came in they were also at
pains to stress that for current people in assisted rental properties
they were giving very clear indications that their position was
secure but, as I say, our concern is in the long term because
affordable housing is greatly needed and there is a direct linkage
in a sense between that and the running of their commercial operations
because if you do not have people to clean the streets and keep
the lights on and do all the other work then that estate in a
sense does not function as the rest of the West End may function.
Q93 Sir Peter Viggers: So dealing
with The Crown Estate, how would you compare their performance
and the relationship you have with them generally compares with
other large reputable landlords?
Ms MacQueen: Westminster is sort
of an odd planning authority anyway because we do have large tracts
of land which are settled estates, so there is actually quite
a lot of similarity between the way they operate and the Grosvenor
Estate, Howard de Walden, Portman, et cetera, all of whom, like
The Crown Estate, have very long-term interests which can be very
beneficial for both the residents and also visitors and workers
in Westminster because you get a very long timespan that you are
looking towards. I would say that the relationship of The Crown
Estate with us is very much on the same level as it is with those
other long-term players. They have a very sophisticated understanding.
They use, as I said, very good agents and there is a long-term
engagement, not just in terms of in a sense getting what they
want, which is the eventual planning permission, but fulfilling
the terms of section 106, which in Westminster are quite interesting,
what they are required to do in terms of things like public realm
improvements, job clubs, local employment either during building
phases or later on. These are all in a sense common currency that
we negotiate with each of those, so there is not much difference
between all of them, including policies on things like sustainability
and green matters.
Q94 Mr Todd: One gets an impression
in some of the evidence that The Crown Estate is used to operating
under its own terms, although very refined and comfortable terms
in many ways, but they are protected in law differently from any
other landlord with whom you might be a tenant. For example, I
do not think there is an enfranchisement right, is there, for
a Crown Estate tenant?
Ms MacQueen: I am afraid that
is a technical area and I am unable to respond.
Mr Bee: I cannot answer that either,
but in terms of their approach, if I can reinforce what Rosemarie
was just saying, we come across them mainly as developers of major
projects that are going to affect significant parts of the historic
environment and they are generally on a par with the best of the
private sector developers with whom we work. When they are working
at their best they come and talk to us early, explain what they
are planning to do and allow us to help them shape things in a
way which is going to secure both a commercially attractive scheme
and protect the—
Q95 Mr Todd: I was thinking more
in terms of the ordinary tenant as opposed to perhaps English
Heritage's role, where I imagine they are well-versed in what
is required and probably rather enjoy that relationship, but the
more day-to-day activity of dealing with legal issues of a tenant's
rights and an expectation of consultation might not necessarily
be something they are desperately familiar with, is that right?
Ms MacQueen: Well, they do support
something called the Regent Street Association, which is a body
which is in a sense separate, although I understand has funding
and is certainly located there within their estate, and the Association
is there to, in a sense, have a corporate voice back to them about
matters like that.
Q96 Mr Todd: That is in the retail
sector, yes, and we have had evidence of a very positive relationship
there which the Association appears to welcome.
Ms MacQueen: There is also a business
improvement district called the New West End Company. They are
a member of that and obviously via that, in order for a bid to
get off the ground, you have got to get people to agree that it
is a good thing, which includes some of the tenancies of the properties
we are talking about in the longer term.
Q97 Mr Todd: I think we are going
to have to put some of these more detailed questions on the rights
of tenants to a different group of witnesses. If we can turn to
Regent Street and its development, how successful do you think
they have been in their attempts to modernise the retail environment
along Regent Street? They own, I think, the entirety of Regent
Street, do they not, or virtually all meaningful parts of it?
Ms MacQueen: They have been extraordinarily
successful. They were very clever in the way they went through
the process. They looked first at what people understood about
Regent Street—it was rather dusty, lots of airlines, carpet
shops, et cetera. They then moved to positioning what they wanted
to do, which was to make it an internationally branded street.
Obviously because they had the control they were able to decide
which shops they would want to put in when leases fell in and
they then in a sense blocked the street and came through, jointly
between ourselves and English Heritage, in terms of what some
people would have said was extraordinarily radical. The street
was full of listed buildings and yet when you look at something
like the Apple store I do not think anyone would think that is
a fuddy-duddy use within a fuddy-duddy building. The best elements
of all the listed buildings have been kept. In many instances
they were pretty much Queen Anne fronts and Mary Anne backs, so
they were able to do almost like a façade scheme, which
is more usually what you get in a conservation area, but in other
areas we have asked them, we have required that staircases and
various internal rooms and features like in the Café Royale
are kept in the normal way. So they have been extraordinarily
successful. It has become a destination that international visitors
will want to go to see when they come to London.
Q98 Mr Todd: I understand, but from
the English Heritage viewpoint—because, as you rightly say,
there is quite a number of buildings that are of importance?
Mr Bee: That is right. We have
done a huge amount of work with The Crown Estate and working increasingly
closely and early in the process, as I was saying. We have been
able to help them identify what is most historically significant
about places which then allows them to make substantial modifications
to those parts that are less significant, and I think the proof
of the benefit of that is in how Regent Street looks now. It still
looks like a historic street. It still has those characteristics
that make it distinctive, if not unique, and at the same time
is becoming commercially successful. That commercial success,
of course, attracts the investment in that sustains the historic
character, so as far as we are concerned it works very well. Generally
speaking, they come and talk to us early and that led to things
like the Regent Palace Hotel being substantially modified, in
fact largely demolished although it is a listed building, in order
to secure a commercially viable development for that and the wider
area. We were able to accommodate that because we had identified
what it was that was particularly significant and they kept and
restored that.
Q99 Mr Todd: So it is a success story?
Mr Bee: Generally speaking, it
is a success story.
| 
