The Landlord Who Stays and Operates
Most commercial property has stopped behaving like a bond. The owners built to replace the passive model are patient, involved and rarer than the market needs. Prime office space in Britain is being taken up almost as fast as it is listed, around 83 per cent of take-up in London and the South East and […]
Nine Frameworks. No Integrated Operating Method
The case for a harmonised national standard for place operation which adapts to the economy and flexes to the place. A good contact of mine took on the running of a refurbished market hall in the East Midlands earlier this year, after he won the bid for what was an under-performing space. Being conscientious and […]
Who answers for a place after opening day?
It is time to design the framework and an “operator of record” sector which owns what happens after the builders leave. Sefton Council refurbished Southport’s market hall in 2012 and set itself a plain test of 90 per cent of the stalls let out. Occupancy hovered around 70 units for a while, then slid, and […]
The Ribbon Is Not the Finish Line
Why developments end exactly where places begin. Every large mixed-use scheme makes the same promise at the planning stage. Homes, yes, but also the life around them. The cinema and the food hall. The nursery, the youth programme, the partnership with the local college. The square that holds a market on Saturdays and something worth […]
Gentrification, Viability and the Argument London Keeps Avoiding
Why the fight over a single word leaves the mechanism that decides affordable housing untouched. I have spent a good part of my career operating inside the contested regeneration zones of London, consulting with developers and local authorities, building and running mixed-use businesses in exactly the kind of neighbourhood where a development proposal and a […]
The Money That Was Never There
How to fund a giveaway out of money that does not exist. On 20 July, in his first major act as Prime Minister, Andy Burnham announced that VAT would come off domestic electricity bills from 1 October, worth around £45 on the annual price cap and costing around £850m this year. His new Chancellor, John […]
The Lender Always Reads the Speech
Andy Burnham said he wouldn’t bow to the bond markets. Then he did. I have sat in enough rooms where money was being raised to know the exact moment the mood changes. It is not when someone questions the vision. Visions often survive scrutiny, because most people in the room wants to believe them. The […]
When the Money Looks Better Than the Market
Why Britain keeps funding the appearance of renewal. I have spent the better part of a decade building and operating community food markets and was fortunate enough to receive the then largest single grant the Mayor of London’s Good Growth Fund awarded to a private project for the development of a sustainable food and brewery […]
When the Average Does the Talking
Why a third of Britain no longer believes in the degree. I spent three years at law school, a year at my post-grad and emerged with a qualification which, in the early 2000s, functioned exactly as advertised. It opened a door, and behind that door was a career. I mention this because I am aware […]
Lower Value Human Capital
Why the scandal was the vocabulary, not the layoffs. I have spent most of my career around investment committees and boardroom tables where people describe other people in transactional language. Capital allocation, headcount optimisation, resource rationalisation. The jargon is familiar enough that most executives stop hearing it. Which is why, when Standard Chartered’s chief executive […]