LREF 2016: Best value guidelines in the OJEU and public land disposals process need to be changed to support communities, according to Tony Pidgley, chief executive of Berkeley Group.
“We have a sophisticated society, London is a world-class city, we have excellent borough leaders. But the government has set down under this OJEU process that we must always get best value: I think the best value is people’s lives and community,” he said.
Pidgley made the comments on a special LREF panel for the Mayor’s Fund for London entitled “Building for the future”, which chair Matthew Patten said was actively seeking to address the software side of the development equation: community engagement and development.
Pidgley said that for Berkeley as a developer, community engagement must begin on day one, and “the politicians will come second”.
“We have to recognise that housing is about people first and foremost: that is where we as a regenerator start,” he said. “We put the people first, then work on the strengths of building.”
The panel universally agreed that community engagement was essential in development, although Jamie Ratcliff, assistant director responsible for housing at the Greater London Authority, warned that that encouraging the right kind of engagement was important, and that where London often sees the most community engagement is in opposition to development.
“You get strong community engagement against regeneration that is happening: people uniting around a common theme they do not like,” he said. “There is a challenge where people get engaged against something, but how do you get them to be more positive?”
Ratcliff said the London mayor Sadiq Kahn was looking at new ways to increase community engagement.
