Hi, Jamie. How are you? 

 

I'm good, thanks, David. How are you? 

 

I'm very good, thank you. I have a few questions to ask you about Brent Cross Town, principally, the first of which being about the government's target of 1.5 million homes over the next five years. What are Related Argent's priorities in the context of that housing challenge - with regard to Brent Cross and elsewhere?

 

We welcome the target. We think it's good to show such ambition, but clearly the details are what matter here and we think with Brent Cross Town we have a great opportunity for us to assist in delivering that number of homes. New towns like Brent Cross should play a huge part in hitting that target. We have the need and the ability to get on and deliver and realise the potential of Brent Cross Town and other sites like it, in terms of being able to deliver volume on these important London sites. So, we're very keen to see how the mooted policy changes come through, how affordable housing funding comes through, and how we can be unlocked to start delivering greater volume on our scheme in North London

 

What do you need from central government in terms of policy or investment decisions to accelerate housing delivery across the whole capital?

 

The big thing for us comes down to affordable housing and viability. We keep getting caught in this cycle of viability; of, in some ways, doubts, I guess. You know: why can't more affordable housing be provided? Why shouldn't it be a percentage of the overall market housing delivered? That is an approach that's been around for a very long time. We're all very familiar with it. My view and our view at Related Argent is that that approach needs to be changed. It needs change. It needs to be reviewed. We've seen the statistics just prove, generally, the very low numbers of housing that are coming through anyway, housing starts. Of course, affordable housing is then just a percentage of those very low numbers of market housing starts, because that's the system we have. That's how it works. Affordable is just a negotiated percentage of open market housing. And when open market housing is not fully firing on all cylinders, and the market is constrained and all of the headwinds that we all read about and talk about all the time are slowing down, housing starts slow and then affordable housing suffers. One of the things we've talked about, and Tom Goodall, I know has talked about a lot as our CEO, is the need to really decouple the delivery of affordable housing from market housing. That's not to say that the private sector shouldn't deliver affordable housing, shouldn't contribute to affordable housing, but there needs to be a new approach to how housing associations and RPs can be capitalised and how we can then all work together to deliver affordable housing across the whole spectrum.

 

What impact is the Building Safety Act having on delivery too?

 

It's not helping! (laughs) We have a project at the moment that is in Gateway Two, so I can speak with first-hand experience. I mean, it's clearly a massive blocker to development at the moment, to start. I think it's starting to become a blocker to planning applications as well. I think developers are now fully aware of the viability risk that the gateway process presents to their projects and vendors are obviously wising up to it as well. So, we are now coming to this point of massive inertia in the industry, where people who want to get started can't, people who haven't yet started are now questioning whether they should start until the process gets a bit better. So, it is having a huge impact at different points in the development pipeline. It's clear that the central government and the regulators themselves are doing the right things to speed the process up and make it more efficient and resourcing up. They are reviewing the process. But for the short- to medium-term, it is going to constrain delivery of housing, particularly in London and South East, where you see the majority of the high-risk buildings coming through are being caught by the regulation.

 

When you cast your mind back to King’s Cross, how different is the atmosphere now to what you experienced then with the residential component? And indeed, in terms of the site, how different is Brent Cross Town to King’s Cross in terms of the challenges you face?

 

Well, to take your first question first, yes, we're in a very, very, very different market.  King’s Cross was always a commercially led scheme with a big housing component. That housing was market for sale, with a good proportion of affordable housing delivered alongside it. That affordable housing benefited from a generous grant programme, and the market for sale, the private sale market, was much stronger. At the point that the market for sale, or private market sale market, started to slow down, King’s Cross had already established itself as a really desirable place to be, and that helped to carry us through the more challenging market we've seen in the last seven years or so. Brent Cross Town, from that point of view, is quite different. We are selling at a different price point. We're selling to a different customer base. We are clearly working in a far more constrained sector of the market and the economy as a whole is in a difficult spot. So, it is challenging. That said, though, we are building some amazing homes; feedback has been great from the people moving into them. The quality is really good. And we like to think we have learned our lessons from King’s Cross. And we're doing as good, if not better, a job at Brent Cross Town. So, it's similar, but different. I guess, in terms of the actual masterplan itself, and the challenges we face delivering Brent Cross Town, those are actually more similar to King’s Cross. When I talk to my colleagues here who have been with the business for a long, long time, and remember the early days of King’s Cross and the issues they had around how to fund infrastructure and how to spend money in the right places, at the right time, to enable the next phases of above ground development, those challenges are really quite similar. And we've been working through that for the last 10 years at Brent Cross now. That's how long we've been in our partnership with the London Borough of Barnet. But now, if you go up to the site today, you'll see the fruits of those labours. And we've got buildings completing. The station is open. Parks are open and looking amazing. So that 10 years of hard craft on getting the infrastructure right is now really starting to come good. 

 

You mentioned feedback just now from residents, which has been positive. I'm presuming they're from the Conductor House and Delamarre residents, are they, overlooking the park?

 

That's right. With our partners L&Q we moved over 90 families into Conductor House from the existing Whitefield estate, which is part of Brent Cross master plan – to great feedback. A lot of those people have been waiting for new homes for a very long time, and they are over the moon to be moving into a new, purpose-built, safe and warm building, which has been really great to see over the first few months of this year. And at the Delamarre and now The Ashby, which are our two first market sale buildings, again, feedback has been really, really good from residents.

 

What are they particularly liking?

 

Well, they have liked working with us as a developer – without blowing my own trumpet too much! Our customer care team have done an amazing job of making them feel welcome and  moving them in safely.  I think it's a welcome surprise for most people, Brent Cross. Most people's association with Brent Cross is the shopping centre or things other than our master plan. So, when they turn up to their new homes and they're on the park; it's got great transport connections, it just feels like a new, quite exciting place to be. I think that people bought into that, that when they when they originally signed up to buy a home here, and I think we delivered on that promise, which has been really good to see. 

 

Well, congratulations so far! What's next on in terms of milestones for the area?

 

Two weeks ago, we opened our first build to rent building at Brent Cross with our partners Invesco. That's called The Maple. So, we're leasing that up, and people are moving in at the moment. That's exciting. We've got our first office building due to top out later this summer and complete next summer. So that's also really exciting, and we're now working really hard to get our first retailers in and open to our new neighbourhood square, which is a Granary Square, Mark Two…

 

Fountains?

 

Fountains, indeed! 

 

Excellent. Okay.

 

If you come up in September, I'll buy you a coffee and you can draw your own comparisons!

 

I'd love that. Well, congratulations again, Jamie, and yes, I look forward to coming up and visiting again, because Brent Cross Town is such an interesting place. Thanks a lot. 

 

Not at all, thanks for your time!