The Challenges Facing Local Authority Regeneration

Primarily limited capital balanced against a political back drop to deliver much needed affordable homes. Below we have outlined how Pulse supported LBS to lead them from a Stage two design into contract with a developer and onto site in just 12 months.

Pulse carried out an evaluation of the routes to market that could support LBS regeneration requirements. Following an appraisal of the options to engage private developers, we recommended the Pagabo Developer framework. A competitive tender process followed in which Linkcity were appointed. Following an intense period of negotiation, including weekly legal and financial meetings, we were able to recommend to Cabinet a phased approach to development which prioritised the affordable housing, whilst giving the site sufficient future returns for Linkcity to generate a land receipt for LBS.

LBS took a proactive approach to community engagement, going over and above the GLA guidelines on balloting local residences to vote on regeneration plans. Over the course of a number of months, regular resident engagement activities meant that when it came to the resident votes, there was considerable support for the scheme .

It was important this good work wasn’t compromised, Pulse with LBS set out a stakeholder plan which included weekly resident meetings. We also ensured that residents had a voice in the selection of the developer and a resident group was formed that helped to set the tender questionnaire, evaluate them and were part of the interview team. This buy-in was important to LBS to ensure residents continued to be heard. Now on site, Pulse takes a group of residents on a weekly walk round, in addition we have committed significant social value to the local community by sponsoring a local girls’ football team, hosting a pitch at local resident days as well as running skills workshops, our favourite though is running belly dancing lessons in the local community hall!

Like most regeneration projects, the Tustin estate is not prime real estate. Early in the project we set out a strategy that could give potential investors confidence in the value of future opportunity. To give confidence we needed to make sure a developer was involved in the master planning and that the massing of future phases was sufficient to drive value. We achieved this goal by procuring earlier, by finding a route to market that gave LBS sufficient confidence in the right type of developers being interested and by setting out a programme that ensured both current day value (from contracting arm) as well as future value from private development. All of this was balanced with a plan and engagement that gave assurances on grant, planning and programme.

Inevitably there were some practical challenges to overcome. We had to run several work streams side by side, this meant that all parties had to be well resourced, it also meant that LBS had to engage in a risk profile that some local authorities would have felt uncomfortable with. The result was phenomenal, from all parties there was a well-resourced team that worked collaboratively to drive the programme and deliver outcomes that all could be proud of.