The Grenfell inquiry must feel the collars of the developers carving up our cities

Sat Jul 15 00:14:19 BST 2017

The Grenfell inquiry must feel the collars of the 
developers carving up our cities
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/14/grenfell-developers-cities-politicians-lobbyists-housing>Anna 
Minton Friday 14 July 2017

The revolving door connecting politicians with 
lobbyists clearly helps them, but does it benefit us?
http://tlio.org.uk/the-grenfell-inquiry-must-feel-the-collars-of-the-developers-carving-up-our-cities/

 Anna Minton is a housing writer and author of 
<https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0241960908>Ground 
Control: fear and happiness in the 
twenty-first-century <https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0241960908>city

The community of North Kensington is demanding 
that the 
<https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/15/theresa-may-announces-public-inquiry-into-grenfell-tower-fire>public 
inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire be 
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/03/grenfell-residents-boycott-superficial-public-inquiry>widened 
in scope. It must, local people say, seek to 
understand how residents voices have been 
systematically ignored for so long. On the other 
side of London, Haringey residents took to the 
streets last week, protesting at 
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/19/lives-torn-apart-assets-labour-privatisation-north-london-haringey>their 
councils plans for regeneration.

To understand why people feel their voices are 
not being heard, it is essential to investigate 
the 
<https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/nov/25/guardianobituaries.obituaries>environment 
in which politicians and developers operate. 
Local government has a history of corruption that 
includes the jailing of the Newcastle council 
leader 
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/northeast/series2/tdansmith_newcastlepolitics.shtml>T 
Dan Smith in the early 1970s, and the illegal 
decisions made by Shirley Porter in the 
<https://www.theguardian.com/politics/1994/nov/05/uk.politicalnews>Westminster 
homes for votes scandal in the 1980s.

Today such criminality is rarer. Instead, we have 
a concerning culture of cronyism that, while not 
illegal, suggests a lack of accountability. From 
the housing minister down to the local 
councillor, elected politicians now routinely rub 
shoulders with property developers, house 
builders and commercial lobbyists. This is no 
accident. Politicians decisions have an impact 
on companies ambitions, whether they are 
reviewing planning applications, setting 
affordable housing targets or regenerating 
whole areas. Bluntly, companies want these 
decisions to go their way. Develop connections 
with the decision-maker and you can strip out 
risk, in the words of one lobbying firm.

The politicisation of planning has come with the 
growth of the 
<https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/03/shops-call-centres-not-answer-for-urban-regeneration-redcar>regeneration 
industry. While once planning officers in local 
government made recommendations that elected 
members of planning committees generally 
followed, today lobbyists are able to exert far greater influence.

Its not easy to see into this world, but there 
are traces in the public domain. Registers of 
hospitality, for example, detail some of the 
interactions 
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9921344/Councillors-for-hire-who-give-firms-planning-advice.html>between 
councillors and the commercial property business. 
Take a week in the life of Nick Paget-Brown, the 
Kensington and Chelsea leader who 
<https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/30/kensington-and-chelsea-council-leader-nicholas-paget-brown-quits-in-wake-of-grenfell-disaster>resigned 
in the aftermath of the Grenfell fire. In October 
last year he had lunch at the five-star 
<http://www.guoman.com/en/london/the-royal-horseguards.html>riverside 
Royal Horseguards Hotel courtesy of the property 
giant Willmott Dixon. The previous evening he had 
been at a reception put on by the business lobby 
group London First, whose membership is dominated 
by property and housing firms. He had breakfast 
with the Grosvenor Estate, the 
<http://www.standard.co.uk/business/duke-of-westminsters-grosvenor-estate-hit-by-london-property-squeeze-a3523076.html>global 
property empire worth £6.5bn, and lunch at 
Knightsbridges Carlton Tower Hotel. This was 
paid for by the Cadogan Estate, the second 
largest of the aristocratic estates (after 
Grosvenor), which owns 93 acres in Kensington, 
including 
<http://www.thewalpole.co.uk/member/Cadogan/>Sloane Square and the Kings Road.

Image result for rock feilding mellen

<http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tory-charge-grenfell-tower-refurbishment-10722834>Tory 
in charge of Grenfell Tower refurbishment 
investigated TWICE over his role: Rock 
Feilding-Mellen was probed after Kensington and 
Chelsea Council approved a scheme to lease a 
library building to a prep school at which his 
children were on the waiting list

<https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/30/grenfell-fire-key-questions-kensington-and-chelsea-council-must-answer>Rock 
Feilding-Mellen, the councillor in charge of the 
Grenfell Tower refurbishment, who has 
<http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/politics/deputy-council-leader-rock-feilding-mellen-who-managed-grenfell-tower-refurbishment-is-director-of-firm-looking-to-build-300-homes-on-the-outskirts-of-norwich-1-5087014>stepped 
down as the councils deputy leader, had his own 
list of engagements. As 
<https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2017/01/09/rocky-mipim-and-the-lobbyist/>the 
Grenfell Action Group noted earlier this year, he 
was a dinner guest of Terrapin, the firm founded 
by Peter Bingle, a property lobbyist renowned for lavish hospitality.

Bingle is also a player in the other big 
regeneration story of recent weeks: Haringey 
councils approval of plans for its 
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/19/lives-torn-apart-assets-labour-privatisation-north-london-haringey>HDV 
 Haringey development vehicle. This is a 
<https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jul/03/labour-mps-urge-haringey-council-to-rethink-housing-sell-off>partnership 
with the Australian property developer Lendlease, 
a lobbying client of Terrapins. The HDV promises 
to create a £2bn fund to build a new town centre 
and thousands of new homes, but local residents 
on the Northumberland Park housing estate, whose 
homes will be demolished, are vehemently opposed. 
The Haringey leader, Claire Kober, has lunched or 
dined six times at Terrapins expense.
Nick Paget-Brown, leader of Kensington and Chelsea council.

Nick Paget-Brown, leader of Kensington and Chelsea council.

In Southwark, just as in Haringey and Kensington, 
there is a 
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/02/politics-politicians-revolving-door-barroso-cameron-dorporate-pay>revolving 
door between politicians and lobbyists. The 
former leader of Southwark council, 
<http://35percent.org/2014-10-19-gamekeepers-turned-poachers/>Jeremy 
Fraser, went on to found the lobbying firm Four 
Communications, where he was joined by 
Southwarks former cabinet member for 
regeneration Steve Lancashire. Derek Myers, who 
until 2013 jointly ran Kensington and Chelsea and 
Hammersmith and Fulham councils, is now a 
director of the London Communications Agency, a 
lobbying agency with property developers on its 
client list. Merrick Cockell, the leader of 
Kensington and Chelsea until 2013, now chairs the 
lobbying firm Cratus Communications, which also 
specialises in property lobbying. In Westminster, 
the hospitality register for the last three years 
of its deputy leader, 
<https://www.westminster.gov.uk/cabinet>Robert 
Davis  chair of the councils planning committee 
for 17 years  runs to 19 pages.

Cities other than London and rural areas also 
provide examples of worrying relationships. In 
East Devon a serving councillor was found in 2013 
to be offering his services as a consultant to 
help developers get the planning decisions they 
wanted. In Newcastle a councillor who worked for 
a lobbying company 
<http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/10281547.Councillor_denies_wrongdoing_over_lobbying_involvement/>boasted 
of tricks of the trade that included making 
sure planning committees included friendly faces.

Meanwhile the culture of regular meetings and 
socialising does not stop with councils. The 
diary of David Lunts, head of housing and land at 
the Greater London Authority for the first three 
months of 2017, reveals a lunch in Mayfair with 
Bingle, a VIP dinner laid on by a London 
developer, another meal paid for by a housing 
giant, and dinner on Valentines Day with a 
regeneration firm. Consultants and a developer 
furnished him with more meals before he headed 
off to Cannes for <http://www.mipim.com/>Mipim, 
the worlds biggest property fair. He also had 
dinner with Rydon, the firm that refurbished Grenfell Tower.

Further up the food chain, it was only because of 
Bingles boasts that we heard of a dinner he gave 
the then local government secretary, 
<https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2011-10-22/gaping-hole-in-rules-lets-eric-pickles-keep-five-star-business-dinner-private>Eric 
Pickles. Held in the Savoys Gondoliers Room, it 
was also attended by business chiefs, including 
one who was waiting for a planning decision from 
Pickless department. The dinner was never 
declared on any register of hospitality because 
Pickles said he was attending in a private capacity.

Lunts former colleague 
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-blakeway-7a869253/?ppe=1>Richard 
Blakeway, who was Londons deputy mayor for 
housing until last year, and David Camerons 
adviser on housing policy, became a paid adviser 
to Willmott Dixon. He is also on the board of the 
Homes and Communities Agency, the government body 
that regulates and invests in social housing. Its 
chair is Blakeways old boss, the former London 
deputy mayor for policy and planning 
<https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/homes-and-communities-agency-register-of-interests/sir-edward-lister-register-of-interests--2>Ed 
Lister, who is also a non-executive director of the developer Stanhope.

The MP Mark Prisk, housing minister until 2013, 
advocated removing unnecessary housing, 
construction and planning regulations as part of 
the governments 
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/sep/02/environmental-regulations-red-tape-challenge>red 
tape challenge. He became an adviser to the 
property developer Essential Living, eight months 
after leaving office. Prisk advises the firm on 
legislation, providing support for developments 
and brand building. Essential Livings former 
development manager Nick Cuff was also a 
Conservative councillor and chair of Wandsworths 
planning committee. A colleague of Cuffs, who 
spent 30 years in the south London boroughs 
planning department, now works for Bingles lobbying firm, Terrapin.

This is the world that Kensingtons Paget-Brown 
and Feilding-Mellen, Haringeys Kober and 
countless other council leaders inhabit. 
Socialising between these property men  and they 
are mostly men  is used to cement ties, and the 
lines between politician, official, developer and 
lobbyist are barely drawn. This culture, and the 
questions of accountability it raises, must be 
part of the public inquiry into Grenfell. It is 
perhaps no surprise that the government doesnt want it to be.

 Tamasin Cave, a director of the lobbying 
transparency organisation Spinwatch, contributed to this article

 Anna Minton is a housing writer and author of 
<https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0241960908>Ground 
Control: fear and happiness in the twenty-first-century city

<https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0241960908>
[]

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<http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fspitfirelist.com%2Fbooks%2Fmartin-bormann-nazi-in-exile%2F&h=eAQErj17O>http://spitfirelist.com/books/martin-bormann-nazi-in-exile/   
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