Maximising the social, cultural and financial outcomes of placemaking

Richard Vernon:
Hello and welcome to Ashurst Business Agenda. My name is Richard Vernon and I am a real estate partner at Ashurst in London. Today's placemaking conversation is part of Ashurst reimagining real estate campaign. And those operating in the development world often talk about placemaking, But I'd like to unravel some of the mystery that surrounds placemaking. What do we mean by placemaking in practise? How do we know if we've achieved it? And why is it important? I have great pleasure in being joined today by David Lockyer. David is head of campuses at British Land and for the last 12 years of British Land, has been integral in driving forward British Land's purpose to create great places that people prefer. Welcome, David.

David Lockyer:
Hi.

Richard Vernon:
So David, the magic word, placemaking, and many sell themselves as having placemaking at the heart of what they do and their development strategy. But as a couple of words, there's a bit of mystery there. And what I'd like to do, is ask the question from your perspective, is how long has placemaking been a thing in the development world? And has its importance or focus changed more recently? What's your thinking?

David Lockyer:
Sure. I guess as a thing, placemaking's been around for forever. I mean public squares where people came together for various reasons, whether it be to, I guess, trade goods or arenas for various types, whatever that might be, sporting or religious or whatever. So I guess placemaking around the world has been around forever. But I guess to your question, when did it emerge as a thing? I guess, it's probably in the 1960s. So it's been around for a while. And that was really when, I guess, there was an increased focus on how an individual experienced the environment. And more of a human scale perspective taken into account to inform good urban design.

David Lockyer:
But probably now, the last 10, 20 years, it's probably a term that slipped into common language of every developer in every scheme. And I think you alluded to that, and as such, it's probably overused. It's, I guess, adopted as this catch-all term that means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. And as a result, I guess it's outcome can vary hugely as a result. And I guess we might come to that in a moment, I guess.

Richard Vernon:
So, yeah. Well let's talk about that. The outcomes and what it really means in practise I suppose, is that at the hub of this because, I think from my perspective, it'd be really helpful to understand placemaking by asking you to, if I could pick a British Land scheme, a scheme that's been delivered, but using British Land's strategy delivered an outstanding place, which is clearly what you're driving. And having identified that, how does British Land measure? How do you measure the result in benefit both to British Land and others? How do you say to yourself, "Yes, I've done it"?

David:
Yeah. I guess the example I'm going to pick is what we're doing at Broadgate. And I would say, I don't think we've created an outstanding place yet at Broadgate. And for those of you who don't know Broadgate, it's a 32-acre office led central London campus, and it's still work in progress. But I'm really pleased with the transformation we've begun to make there over the last few years. And when it was built, it was a really iconic development when it was constructed in the mid-80s. And it really adopted the principles of placemaking at the time in terms of its architecture. And in particular, on its focus on the public spaces between the buildings. And I think you know, it was ahead of its time in that regard. But over time, the needs of those businesses that occupied the buildings and crucially, the needs of the employees, the people had changed.

David:
And that brings me back to that point around human scale perspective that I made a moment ago. So really it's been about thinking how we could reinvent Broadgate to capitalise on the assets that we already have. And as a result, create these deeper sort of social, personal connections and a clearer identity. So in 2016, we adopted a vision, which importantly, I think, we saw more of as a philosophy rather than a process. And underpinning that vision, we had these four placemaking principles. We termed them the four Cs. It was about create, connect, curate, and custodianship. And that really helped us translate our vision into a plan and turn that shared vision into a reality.

David:
And it took quite a long time. We talked to a lot of people and we really listened because we wanted Broadgate to be this inclusive dynamic place which fostered collaboration. Constructing a building or just designing a piece of public realm is not placemaking.

David:
So to date, what have we done? Through a mix of meanwhile uses, 20,000 square feet of space we donated to a theatre group for a world first rehearsal space. That's definitely a big change to the financial services industry at Broadgate that you would have found there a few years ago. But it was really around the opening up of ground floors to accommodate different types of uses in terms of leisure and retail and F and B, which was really key. Because previously, the financial services businesses who'd occupied these buildings had not wanted to share the buildings with other people. And so you had lots of blank facades and lot of inward looking impenetrable buildings. And you know this, Richard. Ashurst were at Broadgate for a number of years, and you'd have experienced this and your staff would've experienced this.

Richard Vernon:
So picking up on delivering that, a question that I always ask myself is in terms of creating that place. Ultimately, there are development costs that come into all aspects of these schemes, but take a step back. Does making that place... Does delivering that outstanding place cost more to deliver than otherwise? And also, on the other side of the appraisal, is it going to create financial value? You've got that balancing act there between that drive to deliver an outstanding place. But ultimately, does it work from an appraisal, from a profit perspective?

David:
Sure. And of course, yeah. You know, it does cost more to deliver outstanding places. And it's always tempting to cut corners or not do it properly. And just, I think we can all think of places where it looks fine on a piece of paper and design, but when you get there, it really fails to live up to the promise. And British Land, our purpose, our overarching purpose is to create places people prefer. And I guess, coming back to your question, how do we know whether we've achieved that? Well, it's a fairly blunt metric, and a bit explicit, but one of those is how well do we lease our space? Businesses choose to take space in our buildings not just because of great transport links or the quality of the buildings themselves, but also because of the environment around them, because that's important for their employees. Whether it be health, happiness, productivity, attraction and retention of staff, creating these engaging, safe dynamic environments are really key.

David:
And so leasing success is a fundamental point for us and yeah, that comes through on the appraisals, but there are other factors, there are other measures that we take into account. How well do we score in our customer satisfaction surveys? We ask people what they think. Would they recommend Broadgate as a place to come work and spend time? We monitor on a daily basis, what's happening in our footfall? How are the restaurants and bars performing? And then also, I think... And it'd be good to sort expand on this as well. Is we look about what difference have we made to the communities in which our places are located? Are we truly inclusive? Have we created spaces that bring people together?

Richard Vernon:
So going back to your point around taking a design on a piece of paper, and a slightly tongue in cheek question, but again, looking at that again in terms of that design, how is place making more than just a nice design? What's it, again, trying to target that place and what people prefer? How do you take a design on a piece of paper and bring it to life?

David:
And I think it is this point around. It's a philosophy, not a process. And to me, placemaking has to be something that's inspirational. It's got to really strengthen connections. It's more than just the physical design aspect. It focuses on the cultural aspects of a place. It focuses on the social elements and of what defines a really great and sustainable place. And an example of what we're doing at Broadgate more generally is how we've opened up the spaces, how we've taken down some of the, I guess, physical barriers around Broadgate to really knit it back into its urban fabric around the neighbourhood around it. As I said, opened up the bars and restaurants. And we've done that some times. Maybe not to the highest rent payers, because we've seen that the additive effect that those uses bring to the space as a whole really start to make it become this socially inclusive and welcoming place that the sum of the parts is really important for us.

Richard Vernon:
You mentioned their sustainability and of course, over recent years and right now, and it's inescapable that it has to be on the agenda because health and wellbeing ESG is top of everyone's agenda. It's what everyone's talking about. And I suppose a question there is, I think from what you're saying, placemaking really has evolved to meet those challenges. Do you think there's more it can do? Can we do more to our places to support those agendas in terms of sustainability and our people?

David:
Look, I guess the focus on healthier lives was only strengthened in the last couple of years. And to lead those healthier lives, we need environments that we can make that possible. And so what does that mean? That means clean air, contact with nature, more social interaction, regular exercise, and places that are safe and a sense of calm and tranquility. So I think there's much more focus on walkable cities on non-motorised forms of transport, on car-free spaces, places which are safe for people to gather and of course, greener spaces. We're not going to pretend. I think that the green space that we've introduced at Broadgate and one of the places that we've done, we've introduced a new one and a half acre park at Broadgate, increased the green space four times.

David:
I'm not sure that's necessarily going to have a huge impact in itself in terms of sustainability. But it's just the reduction in stress and increased wellbeing that comes from these green spaces and from adding nature. That's going to be really important and a fundamental part of placemaking. And this point about ESG, I think the S of ESG is really important in terms of placemaking, in terms of social benefits. At British Land, we have what we call a place based approach. And that is integral to our placemaking and our social sustainability strategy, because it's really about thinking about how all of the stakeholders can link together, collaborate to make the place and the space the most successful, inclusive, and impactful that it can be.

Richard Vernon:
You mentioned the last couple of years, and obviously that the concentration on health and wellbeing for obvious reasons over the last couple of years. One impact, I think, from the last two years of a enforced working from home is that it's almost accelerated what I think was going to happen, but we've had a proof of concept for two years because it has happened because we've had no choice. And of course, that has changed attitudes potentially forever about... We've talked about the expression work life balance for many, many years, but all of a sudden, it sort of dumped on us from a high without expectations as to what it means. So I think the attitudes about being in the office full-time or part-time working and all of those things have come to the fore. But what do you predict is going to be the main challenges for delivering those places in the future? What do you think because of what's changed, what happens next? What do we need to think about moving forward? How has it changed the dial in terms of what you're delivering?

David:
There's a couple of questions that I keep and we keep in mind as we think about our placemaking approach and our approach to our portfolio generally. And I think you're absolutely right, Richard. The last two years have seen huge disruption. And some of that disruption's here to stay. And that will impact placemaking. It'll impact communities. And it impacts the built environment.

David:
And I guess a couple of the things which are... You touched on it, fundamentally. What's going to be the response to employers and employees to shifting working patterns? Because some of that's going to impact placemaking. What needs do people have from their environment if and when they do come into the office? And will people actually want to go there? What reasons do they go there for? And how do you improve that experience and enjoyment and their productivity? These are shifting patterns, and I'm not sure anyone's completely worked them out yet. I know British Land as our own organisation, haven't figured that out yet. And I don't know if Ashurst have.

Richard Vernon:
No. No, we haven't. Still a work in progress.

David:
Yeah. I think it is for most people that we talk to, most businesses we talk to, but it is going to change. And that has consequences about how we think about placemaking. And if you truly think about it as being about inclusivity and collaboration and what it means when you come into the centre of a city to collaborate and work together.

Richard Vernon:
I think it's interesting that as a business and as you say there, Ashurst is thinking about reasons, creating reasons for people to come into the office. But that's the bricks and mortar of the building in which those people are working. But again, from what you're saying, it's not just the bricks and mortar building, it's all the spaces in between, and how you can create a reason for people to come into the city, not just because of the building, but everything around it.

David:
Yeah. What we're seeing interestingly enough is that, when people are in, they want to spend time together. And they want to spend time in the evenings together. Want places to go. We're actually seeing... For instance, the bars and restaurants on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays are absolutely ram full of people because they come in together. They spend more money together. And actually, funny enough, there this over the three days, they're trading as well as they maybe did over seven days or six days beforehand. So we're really started to see that come through. But I think, as I was touching on, I think these trends about compelling reasons to go somewhere are something that's been there for retail for a while as well, because we own a lot of retail places.

David:
I think probably, coming back to this point about this link up was sustainability and car-free areas, I think pedestrianisation is a key part of how we maybe do that in London to make places a more enjoyable place and a more compelling reason to go places. And then I just think there's a final bit that sort of overlays both of those bits, which is just, as a population, we're an ageing population. And there's a need for more inclusivity. We've seen that over the last few years as well in alongside the pandemic, there's been a lot of feeling about are places truly inclusive? We're getting older as a population. People are living longer and they're working longer. And what does that mean for placemaking? How do we create age friendly cities and communities and dial up that concept of belonging even further? Age is just one lens that we look through things like that. But it's the philosophy of feeling that communities around our places don't feel excluded or places aren't for them. And that's fundamental if Placemaking's going to be successful. Inclusivity is really important.

Richard Vernon:
Yes, it's fascinating, isn't it? Just over the last few minutes, this conversation, it just shows isn't it, that how that shift is. You can start talking about design and buildings, but it's about the people and throughout the theme that runs throughout all of this discussion about placemaking is people. And I guess, if I could come back to again, another expression that's thrown around. This is socioeconomic benefit badge that, again, people talk about, they deliver something and then here is the socioeconomic benefit. Again, it's a slight mystery to me as again, measuring. It's another one of those outputs that possibly you feel you've achieved. But from British Land's perspective, again, it'd be really interesting again just to look at a scheme and say how have you delivered socioeconomic benefits? And more importantly, how have you delivered that?, Because I know again, British Lands, creating deep connections and occupies and communities, and we've seen that as a tenant in Broadgate, but what have you seen delivered in practise that really exemplifies that, that benefits to the environment of the people around you?

David:
One thing is we've got a huge body of evidence, I guess, because British Land has invested in a number of its places for a long period of time. We've got a campus up by Regents Park, near Houston Station. We've owned that for 40 years. So over that time, we've built really incredibly strong connections with the communities in which Regents Place sits. And the same with Broadgate, and more recently, what we're doing here at Canada water as well. These places are not islands. They're part of an ecosystem and they're part of an urban neighbourhood.

David:
And as I alluded to earlier, it's what's a really important... You mentioned it. It's not just the built environment. It's not just constructing a building or the designing of a place. It is about how you overlay the community and the people element to it. A couple of examples, we set up a Regents Place community fund a number of years ago in connection... well, in conjunction with our tenants, with our customers. We come together with them. Where with the local community, we've issued 200,000 pounds awarded in grants over the last couple of years. We've now replicated that at Broadgate and Paddington. It creates a really strong connection between the employees, the people who work at these places and the communities around their offices. At Broadgate, we've raised 150,000 pounds this year through that.

David:
And, we're now working with customers to award grants to local initiatives, and that sense of belonging, that sense of purpose is really important, really, really powerful. So that's one example. But then it's around creating networks. It's create around diversity inclusion network at Paddington, that we have 70% of our customers are members of that network. And it's a way of connecting our customers, our businesses into the communities in which their businesses are located. Because compared to it again, there's inclusivity, this sense of belonging, this sense of... Look places aren't just for people who work there. They're therefore, they're part of the communities in which they're located. And we're really proud of the work that we've done on that. We're really proud of the employment opportunities that we've created. We've done a huge amount of Broadgate over the years with Broadgate connect and with East London business alliance in terms of creating jobs and apprenticeships for people in the local community in the places in as part of our placemaking. Because I genuinely think this is part of placemaking as well.

Richard Vernon:
Well, thank you so much, David, for taking time out to talk to me today. Some fantastic insights into what can be achieved and how development is not just about bricks and motor, but about people and the direct positive social impact development can have. So thanks very much for your time.

David:
No, thank you, Richard. Really enjoyed it.

Richard Vernon:
Thank you for listening. If you have any questions or comments on this topic, please do get in touch with us. You can subscribe now on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or your usual podcast platform to make sure you don't miss future episodes. And while you're there, please feel free to keep this conversation going and leave us a rating or a review. Thanks again for listening and goodbye for now.

Speaker 3:
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