City planning boss looks to ‘shift the balance’ in the Square Mile

The chair of the City of London Corporation’s planning committee appreciates the “welcome words” of the new Labour government when it comes to planning, infrastructure and the built environment. But he urges ministers to look beyond just the country’s housing crisis if it is to unlock the value that can be created by the real estate industry. Shravan Joshi has chaired the City corporation’s transport and planning committee since early 2022, during which time he has overseen approvals for new towers and office blocks in the Square Mile as well as more unorthodox projects such as the recently cleared London Tunnels redevelopment that will create a new events space under the capital.  Schemes such as the tunnels will “shift the balance of what the City provides”, Joshi says. A long-time advocate of the Square Mile’s significance and the importance of curating its built environment carefully, he is now ready to liaise with a new government on the corporation’s vision as the City Plan 2040 works its way through the system.  In an interview with EG at the corporation’s Guildhall headquarters, Joshi says early signs from ministers, including chancellor Rachel Reeves, suggest the government is set on cutting through the noise that can too often drown out discussions about the economic benefits of planning and projects. “It was really clear when Rachel Reeves spoke, she spoke about planning and infrastructure primarily, more than anything else, and that really heartened us here in the Square Mile,” Joshi says. CRE and economic growth “If Treasury has got an angle on how planning and infrastructure can help boost the economy, those are welcome words for us. It’s something we’ve been saying for a long time – but understanding that correlation between the two seems to get lost quite often in the noise of specific applications, or specific issues or concerns in policy. If you really want to drive economic growth, there’s a linear relationship between that and commercial real estate.” But Joshi would like to see prime minister Sir Keir Starmer, Reeves and the cabinet go further. And he wants to build on the relationship the corporation has been developing with the Labour Party to help get that message across. “The message that we are passing back to [Reeves] and the relevant ministries involved is that while the focus is on housing – and we get that – don’t dismiss the other aspects of real estate, which you need if you’re going to make housing successful,” he adds. “London works because you have different areas that have distinct characters, distinct values, distinct focuses. The whole thing meshes together and you create a vibrant city. But if you start looking at things too much in isolation, it doesn’t help anyone – and the Square Mile is guilty of the same thing: we focus very much on office first and the residential part of the equation we have to work really hard to balance. “Our message to government is we welcome devolution, we welcome regional understanding of planning, but these systems have to work really well. Solving housing does not solve the economic equation – you have to get the whole ecosystem right.” Joshi is in favour of the government’s redrafting of the National Planning Policy Framework, and says the corporation has already suggested changes around “rebalancing” some of the heritage impacts of real estate development. “The reality of the situation is you can have heritage [assets] sitting cheek by jowl with bright shiny skyscrapers, and you’re not necessarily harming one or the other,” he says. “We need to get that nuance across. These things need to live in natural tension with one another, rather than in these theoretical ringfences you create.” Planning and delivery But he also believes there is a danger of putting too much focus on planning reform. “Planning systems actually work reasonably well,” he says. “The problem seems to be unlocking construction. If you look at the pipeline of planning that goes through for approval, the difficulty seems to come in then following through and completing on those construction projects and delivering keys to people. Understanding where the bottlenecks are in that cycle is something we would encourage the government to look into in more depth, rather than just saying ‘planning is the problem’.” Having been impressed by Starmer’s eagerness to see the country’s metro mayors following the party’s landslide general election win, Joshi is comforted that the government appreciated the importance of cities and their development – the capital and beyond. “That’s really encouraging for us. If you’re going to create sustainable ecosystems for people to live, work and play in, the urban environment is absolutely central,” he says. “People working in the centres of cities in dense urban environments has been the most sustainable way of travelling and working with, compared to any other system you could have, like office complexes in business parks and so on. Having that urban focus is really good to see.”