The Collaborators 2017: number one partnership revealed

The top 50 collaborators in real estate, as decided by the EG team and a panel of judges, showcases those in the industry working hard together with peers, politicians, the public and technology to deliver an improved public realm and property sector.  In partnership with Mishcon de Reya and Mount Anvil 50MIPIM Hosted in Cannes, there is no denying that MIPIM is both a hub for collaboration, and a collaboration in its own right. Over four days (and nights), it brings together minds from across the property industry: agents, investors, developers, lenders and local authorities. A  chance to interact with people from all over the world and conclusively secure deals.   49Invest in Southampton Southampton Council, working with local businesses, the built environment, government and its LEP, is seeking to transform the coastal city and deliver 24,000 new jobs. Four years into the partnership, more than £1.9bn of the total £3bn investment needed in the city has been invested.   48Queen’s Gardens Developer HUB, investor Bridges Fund Management and social enterprise Kaizen spoke to more than 1,500 local residents in Croydon, south London – a collaborative effort they believe was vital in their plans for Queen’s Gardens getting a nod from council planners in just 20 minutes. The development will provide more than 500 homes, 179 of which will be affordable.   47The League of Extraordinary Co-Working Spaces Not yet at the scale of the Office Group or WeWork, this interestingly named co-working business is actually a collaboration of co-working firms that came together in 2011 to create a network of spaces for businesses looking for more flexible leases. Now in 94 locations on five continents, it provides space at the click of a button across the globe.   46UWS EcoCampus Collaboration and its carbon neutrality helped UWS Ecocampus make it into the top 50 this year. Numerous landlords, tenants, and the Brexit vote only strengthened the jv’s ability to work together to deliver a new 250,000 sq ft campus on the Hamilton International Technology Park, Lanarkshire. 45Princes Quay Surprising as it may have been, Hull became the UK’s City of Culture this year, so Seven Dials Fund Management and Hull City Council’s jv to stimulate growth in the Yorkshire city has to be applauded. Together the pair have repositioned Princes Quay shopping centre and the Hull Arena, boosting footfall at Princes Quay by 1m and tourist visits to the city by 10%.   44Urban Vision This jv between Salford City Council, Capita and Galliford Try has been working to create a northern powerhouse since before the Northern Powerhouse was born. Since its inception in 2005, the collaboration has generated in excess of £100m of capital receipts. In the 2016-17 financial year it generated fee income for Salford City Council of £2m – more than double the council’s expected income.   43Acton Gardens South Acton estate in Ealing sprawls across 52 acres and according to council leader Julian Bell has been transformed over the past decade from a place where 80% of people didn’t want to go to a place where 80% of people want to stay. He says the team work between council, community and development partners Countryside Properties and L&Q has been vital in the transformation. Together the jv plans to deliver more than 2,500 homes on the site, half of which will be affordable, between 2011 and 2026.   42Dot Dot Dot Dot Dot Dot is a social enterprise and an entirely different type of property guardian scheme. It seeks to not only provide cheaper housing for people willing to occupy empty buildings, but encourages them to give back through charity volunteering. In 2016, its guardians volunteered for 56,000 hours, the equivalent of 30 working years.   41National Homelessness Property Fund Social impact investment company Resonance has teamed up with charity St Mungo’s to launch the National Homelessness Property Fund. The fund, now operational in Bristol, Oxford and Milton Keynes, invests in residential property that is let to individuals and families who have been homeless or are at risk of homelessness. The homes are managed by St Mungo’s social lettings agency Real Lettings. Local authorities in the three cities have each invested £5m in the fund, with a further £15m from Big Society Capital. With further growth planned, the fund is an example of how collaboration between real estate, the public sector and charitable world can create real change.   40The Active Classroom While President Trump may think that climate change is a fiction, most “normal” people see it as a very real and challenging issue, which is why The Active Classroom deserves a spot on The Collaborators list. The project, led by Swansea University and SPECIFIC Innovation and Knowledge, seeks to bring together expertise to create a new approach to design and construction that allows buildings to generate, store and release their own energy.   39Tibbalds Planning and Urban Design team A team comprising five women who cemented their relationship while taking part in the annual Club Peloton PedElle cycle rides have got together to pitch for one of the biggest sustainable placemaking competitions in the country. The PedElle ride is designed for women across the built environment to build both confidence on the bike and connections with potential business partners. And it has done just that, with Tibbalds Planning and Urban Design pulling together a specialist team for the Cambridge to Oxford growth corridor competition. The women – Tibbalds director Jennifer Ross, Mikhail Riches co-director Annalie Riches, Petra Marko, co-founder of Marko&Placemakers, Sarah Featherstone, co-director Featherstone Young, and Kay Hughes – have shown their collaborative skills in the peloton and will now do the same as they draw up plans to boost the development of housing, public realm and infrastructure within the 210km linear area spanning Cambridge, Milton Keynes, Northampton and Oxford. [caption id="attachment_895526" align="aligncenter" width="847"] © Jon A Super/silverhub/REX/Shutterstock[/caption] 38Gary Neville While Gary Neville’s £200m St Michael’s development in Manchester may not have been to everyone’s fancy there is no denying that the football star turned developer has not sought to engage with the community. He says plans for the mixed-use tower were changed 15 times during consultation and again more recently. The most important thing, says the former Manchester United player, is that the development “does not turn its back on any part of the city”. SEE ALSO: Neville defends St Michael’s   37Changing the Face of Property A collaboration between firms that are usually in competition with each other such as JLL, CBRE, Knight Frank, Savills, Cushman & Wakefield and many more. The aim is to promote property as an exciting career choice for the next generation.   36Pathways to Property summer school The University of Reading, British Land and the Sutton Trust work together to run a free summer school. Aimed at year 12 students from state schools and colleges nationwide, they aim to advertise careers in real estate to the younger generation. Lectures, mentoring and bursaries for further education are all part of the service.   35Network Rail & Ballymore This partnership has enabled the transformation of brownfield land into a new housing hub, while at the same time providing key funds (some £21m) for Network Rail. The partnership has provided 198 new homes, including 45 social units, a new town square and 3,500 sq ft of shops and office space all in a constrained and undervalued site.   34Urban Splash & Place for People Award-winning joint venture Urban Splash and Places for People teamed up back in 2013 with the goal of transforming brownfield sites across the country. So far, some 300 homes have been delivered with a further 1,800 in the pipeline. 33Allied London & UNKLE Allied London and DJ James Lavelle have been working together to see how collaborations such as theirs may be able to fuel a new wave of creative placemaking. Earlier this year the UNKLE frontman used the launch of Allied’s 1.2m sq ft Leeds Dock to create a community bond with the new development. SEE ALSO: When artists collaborate with developers   32Work.Life UK-based co-working group Work.Life has joined forces with telecommunications provider Verizon, and more recently Boultbee, to increase its value collaborative space in London. The group, which offers space starting from £3.50 an hour, currently has four locations in the capital.   31Landsec & Bounce Back Collaboration has to be celebrated when it not only does good and adds value to a situation but also provides real skills needed for the real estate market, which is why Landsec has secured its spot in The Collaborators for its work with Bounce Back. The REIT teamed up with the charity to teach inmates at Brixton Prison scaffolding skills, preparing them for the world of work on their release. SEE ALSO: How property is unlocking prisoner potential 30Andy Burnham In recent years Manchester has stolen a march on other cities: former council chief executive Sir Howard Bernstein and then-chancellor George Osborne struck up a highly productive working relationship. Relations between (Labour) Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham and ministers are less close these days. But Manchester remains a hotbed of collaboration: among its local authorities, between the public and private sector, and most visibly in the city’s response to tragedy. SEE ALSO: Andy Burnham: Why he’s mad about Manchester   29Paddington Partnership The Paddington Partnership is a collaboration between European Land, British Land, Derwent London and Land Securities. The quartet of developers are working together to turn Paddington Basin, one of the forgotten major regeneration projects in London, into a place that connects people from all of their schemes. Together the partnership has opened up the waterways by introducing GoBoat London, the city’s first self-drive boating experience which allows groups of up to eight to hire a boat to relax or on which to hold floating meetings. It has also improved signage in the area and connected office occupiers through a corporate social responsibility programme. SEE ALSO: Connecting people at Paddington’s Merchant Square   28Loughborough Junction Platform Project The Loughborough Junction Platform project, a  collaboration between Meanwhile Space, Network Rail, JP Morgan Chase Foundation, Lambeth Council and the local community, transformed unused railway arches into spaces for budding entrepreneurs. Of the 12 projects that received funding from the partners, 10 became viable businesses. The project is an example of how a collaborative approach, combined with an innovative use of the built environment can properly and positively involve communities in regeneration.   27New West End Company This collection of policymakers, civic supporters, businesses, property developers and management groups worked together to get one of the UK’s first property owner Business Improvement Districts instated. The new BID got an unprecedented 96% approval vote and is working to invest tens of millions of pounds into London’s West End, enabling it to retain its world-class status. 26Westfield & Hammerson Together this pair have the ability to add to the transformation of one of London’s least-loved towns. Historically chastised for being less than desirable, Croydon is slowly transforming itself into a desirable place to live, work and play. If Hammerson and Westfield can bring forward their £1.4bn redevelopment of the Whitgift Centre and its surrounds and finally secure John Lewis then this will be a collaboration worth rewarding. Plans are due to be determined before the end of the year.   25Boxpark Launched in 2010 in Shoreditch, east London, this unique use of shipping containers to create mini-malls for fledging retailers is going from strength to strength with a new expansion plan to take it outside of the capital. Innovative thinking, community building and destination creating. 24Bird Street It is just a tiny sideroad of London’s busiest thoroughfare, but Bird Street is the perfect example of how beneficial things can happened when people collaborate. The initiative was led by New West End Company using funding from Transport for London’s Future Streets Incubator. Bringing together clean air and clean energy-providing companies such as Airlabs and Pavegen and installing some Appear Here pop-ups has helped turn this dingy side passage into one of the world’s smartest streets.   23Legal & General Legal & General secures its own spot in the top 50 Collaborators list due to the sheer volume of collaborative work it is doing across the sector. Its involvement in the English Cities Fund (fifth in this list) aside, the institutional investor has bought a modular housing factory to develop affordable homes at speed for a starved country, showing its willingness to embrace tech to solve the housing issue. More recently, it has launched a social charter, which aims to work with communities and local government to track and value the social impact its developments have on an area. 22Fifth Wall Fifth Wall, a pure proptech VC run by former Blackstone advisers Brendan Wallace and Brad Greiwe, hit the headlines in May, raising $212m (£160m) from a consortium of real estate investors including CBRE, Hines and Prologis. In a collaborative approach to investing, Fifth Wall will focus on tech that is actually useable for its investor base. Greiwe says: “We realised that if we could go out and raise capital from the biggest buyers of real estate technology then we would know what they would be likely to adopt and who they would be likely to partner with. We would therefore be able to rapidly accelerate the growth of our portfolio companies with that visibility and would have the ability to view the entire market from the perspective of what the incumbents want rather than speculate on what is going to be adopted.” Smart. Collaborative. [caption id="attachment_863528" align="aligncenter" width="847"] Rio Ferdinand[/caption] 21Rio Ferdinand, Mark Noble & Bobby Zamora The first of a few footballers to make the list, more for promise than progress. This trio have been working up a sports-led, mixed-use regeneration scheme in Houghton Regis, Bedfordshire, with Aviva Investors and Colliers International. With the prime minister pledging to make social housing a priority, theirs is an innovative model that just might score. SEE ALSO: Legacy project: Home win   20Build to Rent: A best practice guide While a guide itself may not sound like a collaboration, the way that this highly useful publication came about is a reflection of how the industry is working better together. The Urban Land Institute’s best practice guide was the combined work of 50 people from across the built environment who volunteered their time and expertise for the greater good of the industry. Some 2,000 copies of the guide have now been sold, raising money to help the ULI continue its mission of providing leadership in responsible land use and creation of thriving communities worldwide.   19Blockchain One day, if its advocates are correct, Blockchain will sit at the top of a Collaborators list. This immutable, completely accessible ledger is the future of property transactions. Apparently. The software, which allows the transfer of digital assets from peer to peer without using a third party, is open-sourced and entirely untamperable. Nothing says collaborative more than that, right? Now it just has to be used at scale. SEE ALSO: Understanding Blockchain for real estate   18Nigel Hugill & Robin Butler For more than two decades this duo has been instrumental in some of the biggest regeneration projects across London – White City, Greenwich Peninsula and Stratford – and have now, through their Urban & Civic vehicle, started to do the same across the regions. SEE ALSO: Hugill wins outstanding contribution award   17Pocket Living & Homes and Communities Agency Pocket Living, the developer of smaller (and therefore affordable) homes has been working closely with the Homes & Communities Agency to deliver its concept to more people. With funding from the HCA, the mayor of London and Lloyds Banking Group, it now has £150m to build 1,000 homes in the capital. The housebuilder’s latest deals demonstrate the positive role that private and public organisations, collaborating together, can have in addressing the housing shortage.   16Hyde & Mount Anvil Mount Anvil and Hyde Housing partnered to get on the TfL development panel. They are not the only HA/propco partnership on there, but a great example of how the two sides can work together. Hyde uses Mount Anvil to find new schemes around the capital. Mount Anvil uses Hyde for up front finance and to de-risk schemes. Together they provide residential developments with a decent percentage of affordable housing and no fuss.   15Built-ID Start-up Built-ID, a collaborative tool that enables members to instantly identify the project teams behind properties and showcase their work to an international audience of potential clients, investors and jv partners, secured £1.1m in funding from investor giants including Nick Leslau this year. Leslau said: “Built-ID has the potential to transform how people interact with the built environment. With their extensive and continuing buildings database, they will become the go-to platform for anyone interested in buildings and the people behind them.” SEE ALSO: Leslau backs de Savary’s Built-ID   14David Lunts & Jules Pipe David Lunts is head of housing and land at the Greater London Authority and has been through not one but three London mayors. He is a man who really knows London, and it is his latest collaboration with the deputy mayor for planning and regeneration, Jules Pipe, that has given developers in the capital confidence in the incumbent administration. With mayor Sadiq Khan showing little interest in engaging with the real estate sector, having someone in place who knows the city and how the administration works is vital.   13LandAid & YMCA LandAid, the industry’s charity, has been raising money within this generous sector to help those in need for some 30 years. But now, with a focus on trying to end youth homelessness, the charity is working hard with partners to make its work even more visible. Nothing does that more than its collaboration with the YMCA to open LandAid House. With some £1.5m raised from the property industry, LandAid House will supersede the old YMCA hostel and replace it with a state of the art facility, providing 24/7 specialist support to young people who have been homeless. 12WiredScore The US-born but globally expansive firm, led in the UK by William Newton (l) and Tom Redmayne, is on a mission to bring connectivity to the built environment and celebrate those that are doing it well. Collaboration only happens when there is connectivity.   11Argent Related Since the developers behind the transformation of London’s King’s Cross, N1, and Hudson Yards in New York City came together in March 2015, this collaboration has won projects that will see it deliver more than 7,500 new homes across London and transform Tottenham Hale, N15, and Brent Cross, NW2. It is now also the safest bet, as part of a joint venture with Sydney & London, for the coveted redevelopment of Euston Station, NW1.   10WeWork Is this US company the king of collaborative working? The popularity of its workspaces has seen it go from zero to hero, with a capital value ballooning from $355m (£268m) to $20bn in a few short years. Its take on collaboration has boomed in London too, building a 2m sq ft portfolio that is growing every day. And soon the co-working giant is expected to launch its co-living brand, WeLive, in the capital too. SEE ALSO: WeWork in numbers [caption id="attachment_897970" align="aligncenter" width="847"] The Office Group’s Olly Olsen (left) and Charlie Green[/caption] 9The Office Group (and Blackstone) The UK’s disruptive homegrown serviced office provider was already a powerful force in the industry, but Blackstone’s £500m takeover of the business in June has given it a turbo-boost. Not only does TOG epitomise collaboration in the very space that it provides, but the new investment from Blackstone opens up a potential collaboration with the world’s biggest real estate investor to see it featured in many of its global properties. SEE ALSO: Blackstone buys The Office Group   8John Burns & Simon Silver This duo has been called the shrewdest, wisest and most active team in property. In three decades, the pair have taken Derwent London from a £1.5m cash shell to one of the most respected and coolest London developers with a market capitalisation of £3bn, and, in doing so, have transformed fringe areas of the capital into sought-after destinations.   7Moda & Uber Taxi disruptor Uber and PRS developer Moda Living have teamed up to try to reduce road congestion and free up surplus development land. The proposed partnership will see tenants of Moda’s future developments offered an incentive of up to £100 of Uber credits per month if they agree to give their parking space back to the developer. The developer has more than 6,000 homes in its pipeline. The concept will be trialled at Moda’s 466-home Angel Gardens in Manchester, which is currently under construction and scheduled for completion in 2018. SEE ALSO: Moda hails Uber deal as congestion killer   6Greater London Authority & Housing Associations The GLA’s move to push more funding and responsibility towards housing associations has been mayor Sadiq Khan’s preferred route of upping housing supply. Khan has secured more than £3bn in funding from central government and signed up a number of the largest players in strategic partnerships that will give them more access to land – all of which is going to not only boost housing, but also affordable supply. [caption id="attachment_895524" align="aligncenter" width="847"] © Geoff Pugh/REX/Shutterstock[/caption] 5Andy Street Regional champion first, party politician second seems to be the defining quality looked for in a metro mayor. Throw experience of running a highly successful business into the mix, and you have Andy Street – a modern, model civic leader. Street has to bring together a string of local authorities across the West Midlands who have not always seen eye to eye. And he has to convince government to back his vision. Six months into his three-year term, the hard yards are ahead of him. But he has been able to present a united front and is finding a sympathetic ear in Westminster and Whitehall. The former John Lewis boss enjoyed 15 official appointments with members of government – including two with the PM – in his first three months of office, far more than his peers.   4English Cities Fund An innovative collaboration between central government, an institution, a developer and local authorities. English Cities Fund is a jv between Muse Developments, the Homes & Communities Agency, and Legal & General. Established in 2001 to identify and break through barriers to institutional investment, EcF is delivering on its promise. So far it has brought forward five projects in Liverpool, Salford, Wakefield, Canning Town and Plymouth, delivering 900,000 sq ft of commercial space, 1,400 new homes and 143 hotel rooms. This year the jv partners agreed to double the size of the fund from £100m to £200m and extend its life to 2026 to take on more projects. 3 Southwark Council & Lendlease It is safe to say that Southwark council and Lendlease’s redevelopment of the Heygate Estate and a large chunk of Elephant & Castle, SE1, has been a learning process. Since the selection of Lendlease in 2007, it has arguably become one of the most high-profile estate regeneration projects in the country, synonymous with the issues and attempted reforms in the sector. A sink estate on the edge of Zone 1, both the estate and Elephant & Castle itself were ripe for redevelopment. After signing the development agreement in 2010, the pair received planning for more than 3,000 homes and 50 shops and restaurants, demolished the estate and had input into a major reorientation of the area’s road network. But against this, residents of the former estate formed the 35% Campaign, which attracted high-profile political and media support. The campaign was centred around the 1,212 affordable homes on the estate being replaced with just 596, and the number of social rented homes, according to the 35% Campaign, dropping below 100. Lack of clarity around the scheme’s viability assessment led to a massive FOI battle by resident Adrian Glasspool. And after three years of appeals and tribunals, the viability assessment was revealed in 2015 – albeit still heavily redacted – and was criticised for its logic behind affordable housing provision. According to the 35% Campaign, the case triggered decisions to disclose viability information for large schemes, including Earls Court and Greenwich Peninsula. Estate regeneration and viability assessment rules have also since changed. Without dialogue and collaboration between Lendlease and Southwark Council, all of this could have led to the £2.3bn partnership being canned, and 28 acres of Elephant & Castle still being argued over. Rob Heasman, development director at Lendlease, said: “Any large urban regeneration project is difficult to get off the ground and start. Since 2010, when Lendlease and Southwark sealed the deal, we have had nothing but clarity of communication with Southwark, being very clear what it did and did not want. “No ambiguity has helped this project get off the ground. Issues are dealt with very openly on the table, something we may like or not like is dealt with very clearly.” Four years after construction began, 1,000 homes are now built and occupied, while 600 more are under construction. To get construction off the ground, especially as the inner London residential market headed south, can be seen as major achievement, and a testament to the co-operation between the two partners. While the number of affordable homes is less than before, those provided are tenure-blind, meaning they are fully integrated into the development. The other major win can be seen through the successful repositioning of Elephant & Castle and its deeply unpopular gyratory system. While construction has been ongoing, meanwhile uses have included the Artworks Elephant and Southwark Construction Skills Centre. Without collaboration between Southwark and Lendlease, the scheme could well be still on the drawing board.   2 Creating the £1bn London Cancer Hub How do you bring a local authority, two health bodies and a research centre together to enable a £1bn development plan? With great difficulty, most property professionals would agree. However, that is what has been achieved in Sutton, south London, where the council has brought together the Epsom & St Helier University Hospital Trust with the renowned Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust to bring forward the London Cancer Hub – a 3m sq ft life sciences district that will specialise in cancer treatment. The project was initiated by Sutton Council, which was looking for ways to generate more economic growth in the borough and realised it already had two of the leading bodies in cancer research in the town. The chief executive and council leader went to visit the ICR to discuss its expansion needs and find out how the borough could more actively support and facilitate its growth and development. “It turned out it was at the point where it was about to bring forward, or was considering bringing forward, its last available space on site and the site was massively in need of a rethink,” says Amanda Cherrington, head of economic renewal and regeneration at Sutton Council. “We also talked to the Royal Marsden hospital which had several site constraints and, fortuitously at the same time, there was an old hospital site – an NHS site – buffering the other two institutions, and on discussions with the chief executive of the NHS trust it emerged it was interested in completely vacating the site.” Sutton convened some round table discussions about all of the partners’ aims and what it would take to align everyone’s interests within a cancer hub. Fast-forward three years to September 2016 and a development framework was published with a detailed spatial strategy for the project, which now forms part of the borough’s local plan. Detailed planning consent has already been achieved for the first phase, which includes the ICR’s centre for cancer drug discovery building, the Royal Marsden’s Maggie’s centre and a new secondary school, due to open in 2019. JLL has been instructed to advise on the commercial site delivery strategy and financial partnership structures needed to secure investor and developer partners for the project, with a formal procurement process due to be launched early next year. Part of the plan includes 1m sq ft of commercial space, which Cherrington believes will create tangible economic benefits for the borough from the commercial tenants it attracts. “We have done some heavy-detail submarket testing and the big pharmas are all interested, which is quite a commitment, although we don’t have an anchor tenant as yet,” she says. Jamie Ounan, director at Inner Circle Consulting, which advised on the development framework, says: “Each partner understandably operates in different sectors, with individual governance structures, often opposing views on risk adoption and even a variety of terminology driven from with their own individual sector. Realising the potential of the site requires coordinated action between partners, landowners, funders and policymakers, including arrangements over land ownership, major investment in new infrastructure and the attraction of high-quality commercial partners.” Once completed, it is estimated the hub will contribute £1.2bn a year to the UK economy and generate more than £5m per year in business rates. It will create 7,000 on-site jobs in research, healthcare, administration and leisure, as well as supporting the development of future skills through a new secondary school specialising in life sciences. “The challenges of such a big and bold vision are usually around aligning the partners around what needs to happen,” says Dr Charmaine Griffiths, chief operating officer at the ICR. “In this case, the support we have had from London Borough of Sutton in articulating the vision, making sure we are aligned in what we want to achieve and practically, in acquiring the land for the partnership, has been fantastic.” 1 U+I  and Lewisham Council U+I’s Deptford Market Yard was a development fraught with challenges: navigate a recession; keep residents and the local authority happy; boost disposable income; and somehow convince London that offering no affordable housing was not in fact a bad thing. The company, which last year completed the £50m project in a public-private partnership with Lewisham Council, says it used the art of collaboration to overcome such hurdles. The overarching aim of the project was to build alliances between residents, traders, the developer and the local authority landowner. For the developer, this meant listening intently to the council’s desires, and treating locals as collaborators rather than a potential threat. The council had asked the partners to deliver a scheme that would increase footfall and spending on Deptford High Street, SE8. This was more of a priority than affordability. Step forward Cathedral (now U+I), which entered into an “open book” partnership with the council to help Lewisham deliver on these goals. The council wanted the developer to put top architecture and fresh public realm at the heart of the scheme, while creating 100 permanent jobs and generating a “socioeconomic benefit” of more than £8m. For the council, retaining the land would mean a profit share on top of the inevitable increase in business rates and council tax. “We built trust in to it from early on,” says Richard Upton, deputy chief executive of U+I. “You have to think of it as though you have been their neighbours for 10 years – we don’t live at our schemes for 10 years, although we probably should.” The developer’s “become local” ethos meant that when recession struck in 2008, the company did not just put up hoardings and allow the site to languish; it opened a pop-up café, brought an old train carriage onto the site, and organised events such as film screenings. Was this clever marketing, or a genuine act of goodwill? The answer is probably both. But when the scheme went through Lewisham’s planning department in 2012, it received only one letter of complaint. “[The local business owners and residents] work hard to eke out a living. We got to know them and understood and respected their sensitivities,” says Upton. To support the growth story, the developer built more than 120 private residential units, designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners. When those units were then forward sold to Hong Kong investor LJ Partners, there was a significant public backlash among Londoners, with the press accusing the firm of gentrifying the area and trampling on the entrepreneurial spirit that had long belonged to the site. In this context, communication and collaboration were even more vital. Upton says he went to see the complainants personally and was even boldly photographed in front of a sign saying “developers are parasites” to show the company was willing to tackle the negative PR head on. Collaborating with the council wasn’t always easy, either. Upton says one planner who came in halfway through the project wanted “to make everything difficult for everyone else”. “There are some people who don’t want to collaborate,” he says. Yet U+I’s award-winning technique is to convince public bodies that relations between stakeholders and developers do not have to be combative by default. With projects such as its Deptford Market Yard, it wants to show the rest of the world – especially future partners – that true collaboration can align people’s interests after all. SEE ALSO: EG Awards 2017 – Roll of honour